By Alistair Highet
Perhaps no country on Earth is as geographically suited to the production of red wines as Chile. The primary grape growing region of the valley to the east and south of Santiago has some astonishing features: First, the sun almost never stops shining, and while there is some pollution close to the city, the air is reliably dry and clear for the most part. As the grapes ripen, they are given a nice long growing season thanks to the cool air that blows inland from the sea — a sea that is chilled by currents from the Antarctic — as well as cool air that drops into the valley from the Andes. The soils are quite varied, but consist of clay, limestone and loam in varying degrees and are suited to one grape or the other. While there isn’t very much rain, the Spanish settlers of this region got to work very early in their wine production and created a network of canals to direct the snowmelt from the Andes down into the valley. Now, drip irrigation has been installed.
But perhaps Chile’s greatest virtue is its isolation. Chile is very far away from just about everything, and one of the things that it proved to be far away from is the phylloxera louse.
In the 1870s, this louse spread all through Bordeaux, and from there through other European and North American vineyards, destroying the vines at the roots. However, in the early 1800s, a lot of the French immigrated to Chile, bringing with them the vines from home — merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and so on. Chile being so isolated meant the louse never got close. So to this day, the wines of Chile come from vines that can grow on their own roots as it were, plugged into the ground, while elsewhere, hardier rootstocks and grafting are required.
Here we arrive at one of those wonderful wine mysteries that make it such an enjoyable subject to explore.
I decided to write about Chilean merlots because I’ve acquired a taste for merlot again. I suppose it is the fall that brings me back — that desire for rich, ripe, dark fruit. I also drank so much lousy pinot noir over the summer that I almost feel as if I need the darker, loamier, warmer tones of merlot to settle my stomach. I found some really wonderful wines at very good prices, but I also made another discovery.
Evidently, Chilean merlot was thought to have a distinctively green-tasting characteristic for many years. Then in 1994, it was discovered that the reason for this was that much of the merlot production included a stowaway grape — carmenere. Evidently this Bordeaux blending grape had been brought over in the 1800s and, while it was virtually wiped out in France, it continued to thrive in Chile and simply got misrecognized as merlot.
So now everything has been sorted out evidently — the goats have been separated from the sheep — and Chilean merlot (sometimes mixed with cabernet sauvignon) is reliably carmenere free.
What to do with the carmenere then? Some producers are selling it as a stand-alone varietal, so I thought I should give it a try. Lapostolle is a big Chilean producer and the 2008 Casa Carmenere ($14) seemed worth a try. It was unquestionably inferior to the merlots, in my view, but it was interesting to notice the similarities as well as the differences. There was the dark, deep color, the smooth tannins, the ripe red fruit that could pass for merlot, but also a kind of tomato-like quality, tang almost, that I didn’t care for. There’s probably a good reason you are likely to never have heard of this grape. Still, thanks to Chile’s isolation, at least it has been saved from extinction.
Now to the other wines tasted. The 2007 Cousino Macul Estate Merlot ($14) from the Maipo valley was a classic, I thought. Glossy and viscous in the glass, it had the dark charred and chocolaty notes that are characteristic of merlot, as well as intense blueberry and black plum flavors. Very nice. The 2005 Montes Merlot Classic Series ($12) is made a little more south, in Colchagua valley, and this has about 15 percent cabernet in the mix. The fruit was remarkable and succulent: black cherry, blackberry, red currents, with black pepper and a satiny, smooth finish. The best of the lot, also from the Maipo Valley, was the 2007 Santa Rita Reserva ($15): violet hues and rich color, vanilla, distinct red currant and ripe blueberry fruit, concentrated spice, the aromas of leather and loam. A very rich wine redolent of the soil, sea and air of a fascinating land.@
Author Archive
Chilean merlot and the lost grape of Bordeaux
Window Shopping
Compiled by Devon Fleming
Lots of Room
This contemporary double sofa, part of a private line by designer Linda Ruderman, has plenty of seating space and is perfect for a large room. Starts at $12,000, Linda Ruderman Interiors Inc., 19 E. Elm St., Greenwich, (203) 552-9700. www.lindaruderman.com.
