January 2012 Archives

UPDATE: Congratulations to Paul Greggut, author of Washington Wines & Wineries, named to list of 100 most influential people in the American wine industry.

If you stop to think about it, why shouldn't western Washington be grape-growing country? There's plenty of daylight during the growing season, and Puget Sound's rainfall is not, in most years, any greater than Burgundy's. The climate is relatively cool, but so's the weather in Oregon, in New Zealand, in Champagne, and you don't hear complaints about their winemaking.

There are dozens of wineries west of the Cascades, though most of them import their grapes from vineyards in the hot, sunny, lush (and irrigated) Columbia Valley. Only a handful, fewer than 20 wineries, a dozen or so independent vineyards, grow grapes in the Puget Sound AVA, which extends from the Canadian border to Olympia, from the western valleys of the Cascades to Westport and the San Juan Islands. Altogether, the AVA encompasses fewer than 100 acres of actual vines, according to Dr. Michelle Moyer, who runs the Washington State University viticulture program, but they are very closely watched because they hold the promise of a new, different style of Washington wine, grown "naturally," without irrigation.

The first wine grapes in what would be designated, in 1995, as the Puget Sound AVA were planted in 1977 at Gerard Bentryn's Bainbridge Island Vineyards and Winery, just up the road from the ferry terminal. The rootstock was imported from Canada: Madeleine Angevine (crisp and aromatic), Madeleine Sylvaner (light-bodied but vigorous) and Mueller-Thurgau (delicate fruit flavors), all of them aromatic, early-ripening varieties familiar to growers in Germany's northerly latitudes. Siegerrebe (a Riesling-Gewurztraminer cross) would follow, as would Pinot Noir (the classic cool-climate red grape). For years, the Bentryns most popular wine was Ferryboat White, an off-dry blend of these unfamiliar varieties.

With the Bentryns now retired, Brent Charnley of Lopez Island Winery has taken on the role of AVA guru, enthusiastically backing not just the cool-climate varieties but some newer "big red" cultivars like Golubuk, Regent, Dornfelder and Dunkelfelder. The scientific advances in viticulture permit precise identification and selection of clones adapted to specific growing conditions, such as a Sauvignon Blanc clone that ripens even in the coolest vintages. From her vantage-point at the WSU research station in Mt. Vernon, Prof. Carol Ann Miles even talks of a sparkling wine blended from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

It may wishful thinking, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that the experts are right, that the "experimental" plantings will mature and be taken seriously. The Puget Sound AVA will teach us new things about wine. A drop here, a drop there, and you have a wine river.

Note: My series on Washington AVAs appears regularly in Edible Seattle.

Didn't write these myself, you understand.

How do they serve alcoholic drinks on Italian cruise ships? - On the rocks

What vegetables do you get with dinner on Italian cruise ships? - Leeks

What's the fastest way to get off an Italian cruise ship? - Follow the captain

The Costa Concordia is probably the most expensive thing to go down in Italy since Berlusconi's last hooker.

What's the difference between the Italian economy and the stricken cruise liner Costa Concordia? - Nothing. The bottom dropped out of both.

The wreck of the Costa Concordia is a story straight out of Conrad, starting with "Heart of Darkness" (the darkness of the Congo, the cruelty of colonial oppression, the blackness of men's souls). You've seen this movie transposed to Vietnam: Apocalypse Now.

But there's an even closer parallel: "Lord Jim," the story of one man's cowardice under pressure. When his ship is in danger of breaking up on the high seas, the first mate, Jim, leaps into a lifeboat, leaving hundreds of passengers to fend for themselves.

Peter O'Toole played Jim in the 1965 film version, written and directed by Richard Brooks:

"I've been a so-called coward and a so-called hero and there's not the thickness of a sheet of paper between them. Maybe cowards and heroes are just ordinary men who, for a split second, do something out of the ordinary. That's all."

Jim eventually lives down his past; it's a novel of redemption. On the other hand, at the end of "Heart of Darkness," Kurtz can only murmur, "The horror! the horror!" Is he referring to the Russian passengers aboard the Costa Concordia who bought their way onto lifeboats with wads of cash? Or to Captain Francesco Schettino, piloting his own lifeboat through the waters off Giglio, bashing the heads of refugees swimming for their lives?

The story's not going away soon. Costa Cruises, for its part, is offering a 30 percent discount to Concordia passengers on any future cruise. But that's peanuts compared to the 70 percent discounts that other cruise lines are offering on their departures this winter.

Bacon is a $2 billion industry in America. Jimmy Dean lives in half of all home refrigerators; rashers of Swift are consumed in astounding quantities, and never more than in these tough times. Bacon consumption is up, over the past ten years, by a pound per person (to 17.9 pounds for every man, woman and child in the country). And how are restaurants responding? Duh, pass the bacon! Bacon on burgers, steaks, pancakes, in sandwiches, even woven into a tapestry upon which more bacon-laden foods can be served.

