Wine Cocktails - Sommelier Journal

LAURA TAXEL
Wine Cocktails
Sommeliers and mixologists
are finding common ground
in a glass
Sommelier Journal 55

Per Se’s dining room (above) and head mixologist Brian Van Flandern (below).
Y
ou’re not likely to get a request for a
Corton-Charlemagne on the rocks with
a splash of soda and a twist. Nor will a
customer be ordering a bourbon and Barolo
any time soon. But wines and wine syrups are
beginning to show up in beautifully balanced,
thoughtfully conceived mixed drinks at stylish
restaurants and bars around the country.
“There’s nothing new about adding wine to
cocktails,” says Brian Van Flandern, who was
head mixologist for Per Se, Thomas Keller’s acclaimed
New York outpost, and now founder
of Creative Cocktail Consultants. Although
sangria comes immediately to mind, many oldschool
punches were originally made with fortified
wines like Madeira or Port, Van Flandern
explains, and vermouth has long been a cocktail
fundamental. But modern-day bar chefs, on
a quest for uncommon ingredients and unique
creations, are beginning to use the full spectrum
of reds and whites.
The art is in just how they are used—compatibility
is part logic, part inspiration. “Every
wine, bone dry or sweet, has something to offer,”
Van Flandern says. “Paul Roberts, Keller’s
wine director, always talks about ‘the risk of
epiphany.’ It doesn’t mean throwing things
at the wall to see what sticks. It’s about working
with the principles of flavor profiling to
find something original.” For example, Van
Flandern reinvented the mojito for Per Se. It’s
made with light and spiced aged rums, fresh
lime juice, simple syrup, muddled mint—and
a splash of Pinot Noir. “The wine gives it great
color, more grip, and a pleasantly tannic finish,”
he believes.
Photos by Colin Carroll (previous page), Deborah Jones (above)
56
October 2008

wine cocktails
The Tippling Brothers: Paul Tanguay and Tad Carducci (left); Red White and Night cocktail made with Night Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon (right).
Photo courtesy of The Tippling Brothers (left); photo by Rob Brodman (right)
Cocktails Without Spirits
One advantage wine cocktails have over their
more spirited counterparts is that their lower alcohol
content makes them more food-friendly.
“Distilled spirits,” Van Flandern explains, “contain
more ethanol than wine. And ethanol overloads
the palate, interfering with the ability to
taste what we eat. Adding wine reduces the net
volume of alcohol.”
Tad Carducci, half of the beverage consulting
duo known as The Tippling Brothers, has
also been playing with the mojito. He calls his
version Sangareeto—a takeoff on sangaree, a
Caribbean wine punch. Carducci mixes white
Agricole Blanc rum from the West Indies; orange
curaçao; sugar and spices; lemon, lime, and
orange juices; and muddled mint. He shakes the
mixture over ice, strains it into an Old-Fashioned
glass, and floats wine on top. “I prefer something
with teeth, nice fruit, and refreshing acidity,
like a Barbera,” Carducci says. “Then I dust
with freshly grated nutmeg and garnish with a
fruit slice and a mint leaf. It makes a striking
presentation.”
Although he earns his living these days as
a mixologist, Carducci thinks like a sommelier.
That should come as no surprise: he has earned
the Certified Sommelier diploma from the
Court of Master Sommeliers and an advanced
certificate with merit from the Wine & Spirit Education
Trust, and he was assistant cellarmaster
at Windows on the World in New York. “All the
things that make a great wine—fruit, acidity,
mouthfeel, complexity, and structure—are also
important for a great cocktail,” he notes.
Carducci and his business partner, Paul
Tanguay, recently developed a collection of
spirit-free, wine-only cocktails for Mercadito
Cantina, the contemporary, upscale version of
a Mexican taquería in New York’s East Village.
One of these ponches (“punches”) is the Roja
Loca (“Crazy Red”). It begins with a combination
of Argentine Malbec and ruby Port, infused
overnight with grapefruit skins, jalapeños,
peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, strawberries,
and epazote, a pungent, slightly bitter herb indigenous
to Latin America. The next day, the
brew is ready to pour; it’s served over ice in a
pilsner glass rimmed with sugar and ground
white pepper. “This looks like a typical, sweet,
tropical drink,” says Carducci. “Patrons are surprised
by how dry, flavorful, and expressive it
actually is, the way it emphasizes elements of
the wine, and how well it complements what’s
on the menu.”
Mercadito’s servers advise customers to pair
ponches with dishes according to body: the lighter,
white-wine cocktails match well with poultry
and fish, while the fuller, spicier reds pair
well with pork and beef. Carducci notices that
for consumers who don’t know wine, this option
removes some of the anxiety and pretension often
associated with finding the right wine to ac-
Laura Taxel, author of
Cleveland Ethnic Eats
and Editor of Cleveland’s
Feast! magazine, has been
writing about food and
drink for 25 years.
Sommelier Journal 57

