The Best Wine Ever

"A succulent, deep and spicy blend of Granache and Syrah from the Southern Rhone Valley. A wine with new world texture and old world flavors - soft and slick on the palate with deep, foresty blackberry notes, bramble fruit and a finishing pepper kick."

This is the text of the handwritten note taped by bottles of 2006 Clos-du-Mont Olivet Montueil La Levade Cotes Du Rhone at Fine Wine Brokers in Lincoln Square. Notnits and I were browsing around after a tasting and discovered it. Pretty much every word on the little sheet (Foresty, Blackberry, Bramble, Pepper) declared You will love this. At around $15.00, it would have been silly to pass it by.

That night we picked up some chicken shawarma from Dawali down the street and ate on the back porch. Notnits opened up the Cotes du Rhone and we gave it a shot.

I think any one who eats Middle Eastern food on a regular basis (or knows anything about wine) would be horrified to learn that we paired this with the shawarma, but what we discovered delighted both of us.

The Clos-du-Mont was dark and plummy purple - it's the kind of liquid you can barely see light through. But it wasn't too thick when I swished it around in my mouth. All the notes were there, bramble, forest and pepper.

When we tasted it with the Shawarma, I was pleased to find that the tastes didn't clash at all. In fact, they paired very well; the nutmeg-or maybe cinnamon-enhanced the earthy overtones in the wine and the tahini and cucumbers pulled out some of the lighter minerality. (When I say minerality, I mean this: imagine licking a rock.)

I know very little about Old World vs. New World wines, except where they come from. My experience with both is difficult to describe. Drinking New World wines (North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa), is very pleasurable and fun. A Chilean Syrah is great to drink with some red meat or barbeque. I find that I'm more interested in drinking the wines than I am ruminating over intricacies of tasting notes.

When I drink Old World wines (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria), my experience is far more three dimensional. I'm transported. These vines are old, and they announce their maturity with every sip, swirl or smell. I tend to launch right over the moon about a particular hint of leather or dry mesa. "WOW. It's like I'm in somebody's kitchen!" or "This tastes like a flowery meadow at dusk." Once the initial image explodes in my head, I take it apart and decipher what elements of the flavor bring flowers or simmering sauce to mind. Old World wines offer a depth and nuance that can go on for days.

In my childhood home, (up on top of Allen Mountain in the Appalachians of Western North Carolina), we had a playroom. This Playroom was damp, cavernous and suffered consistent water leakage. When it rained, the room was practically vaporous. It was mostly underground, with a small window looking out just at the earth-line into the woods behind our house. The Playroom was a creepy place; wet walls, the smell of mildew, Earth, and soaked bark. But we played there all the time.

I tasted the Playroom in the Mont Olivet. The old dank flavor, the fragrance of the rotting woods behind the house, the weird feelings of childhood fear and comfort, imagination. All this poured from the bottle in the chill of a late summer night, eating shawarma.

We've purchased it several times since and I can't recommend it enough. I will say that I'm not sure your experience will be as transcendent as mine. I'm positive of it - it's sort of unfair to assert that you will re-experience the magic of childhood when you drink this. So, on the short sell...it's a good wine (with a good price) that I happen to love.