What you're looking at, on the left, is a tasty, $10 dish called Tempura Fried Kurabota Bacon, served, with a maple sambal ponzu sauce, in the bar at John Howie Steak in Bellevue. It's been two years since I ate it, and I still remember how good it tasted.

But I've also had some truly horrifying bacon experiences. Bakon Vodka, for example. Baconnaise, for another, created by Seattle entrepreneurs Dave Lefkow and Justin Esch. They started with Bacon Salt (now in nine flavors), then moved on to Baconnaise (regular and lite). I found it more medicinal than bacon-y, with a bitter, chemical aftertaste. The list of ingredients is downright frightening, including corn syrup, MSG, hydrolized vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast extract, palm oil, flour, and "smoke flavor." No doubt similar to the flavoring ingredients used in "real" bacon, but that doesn't make it any healthier or tastier, even if it is, technically, kosher.

The latest to climb aboard the bacon bandwagon is none other than Burger King, with $2.5 billion in annual revenues and whose menu includes a stunning number of bacon-ated sandwiches and wraps, everything from single-stackers to Double Croissan'wiches to 1,140-calorie Triple Whoppers. Afgter a year of testing and staff training (more on that here), BK now prepares all its bacon in-house: brined, smoked and cooked daily in every one of the chain's 7,200 or so restaurants. BK, by the way, is the fifth-largest restaurant chain in the US (after Subway, McDonald's, Starbucks and Pizza Hut).

"People are crazy about bacon," BK's executive chef told us by phone this week. That would be 52-year-old John Koch, who has spent his career in working for corporate restaurants and their vital supply chains (most recently for a meat distributor). You'll recall that pasty-faced "King" character who was the TV face of the company for a couple of years? G-gone, fired, along with the "cutting edge" ad agency that created him. The new agency, McGarry Bowen, is putting the focus on products and ingredients, hence the push to publicize the company's newfound emphasis on bacon.

And don't forget that Burger King is testing home delivery as well. The company has developed a "proprietary thermal packaging technology," says Jonathan Fitzpatrick, BK's chief brand & operations officer, which, he says, "ensures the Whopper is delivered hot and fresh, and the french fries are delivered hot and crispy." (Pizza companies are watching closely; delivery is 70 percent of Domino's business.) If BK's experiment works, it could revolutionize the fast-casual sector. After all, if cardboard covered with glop can make it as a staple item in America's takeout inventory, bacon can't be far behind.

The BK folks taped Chef Koch during our phone call. You can watch the video below.

The enormous and unwieldy Costa Concordia, three times the size of the Titanic, twice the size of a Jumbo Ferry, lies beached on the rocky coast of Giglio. If you brought the two-block-long ship to downtown Seattle and stood it on end (perish the thought), it would be as tall as the Columbia Tower, with roughly the same population (4,200) and roughly the same square footage.

And yet, the Concordia isn't even in the top dozen cruise ships. The biggest, named Oasis of the Seas and owned by Royal Carribean, is twice as large.

The Costa Concordia was built six years ago by one of the giants of Italy's economy, Fincantieri, a ship-building company headquartered in Trieste with manufacturing yards on both the Adriatic and Ligurian coasts. Italy's Environment Minister called for banning cruise ships from sailng close the Italian coastline, at least until it was pointed out that Fincantieri is the second-largest builder of cruise ships in Europe and the largest in the Mediterranea, providing 10,000 jobs at its shipyards in Monfalcone and Genoa. A ship like the Concordia costs at least $500 million.

Costa Cruises is part of Carnival Corp., which also owns Carnival Cruises and another ten lines (among them:Cunard, Holland America, Princess, and Seaborn) and controls half the $30 billion cruise market.

At year-end 2010, the cruise industry carried 14.8 million guests worldwide, according to CLIA's Year-End Passengers' Carrying Report. The vast majority of its customers sailed safely on their vacations, it's often pointed out, while over 30,000 people die every year in automobile crashes in the United States (the number was 50,000 a year forty years ago). In 2010, not a single person died in a commercial airplane crash.

Nonetheless, Carnival Cruise Lines has suspended its broadcast and digital advertising (and direct mail, too) "for the time being," a company spokesperson said. Meantime, they're still finding bodies, and trying to keep the oil slick from spreading.

It's a tale of Two Italies: the showboat and the tugboat, the thoroughbred and the workhorse, the hare and the tortoise. The story is now all-too-familiar: an overconfident captain with his shirt unbuttoned and his eyes on an exotic young dancer, navigating a risky course through rocky shoals. Never mind that the most elementary precautions, like a lifeboat drill, have been postponed. When disaster strikes, as it's bound to do, it's someone else's fault, certainly not the captain's inattention or incompetence.

To the rescue comes Gregorio de Falco, of the local Coast Guard detchment, a gent with a gruff, take-charge demeanor, a cross between a drill sergeant and a brain surgeon. He does not tolerate fools. When he learns that the captain is no longer on the ship, he barks, "Get back on board, you dick!" (A transcript of the conversation goes viral, and the Italian phrase "Vada a bordo, cazzo!" quickly becomes a best-selling t-shirt.)