company a meal. “And because they’re consuming
less alcohol in each drink,” he says, “they’re
comfortable having three or four of these.”
Mercadito initially developed these cocktails
because it has no liquor license. Two other
New York City restaurants, Little Owl and Market
Table, found themselves in the same situation:
“Necessity was the mother of invention for
us,” says Joey Campanaro, chef and owner of
both. “But even if we suddenly were able to serve
spirits, I’d continue with the wine cocktails.” To
make the popular Le Petit de Bois, the bartender
at Little Owl layers equal amounts of Lillet Blanc,
apple juice, and a seasonal white wine in a tumbler
over ice. “In the summer, we might use a
Grüner Veltliner, in the fall, a Spanish Rueda,”
says Campanaro. “I take advantage of what’s on
our 100-bottle list, put together to complement
our Mediterranean-inspired menu.”
“We’re not opposed to using higher-end
wines in cocktails,” adds Peter Lucania, general
manager at Market Table. “Bigger reds, for example,
would add more character and interest.
But price is an obstacle.” Campanaro agrees that
his cocktails will only be as good as what goes
into them. “I’m a chef,” he explains. “I know
that everything depends on the integrity of
your ingredients.” But he hastens to add that he
wouldn’t use something like a well-structured
Barolo. “Built to age in the bottle, it’s better
drunk on its own,” he says. “When opened, it
mixes with air. That’s the cocktail.”
Cooking up Drinks
Dave Eselgroth, sommelier and second in
command at Dante, an upscale, chef-driven restaurant
in Valley View near Cleveland, certainly
appreciates fine wine, but that doesn’t keep him
from throwing it on the stove. Once every week
or two, he fills a large saucepan with half a case
of the house red, Saladini Pilastri Rosso Piceno.
“This blend of Montepulciano and Sangiovese
is so nice for the price that we’re going to make
it our private-label, house table wine,” says Eselgroth.
“It’s a subappellation just north of Abruzzi,
on the east coast of Italy.” He adds a 14-ounce
jar of pomegranate “molasses,” a sweetenedjuice
reduction, and one cup sugar, and cooks
the mixture down for two to three hours until
it achieves a spoon-coating nappe consistency.
The result is a multipurpose syrup that adds a
grace note to margaritas and is the basis for an
innovative rum cocktail he calls Dragon Heart.
“The syrup has all the boldness, dryness,
and intensity of the wine, the floral aromatics,
the full, round, jammy flavor, but not the tannic
edge,” says Eselgroth. “It gives drinks real
body. The Dragon Heart gets your whole mouth
going.” There’s nothing quite like this syrup on
the market, Eselgroth adds, and it’s more costeffective
than anything he could buy. Besides,
his boss, chef Dante Boccuzzi, runs an operation
where almost everything is made in-house
and from scratch.
It’s not unusual to find H. Joseph Ehrmann
in the kitchen, either. Proprietor and barmanin-chief
at Elixir, one of San Francisco’s oldest
watering holes, he prepares a Shiraz-and-brownsugar
syrup that shows up in a Manhattan and
in cocktails featuring barrel-aged spirits such
as rum and tequila añejo. “It’s also phenomenal
over ice cream,” he adds. But its finest expression
may be in a drink Ehrmann calls the
Little Owl chef-owner Joey
Campanaro (far left);
Little Owl bar (left); Star
Gazer cocktail made with
Night Harvest Chardonnay
(above).
Dragon Heart
1¼ ounce Ten Cane rum
½ lemon
6-7 mint leaves
1 teaspoon
superfine sugar
3 healthy dashes chili oil
¾ ounce housemade
pomegranate-red-wine
syrup
Make a lime foam by
combining the juice
of fresh limes (filtered
through a chinois to
remove pulp and seeds),
an equal amount of
simple syrup, and one
gelatin sheet for every
cup of liquid.
Quarter the lemon and
muddle with mint and
sugar. Add rum, chili oil,
syrup, and ice. Shake
until ice forms on the
outside of the container.
Spray a martini glass
with a light coating of
yuzu, which provides an
intriguing, pungent lime
aroma. Add the lime
foam, and pour in the
rum mixture.
—Courtesy of Dave
Eselgroth, Dante
Photos courtesy of Little Owl (left, middle); photo by Rob Brodman (right)
58
October 2008