Window Shopping highlights furnishings, décor and seasonal items from local stores in Fairfield County. Have a favorite store we’ve missed? Send us an e-mail at rebecca.haynes@scni.com. We’d love to hear from you!
10 strategies for enduring winter
By Merci Miglino
With apologies to T.S. Elliot, yesterday I really did measure my life out in coffee spoons. It wasn’t just any coffee but that rare, exotic blend that defies explanation: Green Mountain’s Special Edition Summer Blueberry. I know what you’re thinking. Blueberry coffee? You cannot be serious. Oh, but when it comes to coffee I am deadly serious. Well, maybe not deadly serious but serious enough.
Whether it’s sipped hot or sucked cold through a straw with whipped cream, this coffee can lower your pulse, slow down your heart beat and make you swear you’re sitting on a beach somewhere. Which is just what I needed yesterday… since in reality it was a dark rainy, cold day in late fall.
As I dipped my coffee spoon into the bag, scraping the bottom for the last brown bits, I realized I was not just making a cup of coffee; I was beginning my annual resistance to the wintry days ahead.
I hate winter. But if I am to not only survive the next five months but actually thrive during them, I needed to snap out of it! I have to remember to look on the sunny side of long dark days, sub-zero temperatures, shoveling snow, watching for black ice and frozen tree limbs falling within an inch of my head. So with coffee in hand here’s what I came up with:
1. Burn something. There’s nothing like sitting by the fire on a snowy, blustery day. If you don’t have a fireplace, get a fake one. Or get one of those DVDs that have flaming fire that never goes out and turn up the heat.
2. Read. OK, there is something incredibly pleasant about cozying with a good book in my hands, a warm blanket over my knees, toasty warm slippers on my feet, and, of course, a hot cup of blueberry coffee.
3. Bird watch. Now that I am over 50, I’ve inexplicably joined those who find themselves bird watching. I will spend hours hoping to spot the stark beauty of a gorgeous red cardinal against a background of white creamy snow … a jolt of color in an otherwise dreary landscape. So put up a bird feeder, get a good pair of binoculars and buy a pretty illustrated bird guide. It’s not as relaxing as staring at the ocean but, then again, what is?
4. Get crafty. Winter is a good time to take up a hobby, i.e. art that anyone can do. Just follow the directions on the kit, Internet or magazine. Two years ago, my daughter and I made 250 beaded bracelets. We only went out into the cold to get more supplies (and bird food). What can you get manic about? Think cross-stitch, knitting or crocheting, whittling, model building, candle making, etc. If you don’t know how to do it, take a class; you have to risk the weather to get there, but then you can get indoors and stay there.
5. Bake. This is a great choice. It doesn’t require natural sunlight, it eats up time (two hours start to finish for a batch of cookies) and bonus, you can pull up a chair and pretend you are a pioneer warming yourself in front of the potbelly stove.
6. Have snowball fights. Get all bundled up and think in 20-minute increments. That’s all it takes to instigate a snowball fight and high-tail it back inside where your sanity is waiting for you. Also, it’s less likely that anyone loses an eye or goes home in tears.
7. Go to a winter carnival, one that’s held inside with fake cotton snow, where you need only a light turtleneck sweater and a cozy down vest, and where you can sit down without sticking to an ice-covered seat.
8. Sleep in. Waking up in winter is 100 times harder than waking up in the summer. Getting out of the warm air pockets of the bed is pure torture, so go to bed earlier and more often. Bears do it and they seem to be doing fine.
9. Look for signs. Mark your calendar with the date that you see the first robin return. Robins are the harbinger of the season assuring that the warm and breezy days of spring are just around the corner. Encourage these lively birds with dried cranberries and perhaps you can lure them into forcing spring to pop earlier.