In Italy this week, Capt. Francesco Schettino is under house arrest, and the Coast Guard officer who commanded the rescue effort is hailed as a hero. Meantime, the disgraced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who played bunga-bunga while Italy's ship of state foundered, is biding his time, expecting a return to political life. The man who succeeded him, Mario Monti, is making slow but steady progress restoring discipline to Italy's chaotic economy. (Monti is often described as a technocrat, leading a government of technocrats who were chosen because they have experience and expertise rather than political connections. Very rare, even in the US, to have professionals rather than party hacks, former rivals or long-time campaign contributors as cabinet ministers and ambassadors.)

But let's get back to the lifeboat drill. Every cruise is supposed to have one, before dark, on the first day out. I was on the Holland America line's Zaandam five years ago for a brief repositioning cruise between San Diego and Vancouver, BC. Although there was an interesting wine & food program on board, I found that cruising's not for me.

And how many times have we tuned out the safety demonstration aboard airplanes? We get it, already! We feel it's an insult to our intelligence at best, or an intrusion on our drinking time at worst. Right? The pilot may not be Sully Sullengerger, but we have every confidence that, should there be an emergency, at least the crew isn't going to trip past us into an evacuation slide.

Part of our series about Washington's viticultural areas.

If the Red Mountain AVA, subject of last week's profile, is the the rodeo rider down in the ring, the Horse Heaven Hills are the bleachers. From the north rim, you see the entire Yakima Valley, with Red Mountain punctuating its eastern end. Across the broad hilltop of the AVA, 50 miles long and 20 miles wide, extends an undulating, dry plateau of loam over fractured basalt formed when the Missoula floods receded, 12,000 years ago. It looks like a mound of crumpled blankets.

Fly over the plateau, or traverse it by car, and you'll see giant "crop circles," 160-acre fields (a quarter section, half a mile on each side) with a giant sprinkler arm positioned in the center, turning slowly to irrigate a field of grass or grain. Not until the legendary Dr. Walter Clore came along in the 1970s did anyone think to plant wine grapes alongside the wheat. Dr. Clore suggested to ranchers Don and Linda Mercer that they ought to put down a vineyard where they were growing carrots, in a little patch that the sprinklers weren't reaching. That was in 1972; today, the property--now known as Champoux Vineyards--grows the fruit for Quilceda Creek's best-in-the-nation Cabernet Sauvignon.

And when Chateau Ste. Michelle went looking for a couple thousand acres in the late 70s, the biggest vineyard expansion up to that point in the Washington's history, the company settled on the southern rim of the Horse Heaven Hills. Paul Champoux, who later purchased the original Mercer Ranch vineyards, was hired to oversee vineyard development; Doug Gore was in charge of wine making. Says Gore: the primary characteristic of Horse Heaven grapes is balance. "The grapes stand on their own, they don't need to be blended with anything else since they already have great flavor intensity and high quality tannins."

In 2005 the Horse Heaven Hills were formally recognized as an AVA covering half a million acres, most of it suitable for vineyards. Already, a quarter of all Washington's grapes are planted here, 28 vineyards, 9 bonded wineries, and nearly 10,000 acres of vines: cabernet sauvignon, cab franc and merlot mostly, but a handful of whites and a miscellany of warm-climate reds.

The most intriguing new project involves the 1,300 acres of bench lands planted over the years by the Den Hoed family and recently purchased by Allen Shoup's Long Shadows development company: south-facing terraces, where rainfall is modest and the heat is mitigated by breezes from the Columbia.

As long as the winds aren't too strong (which would toughen the skins of the grapes), the Horse Heaven Hills are in the running for the state's best red-wine vineyards. After all, Quilceda Creek's streak of six vintages produced four 100-point wines and two 99-pointers, all with grapes from this exceptional AVA.

First, a couple of items from the Cornichon archives.

September 2007, this question: finding new ways to sell wine. Howard Goldberg, who once wrote for the New York Times, thinks the answer is for Bordeaux estates to sell shrink-wrapped, powdered wine, which could be reconstituted (with designer water, to be sure) into vino. Great idea, Howard; we'll get back to you.

Meantime, TetraPak (the juice-box people from Sweden) have been hired by a Cordier (a French wine merchant) to "bottle" a line of boxed Bordeaux called Tandem.

It's all about the most elusive of consumers: "the young people." Cordier's regional marketing director for wine told the Wall Street Journal that France needs to change the image of wine. "We have ignored young people and now we are paying the price."

Says The Independent,"The wine trade needs to encourage young people to come into wine and trade up. So long as it's quality wine, selling it in a carton with a straw is one way to encourage newcomers, who may otherwise just drink alcopops, to try wine instead."

A more predictable reaction from the venerable London merchant Berry Bros & Rudd, whose spokesman huffed, "I don't think it is a hugely good idea. It brings wine to the level of fruit juices and you don't want to bring young people into wine in that way." Certainly not. Good lord, no.