wine cocktails
cantina mercadito ponches
Photos by Jenn Farrington (top left), Colin Carroll (top right), Rob Brodman (bottom middle), Matthew Meier (bottom right)
Elixir’s bar and proprietor H. Joseph Ehrmann (top); Ehrmann’s Shirazerac, Vintner’s
Nightcap, and Peppermelon cocktails (bottom left to right).
Shirazerac—his variation on the classic New
Orleans Sazerac. “The syrup replaces the traditional
sugar cube soaked with Peychaud’s Bitters,”
explains Ehrmann, who is a founder and
director of the Cocktail Ambassadors Network.
Shiraz straight from the bottle is the basis
for Ehrmann’s Vintner’s Nightcap, a drink he
designed for R.H. Phillips’s Night Harvest label.
“Cherry liqueur and anise-flavored pastis bring
out those notes in the wine,” he says. “It’s meant
to be served warm in a snifter, perfect for sipping
by the fire after dinner.”
“H,” as Ehrmann prefers to be called, recalls
the genesis of his interest in stirring up the cocktail
scene with wine-based recipes: “I was working
with heavy doses of vermouth in crafting
cocktails, switched to better brands like Vya and
Carpano, and suddenly realized these ‘modifiers’
were actually wines. So I began building on that
idea, using wine as the principal spirit.” He finds
that bourbon and Merlot play well together, crème
de cacao brings out a wine’s chocolate side, and
sweet agave nectar amplifies berry flavors. Sauvignon
Blanc and other crisp, citrusy, herbaceous
whites, he says, work well with fruity, new ultrapremium
gins like Blue Coat—“a slightly sweet,
orange taste up front”—and Right—“lower juniper,
nice pepper component.”
A New Romance
Wine-based cocktails, Ehrmann notes,
bring the public’s fascination with the romance
of vintners and vineyards to the world of distilled
spirits, elevating the concept of the cocktail. He
welcomes the change, noting that hard liquor
has had a tarnished reputation in this country
since Prohibition.
Some purists will surely cringe at the prospect
of altering wines. But the experts—and
wine lovers—interviewed for this article have
no such inhibitions. “A skilled mixologist can
capitalize on the things that make a wine good,”
says Carducci, “so that they are not lost or hidden
in a cocktail, but add a complexity that enhances
it. Figuring out how to do this is my new
passion.” That passion is now being shared by
diners across the country.
Marilyn Manzana $9
White wine, vermouth, tamarind, apple soda
Arose con Blonde $8
Lillet Blanc, horchata, lime, oregano syrup
Roja Loca $7
Red wine, grapefruit, strawberry, epazote, jalapeño
Naco Elegante $9
Muscat, sherry, guanabana, cilantro, lime
Shirazerac
Make a Shiraz brownsugar
syrup from a
mixture of 1 cup sugar
to 1 cup wine. Bring to
a boil three times, then
simmer until reduced
by half to a thick,
viscous consistency.
Prepare a chilled
glass with a rinse of
Herbsaint liqueur or
absinthe. In another
pint glass, combine:
2 bar spoons Shiraz
brown-sugar syrup
2 ounces Sazerac rye
Add ice and stir. Discard
the contents of the
chilled glass. Strain the
syrup-and-rye mixture
into it and serve.
—Courtesy of H. Joseph
Ehrmann, Elixir
Sommelier Journal 59