10. Make a list. What better time of the year to compose a list of things that would make your life complete? I don’t want to live each day for the next five months measured out in small, miserly spoonfuls — as much as I love coffee. I want my life to be heaping and rich and bold. You don’t actually have to start the list, but it’ll sure give you something to think about as you pass the days until spring.@
Room to Grow: Decorating for ’tweens is a challenge
By Beth Cooney
So your kids “crib” is looking so yesterday. The Winnie-the-Pooh border circa preschool makes you (and your third-grader) cringe. The High School Musical pillows in your daughter’s room are frayed and besides, her Zac Efron crush has gone the way of Team Edward. It’s time to update the kid rooms in a growing-up way, but like so many things with the ’tween set there’s a little complication: The kids are still kids!
Outfitting rooms for pre-teens can be tricky. “You want to really make it their room, but not have it be wall-to-wall Darth Vader or whatever it is they’re into,” says Carey Karlan, an award-winning Darien-based interior designer. “So much of what a child is into at any given age can be a phase, so you have to be careful with going too heavy on themes.”
Karlan, the mother of five grown children, recently completed two sophisticated rooms — one for an 8-year-old boy and another for an 11-year-old girl — as part of a major interior design project her firm, Last Detail, was hired to do in Old Greenwich. The gorgeous updates are noteworthy for their use of quality underpinnings that allow for design flexibility. “The purpose of these rooms was to give them room to grow,” Karlan says. “In just a few years they will be teenagers and their tastes will probably change.”
So Karlan’s approach to each room included investment furniture, neutral wall-to-wall carpets and simple window treatments. The quality basics can remain the same for years to come, but bed linens can be swapped and accessories added or deleted as the kids’ tastes change with their teenage lifestyles.
The guy-chic color palette of gray, khaki and orange incorporated into the boy’s room is unexpected, but more and more Karlan colors-it-mature for her youngest clients. “I’ve done camel and navy and camel and dark green — these very serious looks — and then filled rooms with framed Star Wars art,” she says of another recent project. “The boys were thrilled and so were the parents.”
Pairing her own good taste with her kids’ passions is the same approach Fairfield designer Connie Cusick took when updating rooms for her sons, Jack, 11, and Alex, 9. “What I’m looking for most now with my own kids is functionality and things that will last,” says Cusick of Simply Defined Design. “While I want rooms that will inspire them to grow and learn, the boys just want a cool place to hang with their friends.”
We asked the designers to give us some of their do’s and don’ts for ’tween rooms:
• Themes Are So First Grade! If your daughter is obsessed with Hello Kitty everything, “buy the sheets and pillow cases and that’s it,” says Karlan. “They are the easiest thing to change.”
• Go Team Neutral! Basic bedding (such as the kind featured in Karlan’s Old Greenwich updates) can be personalized with themed pillows. Even the addition of kids’ stuff, such as toys, will make a basic palette read younger. “I am a big fan of accessing a lot of catalog resources, like Garnet Hill, for good quality linens that don’t cost a fortune,” says Karlan.
• Be a Carpet King! “Even after the primary years, kids do a lot of their living on the floors,” says Karlan. It’s why she favors investing in wall-to-wall carpet for the set, even though she rarely considers it in grown-up spaces. “Rugs just catch dust and it’s not great when the kids are always on the ground.”
• Get the Picture! Framing the most informal posters and artwork gives rooms’ immediate sophistication. “That Star Wars poster will look 100 times better even if you pop it in an inexpensive frame from Wal-Mart,” says Karlan.
• It’s Past Your Bedtime! Karlan put full-size, grown-up beds in the rooms of her still-young Old Greenwich clients. “In a few years, they may be so big they won’t be comfortable in their twin beds anymore,” she says. Her picks were mature investment pieces, such as upholstered headboards, “that are classic and will stand the test of time.”