September 2008: To counteract bad breath, Keri Glassman (a registered dietician who's paid to dispense her advice on CBS) recommends drinking green tea, eating yogurt and chewing sugar-free gum. To avoid staining your teeth with red wine or coffee, she suggested sipping them through a straw "to be on the safe side."

Which leads us to this morning's inbox and a breathless press release from Wine Straws. For folks who've just undergone the ordeal of teeth-whitening and want to preserve their new-found virginity. Drink red, smile white. And only three bucks for four, seven bucks for a dozen.

I can tell you what I'm going to do, whether from a box or a bottle: practice unsafe drinking.

Giuseppe Verdi was only 33 when Attila had its premiere (in Venice, in 1846), and he had already written the wildly popular Nabucco, an opera whose "Va, Pensiero" (the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) would become the anthem for a united Italy in 1861. He would write another 19 operas after Attila, almost all of them grander and more mature works, most with similar themes; Verdi's particular gift was music that intertwined the power of politics and the drama of human emotions.

Opera in the 19th century was accessible to virtually everyone serving as an influential means of civic communications, not unlike rock concerts today, and Attila (pronounced, in the Italian idiom, AH-till-uh) celebrates nationalistic resolve against a foreign invader. In the title role, John Relyea struts around the stage in camouflage fatigues and a fur-lined Mongolian greatcoat, his menacing bass notes booming like cannon fire. Fresh from La Scala, baritone Marco Vratogna reprises the part of Ezio, the Roman ambassador who tries to appease the bloodthirsty Huns. Barrel-chested Antonello Palombi has the full-throttled tenor role of Foresto, leader of the rebels, and it is the Venezuelan soprano Ana Lucrecia Garcia who outshines them all, vocally and dramatically, as the daughter of a slain rebel who avenges her father at the final curtain.

Budget cuts may mean there's no longer a complete "second cast," and only one Sunday matinee of Attila, yet, even if the production looks a bit drab, Seattle Opera hasn't skimped on singers or music. The remarkable chorus, directed by the admirable Beth Kirchhoff, is divided here into Huns, slave women and refugees, and Verdi gives them several rousing ensembles. Carlo Montanaro, who conducted Don Quixote in Seattle last season, returns to lead the orchestra with impressive respect for Verdi's score.

Alas, the French stage director, Bernard Uzan, can do no more than shuffle the singers around the imported set, enhanced for the occasion with digital rearscreen projections that successfully disguise urban rubble as a forest glen, but are otherwise irrelevant (a map of Italy, a stencilled eagle, a symbolic A for Attila). Melanie Taylor Burgess's costumes are the most puzzling aspect of this production: the Huns wear standard-issue guerilla denim, but refugees wear what look like royal blue silks and satins, Foresto gets an elegant, full-length leather coat; the Roman ambassador wears a silly, gold-braided, bright-red soldier-suit; a priest (the Pope?) wears dazzling white vestments. Ms. Garcia suffers the indignity of a costume that's a cross between Mao suit and a stewardess uniform.

Ezio's first-act offer to Attila, "Avrai tu l'universo, resti l'Italia a me!" ("You can have the universe, but leave Italy to me!") may sound like treasonous Realpolitik today but resonated as patriotism to Italian audiences of the day. By removing all traces of historical context and dressing Attila in a rag-tag mash-up of contemporary freedom-fighters, Seattle Opera has done itself no artistic favors. In the end, however, it is the magnificent singing that raises this Attlia above the level of guerilla theater.

Seattle Opera presents Attila by Giuseppe Verdi, at McCaw Hall through January 28th. Tickets $25 to $213 online or by calling 800-426-1619

Seattle Opera photos of John Relyea in the title role, top, and Ana Lucrecia Garcia with Antonello Palombi, above © Elise Bakketun

"Sometimes we forget how good simple things can be," Tamara Murphy writes in her wondrous book, "Tender," which also serves as the manifesto for her new restaurant on Capitol Hill, Terra Plata. The book gives away a "secret" (actually a well-known truth) that only a few ingredients are necessary to cook and eat well, that what grows together goes together, and that "pure deliciousness" comes from real food.

With that mantra, Murphy encapsulates a philosophy and a way of life: paying attention, making good choices, handling the earth's bounty gently, one meal at a time.

"Perfect foods--fruits and vegetables--come out of the ground and not out of a box or can," she writes. Earth-to-plate, in other words, with careful and caring intervention in the kitchen.

"Tender" has been out for a year. Publication was scheduled to coincide with the opening of Terra Plata, but things rarely go according to schedule in a new restaurant space. So the book was published while the restaurant languished. Murphy had closed Brasa, in Belltown, a couple of years earlier and was keeping busy with a café in the basement of the original Elliott Bay Bookstore in Pioneer Square. As she worked on her new restaurant project, and fended off cookbook proposals from the likes of TenSpeed Press, Murphy began talking with a trio of women who had started a non-traditional publishing company called ShinShinChez, a company that promised "a collaborative approach to publishing, marketing and community development."

Murphy's restaurants have always supported local farmers, fishers and ranchers. At Brasa, six years ago, she adopted a litter of piglets being raised at Whistling Train farm in Auburn, chronicling their growth on a blog (Life of a Pig), following them to the slaugherhouse and preparing the meat. Two seasons later she founded an annual weekend called Burning Beast that's a cross between "Boy Meets Grill" (macho chefs and hardy foodies) and Burning Man (temporary community, ritual cataclysm).

One of the ShinShinChez founders, designer Nancy Gellos, had been impressed by Murphy's blog and suggested something beyond the usual recipe book and the advance-plus-royalties formula. The four (including communications consultant Jody Ericson Dorow and marketing expert Marlen Boivin) met in 2006 and hit it off at once. They talked for literally years about what "Tender" would be like: no top-down rules, some things written down ahead of time, others recorded and transcribed. In terms of its production values, it would be like Murphy's cooking: the highest quality ingredients, but neither slick nor commercial, with a focus on teaching a philosophy of food, not a cuisine or style.

For example, from a Sicilian cook Murphy learns that the best flavors in fresh herbs are contained in the stem. Her gnocchi are made with ricotta, not potatoes. She waxes poetic about communal foods like paella. Just don't add cheese! The book's photographs, by Angie Norwood Browne, match Murphy's prose: understated yet perfectly focused scenes that go beyond the studio stovetop to farmers' markets and farms. There are pictures of Murphy and her crew in the kitchen, of course, but just as many of Murphy among the sheep and cows. "It's about being connected," Murphy says.

As publishers, ShinShinChez provided editorial guidance as well as production expertise. The four women are all passionate supporters of local farmers markets and write a collaborative website called FarmersCooksEaters. To market "Tender," the team decided to emphasize sales at markets, bulk sales as a tool for school fundraisers, personal appearances, and, of course, at Murphy's open-at-last restaurant.

Which brings us to Terra Plata, a triangular space at the southern apex of the Melrose Market building on Capitol Hill. The kitchen is at the triangle's base; the bar is at the center, and the tables are along the windows overlooking Minor and Melrose Avenues. There's a new Taylor Shellfish retail outlet and restaurant next door, and the Melrose Market complex of shops and restaurants (most notably, Sitka & Spruce) as the building opens out toward Pine Street.

Terra Plata's menu is straightforward, without embellishing prose. A dozen or so snacks and small plates (an unctuous country-style pork pâté, a longitudinally split beef bone filled with marrow); half a dozen each items labeled "earth," "sea" and "and "land." Marinated beets, a winter staple in Seattle restaurants, were dressed with citrus rather than olive oil, providing a bright snap. Guanciale and winter squash enhanced the lamb, a pomegranate reduction and hazelnut butter enhanced the duck breast.

Murphy's signature dish, which she serves for $20 at Terra Plata, is "roast pig." She starts with a pork shoulder, braises it in wine and stock, adds browned chorizo sausage and clams steamed in the braising liquid, then tops the meat with pickled onions and crisp pork skin. It's a rich, satisfying dinner, with unexpected notes of smoked paprika and garlic from the chorizo and the briny ocean taste of clams.

This is not "minimalist," "modernist," or "chef-driven" food. Rather, it is selfless, without ego, almost self-effacing in its refusal to show off fancy techniques or bizarre ingredients. Murphy's resumé includes both a James Beard award and an Iron Chef appearance, but she's too self-aware and introspective for the life of a media hog.

"Our planet needs some crucial nurturing," Murphy writes. We were put on the planet knowing how to take care of ourselves, Murphy believes. "But there's been a big disconnect."

Gellos joins the conversation: "Tender" is part of the road back, she adds.

"Support the people who take care of the planet," Murphy says, and she's not just talking about professional chefs. "When you do, you feel better. And you'll be a better cook."

Tender, by Tamara Murphy, ShinShinChez, 264 pages, $40

Terra Plata, 1501 Melrose Ave., Seattle, 206-325-1501  

Photo: Murphy (seated) with (l to r) Ericson Dorow, Gellos, Boivin

With 60 million visitors a week, Starbucks is the world's most popular business, yet some 50 million people don't ever buy coffee at Starbucks because they think--rightly or wrongly--that it's "over-roasted." And for decades, Starbucks has been blowing them off (just as they refused to make lattes with two percent milk) and watched almost half the nation's coffee drinkers buy less aggressive java from competitors.

Now, finally, the Mermaid's handlers have seen the light. The light roast, that is. Two of them, actually: a South American blend called Veranda and an East African blend named Willow, both of which will be packaged as "Blonde."

Two darker roasts will also get new packaging: Medium (like the Pike Place Roast introduced three years ago), and Bold (like the traditional Italian and French roasts). The Blonde may be lighter in body but retains a lot of "nutty" character, while its older siblings have more chocolate and woody notes.