• But Kids Rule! Cusick still likes to have twin beds in her boys’ rooms for hosting sleepovers. “If your kid is big on having friends stay, I might put off the big bed if I was short on space,” she says. Bunk beds and trundles are another option for this entertaining bunch.
• Invest in Their Future! Karlan advises putting most of your “update” budget on quality beds, bookcases and desks. “If you buy a great bookcase for a 9-year-old boy, you can paint it dark blue now and paint it chic black when he’s 14,” Karlan says. Cusick agrees, adding, “Desks at this age just get really important.” She’s found some affordable options at Ikea.
• Lose the Cutesy! Now’s the time to swap out juvenile lamps and furniture for more grown-up items.
• Think Outside The Crayon Box! Cusick’s not averse to using kid-friendly hues, such as baby blue or lilac, but suggests modern contrast. “I might do chocolate brown with the lilac or blues, even black, something that makes everything seem more modern and sophisticated,” she says.
• Consult Your Young Designer! Omitting kid stuff from a kid’s room is just not fair, says Karlan. In her Old Greenwich project the designer framed Spirograph art, drawings and paintings by the rooms’ young occupants. Cusick says her boys have asked for lounging areas and stations for their video equipment. “They are into making movies and wanted cool sitting areas. They saw these cool chairs at the W hotel and asked for chairs like them,” she says.
• It’s Just a Phase! For kids who are still married to the idea of “themed” walls, Cusick has turned to resources such as Etsy (www.etsy.com) for funky peel-and-post stickers that can be used to create temporary, artful borders. “They come off so easily it’s easy to change them when you are ready for something new.” @
A Custom Kitchen: Organizing small space starts with good design
Problem: The cluttered kitchen in this Ridgefield home had what interior designer Olga Adler called “dysfunctional” storage. Small drawers and limited shelf space forced the homeowner to leave lots of appliances and everything from spices to cooking oils on the counter tops.
Solution: Adler swapped locations for the stove and refrigerator for better placement and extended the cabinets to the ceiling for more storage. She also designed dedicated storage spaces with the family’s needs in mind, including a peanut butter nook for the kids, a drawer for the husband’s hot sauces (another for spices) and hidden spots for small appliances. “We worked within the existing perimeter to make it so much more useable,” Adler says.
What’s It Worth? Tips for determining your antique’s value
By Maria LaPiana
The zip of packing tape being stripped from dusty boxes… the clink of china pieces being arranged on tables… the sighs of men and women carrying heavy, framed paintings from cars into a warehouse to find out what they are worth.
On a recent afternoon I sat quietly, observing the comings and goings at “appraisal day” in the Fairfield Auction house in Newtown. There, proprietor Jack DeStories offers free appraisals of up to five items per person from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Tuesday. Sometimes they run over, but the tall, genial man with inquiring eyes doesn’t seem to mind. After all, evaluating all things curious and old — and facilitating their sale — is his livelihood.
With his wife, Rosie, who pleasantly greeted visitors while efficiently taking notes and tending to the store, DeStories says they field between 30 and 40 inquiries every week. They’ve seen it all — from the extraordinary 18th Century warrior’s helmet that set an auction record in 2008 (it sold for $2,185,000) to a gaudy porcelain punchbowl that showed up on the day I visited (a hairline fissure rendered it worthless, much to the dismay of its owner).
Not sure if Grandma’s silver is genuine? Curious to know if the kilim you bought online was priced right? Wonder if the jewelry box you were given as a wedding present is really the work of an important cabinetmaker? Whether the article in question is something you like and want to keep, or something you want out of your house as soon as possible, you’ll want to know its value. There are more than a few ways to find out.
For a ballpark figure, you can try to find a similar item on eBay (check recent sales, not “buy-it-now” prices, which are asking prices only). You can pore over price guides in the library (the ubiquitous Kovels’ guides cover everything from advertising ephemera to World War memorabilia), or launch an online search (you may have to buy premium content) and hope you find your antique there. Or you can go to shows and auctions in your area, look, listen and ask questions.