It took 18 months for Starbucks to perfect the lighter roasting technique and to coordinate the new wardrobe. For the first time, all its coffees will wear one of the three new color-coordinated uniforms, in the Starbucks cafes and in grocery stores. Decaf and VIA instant will wear similar colors. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to learn in Marketing 101, but Starbucks has grown so big that its products were literally all over the map (with country-of-origin labelling, Fair Trade, varietal designations, premium beans, etc. etc.) that a quarter of the supermarket shoppers would get so confused they'd walk away from the coffee aisle without buying anything at all. So, back to basics.

Uncle Howie is trotting out all three sisters for sampling, in every Starbucks across the country this week (Thursday, Friday and Saturday, January 12th, 13th & 14th). The shy Blonde, of course, is the sassy, mellow one, yet so sweet and approachable that she doesn't even need to add cream or sugar to win your heart.

Part Two of our series about Washington's viticultural areas. Photo: Red Mountain sunset from Kiona Vineyards

There's no official ranking of vineyard quality in North America, but if there were, Red Mountain would surely be Washington's Grand Cru. That said, it's neither "red" nor a "mountain" at all. Rather, as Paul Gregutt describes it in his encyclopedic Washington Wines and Wineries, it "rises like a brownish lump of unbaked bread" at the eastern end of the Yakima Valley.

What it has, like all great vineyard sites, is that elusive combination of location, topography, soil and exposure known as terroir. Beneath a layer of wind-blown topsoil lie strata of granite, rock, clay and minerals, sculpted by glacial floods and whipped by strong winds. Vines planted here struggle to produce; the grapes ripen at a smaller size, half what a berry would weigh in Napa, with intense mineral flavors. Cabernet sauvignon from Kiona, one of Red Mountain's oldest vineyards, have won multiple Wine of the Year awards for Quilceda Creek, and Quilceda has responded by planting 17 acres of its own vines on Red Mountain's slopes.

The undisputed "king of the mountain" is the Hedges Family Estate; Tom and Anne-Marie Hedges have even built a modern chateau on their property. Nearby is acreage that Pietro Antinori, the Italian wine superstar, has bought in partnership with Chateau Ste. Michelle known as Col Solare. The AVA's pioneers, Kiona and Klipsun Vineyards, are in evidence, as are Grand Reve, Artz and Grand Ciel., along with half a dozen smaller wineries and grape-growing operations.

The biggest of the newcomers is a 400-acre development managed by Doug Long (of Obelisco Vineyards) and a group of investors. The reason for the increased interest: water rights. The Department of Natural Resources, which controls these state lands, sank several deep-water wells over the last five years, and is making the water available to grape growers on Red Mountain in addition to the orchardists and farmers further up the valley.

On the horizon, an Italian-style village, the Piazza, on the 400 acres managed by Obelisco's partners, that will include space for restaurants, shops and lodging. Designed by Joe Chauncey of Boxwood Architects, the state's foremost wine-country designer, the project is on hold until the economy recovers. Though it hasn't met with universal support, it would be a long-overdue destination resort for the east end of the valley so city folk can make their way to the vineyards of Red Mountain and visit some of Washington's best cabernet sauvingon and merlot vineyards "on the hoof," as long as they don't disturb its fragile agricultural community.

Note: My series on Washington AVAs appears regularly in Edible Seattle.

First of a series about the American Viticultural Areas in Washington State. Above: a Columbia Valley landscape; below, Allen Shoup

It certainly made sense three decades ago, when Chateau Ste. Michelle's Bob Betz was doing his road show to promote the wines of Washington State, and regularly fielded questions (from well-meaning but clueless listeners) along the lines of "On what bank of the Potomac do you grow your grapes?"

The solution, back in 1984, was to establish an American Viticultural Area for virtually all of Washington State's commercial vineyards, only a few thousand acres at the time and all east of the Cascades. An AVA would anoint them, as it were, with an official designation from the federal government, something akin to the French AOC (Appellation d'Origine Controlée) and the Italian DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata). The agency responsible for that certification, at the time known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (part of the Treasury Department, because it collected taxes on wine, today known as the TTF), wasn't equipped to determine quality, only to draw boundaries based on a petition from growers. The result was a gangly, 53-step map (sample: "Then east following the unnamed light-duty road for approximately 250 feet until it reaches the 2000′ contour line") incorporating 11 million acres. A giant blob (the yellow part of the map at the left) that covered nearly a third of the state.

The proposed borders were drawn by Dr. Walter Clore of WSU (the father of the Washington wine industry) and Dr. Wade Wolfe (then in charge of vineyards for the state's largest winery, Chateau Ste. Michelle). Allen Shoup, left, who headed Ste. Michelle at the time, approved the plan and selected the name. With his marketing savvy, Shoup saw the need for a single, over-arching AVA to define the state, a rationale that still exists today. There's little of Burgundy's fussiness here over which side of an ancient Roman path produces grapes that smell like raspberries; that's a pretentious, angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin theological debate.

The AVA follows the meandering river itself, from Grand Coulee on the north, then along the flanks of the Cascades, and back across the high desert, embraces parts of three rivers - the Columbia, Snake and Yakima - as well as the Yakima Valley, Walla Walla Valley, Red Mountain, Wahluke Slope and Horse Heaven Hills AVAs. The one constant, as the AVA crosses these varies topographies, is the soil: volcanic, well-drained sandy loam. It's low in nutrients, which stresses the vines, and contributes to concentrated fruit flavor in the grapes (overwhelmingly riesling, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and chardonnay), almost all grown with manmade irrigation.

"Any AVA this large may be characterized by the fact that it encompasses significant differences in rainfall, soils and climate,"explains Cole Danehower, author of Essential Wines and Wineries of the Pacific Northwest. "The most relevant thing is that the huge Columbia Valley AVA is defined as a warm-climate growing region." A high desert region, in other words, which is an important distinction, when entire countries (like New Zealand) define themselves as cool-climate regions.

If anyone were ever nuts enough to grow grapes in the scarified, unirrigated badlands between Moses Lake and Ritzville, that's not part of the AVA. The lush wheat fields of the Palouse aren't covered; neither is Spokane. Eleven million acres, potentially, but in fact, Washington's vineyards cover only 40,000 acres at this point (more than Napa, dwarfed by Bordeaux). Most are part of other AVAs as well; only 7,000 acres are exclusively Columbia Valley, but the Columbia Valley AVA remains the principal AVA in the state, if not the entire northwest.

Allen Shoup, on whose watch the state's original AVA was approved, says, "We wanted to penetrate the all-but-impenetrable membership of the world's finest wine regions by using a single name in all our marketing materials." Even today, most of the wine produced in Washington is sold (in Chicago, in China, in Japan) as "Columbia Valley." Even here in Washington State, how many people out there have even heard of Snipes Mountain, let alone have a clue about its terroir?

Note: My series on Washington AVAs appears regularly in Edible Seattle
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As you know, they're now tolling the 520 bridge. Mackay Restaurants, with El Gaucho steakhouses on both sides of the lake and a newly spiffed up seafood spot, Aqua, on Elliott Bay, offered a carrot to diners: they'd pay your toll. Seemed like a cute promotion, so I tweeted it yesterday and sent their PR team a note. They replied with a press release announcing a new executive chef for Aqua, Steve Cain. I remember seeing Cain on the line at the old Waterfront Seafood Grill, and in the kitchen at El Gaucho in Bellevue. A good, solid steak guy, according to reports. But, I tweeted, what happened to Peter Levine, the exec chef whom I'd interviewed and photographed for an article only a couple of months ago? The PR response:

With the rebrand of AQUA we are looking to bring all of our restaurants more in sync, essentially creating "one Gaucho." After beginning his career with us at Waterfront Seafood Grill back in 2000, Chef Cain perfected his culinary skills in the El Gaucho kitchen and was responsible for creating over half the dishes on AQUA's menu. With our efforts to bring more of the El Gaucho brand into AQUA, it made most sense to have a Chef in AQUA's kitchen who knew both restaurants well.

Peter is a talented Chef but no longer with the company. We were fortunate to have him with us for as long as we did and know he will land someplace soon where they will be lucky to have him. We wish him the best of luck with whatever new culinary adventures come his way.

Fair enough. Standard boilerplate. But I also sent an email to Peter, asking for an update. But, heh-heh, turns out I sent it to his old business address. And instead of hearing from Peter, I heard back from Ken Sharp, the corporate exec chef for Mackay. Oops! Now, Sharp probably should have said nothing at all. Or at most replied to the effect that Mr. Levine is no longer with the company. He might even have called his PR department for guidance. Instead, he sent this:

Hi Ronald, Peter didn't align himself with our company standards, of excellence, quality, consistent, and treating all staff with respect. Although he was very talented, he could not get over his ego Thanks Ken

Yikes. Next step, find the current whereabouts of said Peter and see what he has to say for himself. I've been swamped all afternoon, so the task fell to Bethany Jean Clement, managing editor of the Stranger, and find him she did (at, duh, chefpeterlevine@gmail.com). Here's what he wrote:

Its all good on my end. I will pursue my own place this year... I guess I didn't fit in with the El Gaucho kitchen.

On Facebook, Levine's employment status is "Looking for a new stove." That gurgling sound, I don't think it's coming from the fish tanks.

If you're from Portland, you know about Jake's Famous Crawfish, the city's iconic, old-fashioned fish house, which could be the model for historic seafood restaurants in a category of decor that's not really antique, but certainly "Old Hometown." Dark wood, stained-glass chandeliers, oil paintings, starched linens. Nothing too sleek, weird or modern, just fresh seafood. Similar spots around the country: Sam's and Tadich Grill in San Francisco, Shaw's Crab House in Chicago. Growing up in Portland, Jake's was where we'd go for special dinners. Once, when (then) State Sen. Richard Neuberger and his wife, Maureen, came to dinner, my dad ran down to Jake's and bought a bag of crawfish.

Jake's was founded in 1892 and thrived, first as a sort of "gentlemen's club," then, as time went on, with early commitments to Oregon wine and the freshest fish available. It was taken over 80 years later by William McCormick, who hired Doug Schmick as GM. They opened the first McCormick & Schmick's in downtown Portland in 1979, and expanded nationwide over the next quarter century; 2 of its 90 units are in downtown Seattle, one in South Lake Union, one in Bellevue. Much of the expansion was funded by an IPO, and one of the investors was a Texas restaurant operator named Tillman Fertitta, who had taken over Landry's Seafood in the 1980s when there were only two stores. Today there are 21 Landry's, along with 30-some additional brands (Bubba Gump, Claim Jumper, Rainforest Cafe) all under the Landry's umbrella. Fertitta became the largest individual shareholder in McCormick & Schmick, and last year decided to buy it outright. When the M&S board resisted, Fertitta approached individual shareholders, and this week announced he had bought 88 percent of the shares.

McCormick & Schmick epitomizes a strong corporate commitment to fresh seafood; they print updated menus twice a day at the units in Seattle, but they haven't been immune to the recession. The company lost nearly $70 million in 2008 and $1.1 million in the first quarter of 2009, according to reports published in the Portland Business Journal. Even though it was Oregon's 18th largest publicly traded company, with annual sales of $300 million, management closed the flagship McCormick's in downtown Portland last year when they couldn't come to terms on a lease.

Now that he's absorbed the venerable Northwest institution into his private empire, Fertitta says he'll rebrand some of the McCormick & Schmick stores. Ironically, the McCormick & Schmick Harborside on South Lake Union has just undergone a complete renovation and rebranding. Fertitta wasted no time, in any event, making changes. Before the week was out, he fired co-founder McCormick and closed nine restaurants.

You can do what you want with most of them, Bubba, but you better not mess with Jake's. Ya hear?

How many diners would go to a restaurant with the express purpose of putting it out of business? Leave that to the health department's inspector, with her instant-read thermometer, and God help the chef if the surface of that strip steak in the walk-in is even half a degree above 42.

But walk into a joint waving a 50-percent Groupon and you're holding a gun to the owner's head. Worse, make your reservation on Open Table so that the first $10 you spend gets swiped by outsiders, Or try Restaurant.com's coupon that you bought for a tenspot. Just run up a $35 tab, and the store has to give you $25 of that for free.

It's an entitlement society for sure. Entitled by Yelp to spout whatever nonsense, true or not, that makes you sound like a high-life connoisseur.

Here's how crazy things have become: a Living Social "deal" for half off laser eye surgery. Look, if you can't see straight, do you really want some cut-rate quack to aim high-powered electrons at your eyeballs?

Barnaby Dorfman, co-founder with his wife, Sheri Wetherall, of Foodista.com, says the bargain hunters have it backwards. The question to ask, he says, should be, "I want to pay you more. What could you do for me if I paid you more?"

Many if not most Seattle restaurants will suffer in 2012 from mandated sick leave for workers as well as highest minimum wage in the country, $9.04 an hour. For a variety of reasons, some won't even make it into the New Year.

Closings, most notably atop Queen Anne, all three restaurants in the brick building at Queen Anne and Boston, known for decades as Saladay's Drugstore, closed when the landlord, Rev. Sue Wanwig, whose father owned the pharmacy, refused to extend or renew their leases. G-gone are Ototo Sushi, Teacup, and the brand-new Polpetta (formerly Enza Cucina Siciliana).

Changes: Sexton taking over Madame K's in Ballard. Pine Box sliding into Chapel's space on Capitol Hill. Restaurant Bea now beaming instead of June in Madrona. Thai Curry Simple now in South Lake Union where Bad Monkey used to be. D'Ambrosio dispensing gelato on 12th where Varro shut its doors.

Newcomers: Publican, in Greenlake, Macleod's in Ballard, Lucky 8 on Cap Hill.

Wayne Johnson, longtime chef at Andaluca (Mayflower Hotel) takes over as exec chef at Ray's Boathouse after Peter Birk leaves for a revamped Harborside. Scott Heimindinger, aka Seattle Food Geek, signs on as biz dev manager for Modernist Cuisine. Typhoon gets hit with $2 million discrimination complaint by its Thai workers.

Finally, a farewell to Nettletown chef Christina Choi, victim of a brain aneurism diagnosed only two weeks before her death, end of December, at the age of 34.

So here we are on the doorstep of another year, an election year, an eating-and-drinking year, and it dawns warm and sunny with a plate of Virginica oysters and sauvignon blanc at Steelhead Diner.

Resolutions and predictions? Regrets for 2011? In this tell-all, share-all, bare-your-soul world, I'll keep those private. Except this: do more and better work, swim against tide if necessary, battle against the cut-rate and phony. Get rid of clutter, stay focused, pay full price.