“Any appraisal is really just an opinion,” says DeStories. But opinions are like antiques themselves: Some are worth more than others.
If you know that what you have is the real deal and valuable (a signed Gustav Stickley table, for example) and you want to a) insure it or b) be absolutely certain of its worth before you sell it, seek out the services of an expert. Two sources are the American Society of Appraisers and the International Society of Appraisers, both organizations that provide unbiased referrals. Professional services that include written appraisals (required by many insurance companies, probate courts and the IRS) will typically run anywhere from $100 and $250 an hour.
How can an appraiser tell what something’s worth just by looking at it? Well, it helps if you’ve been at it a long time. A generalist who has worked as a professional appraiser and auctioneer for more than 20 years, DeStories says he can sometimes assess value simply by looking at a photo — even one taken with a cell phone. “If someone sends me a picture of a chair and I think it’s a Chippendale, but am not sure … and they send three or four other pictures of pieces I know to be of the period, then I can tell for sure,” he says.
As to the exact price an item will bring at auction, that may require a closer look by a specialist and/or an assessment of form and condition. Two similar period chests can vary by thousands of dollars in value, according to DeStories, depending on the cabinetmaker, the condition of the surface, and whether any repairs have been made to the piece. “The number one rule of conservation,” he says, “is never do anything that can’t be undone.”
It may surprise some to learn that everyday use and distressed surfaces — even stains and dirt — do not necessarily diminish the value of an antique. But even a tiny crack can spell disaster for, say, a piece of Tiffany glass. “It can go from $5,000 to less than $500, and essentially become a shelf piece,” DeStories says.
It’s no secret that rarity is the quality most sought after in the antiques world; that’s why most Rembrandts are in museums, not living rooms. Another rule of thumb: If something was inexpensive when it was new, it’s probably inexpensive now.
And so, I’m not shocked — though I will say a little disappointed — when DeStories takes a look at my Depression glass boudoir lamps, one pictured at left. He is kind, but firm in pronouncing them “mass-produced, pressed-glass” lamps that probably sold for $12 apiece in 1935. Today, the pair (for the record, it’s good that I have a pair) might fetch $125 or $150 at most.
Oh, well. They may have been common and cheap back in the day, and it’s hard to admit they’re worth less now than a nice dinner out, but they sure look pretty on my dresser — and that’s priceless to me. @
Window Shopping
Compiled by Devon Fleming
Retro Chic Nesting Tables
Dress up any room in the house with these unique nesting tables in cast aluminum. $295, Stratford Antiques Center, 400 Honey Spot Road, Stratford, (203) 378-7754.
Window Shopping highlights furnishings, décor and seasonal items from local stores in Fairfield County. Have a favorite store we’ve missed? Send us an e-mail at rebecca.haynes@scni.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Let There Be Light: The wonder of Moroccan lanterns
By Kim Messenger
I’m not making this up. I had a dream, and in the dream I was awash in color, sumptuous light with flashes of red, turquoise, sea glass. The feeling in the dream was one of luxury and beauty, and when I woke up, I looked at my living room and thought: “No way.”
I didn’t know what I was looking for; I only knew that what my living room was missing was magic. I didn’t give it much thought. And then I was walking down Rue St. Laurent in Montreal one day in April and came across a shop that specialized in Moroccan furniture. As soon as I entered, I knew this was what I had dreamt about, as though I had been slowly and assuredly led to the shop by the genie of my dreams.
What entranced me immediately was that every spare inch of the ceiling was covered in hanging lanterns — some with remarkably complex, diamond shapes, with mirrors, colored glass, and patterned tin in blue, green, vibrant red, cinnamon, lemon — while below were spread out carpets of deep rich wool, dark wooden chairs and stools, and cushions of ox blood red. I probably spent two hours asking a very polite young man to unhook the lanterns and bring them down for me to look at, and I confess in the end that I couldn’t find one that I was really sold on.
But I knew that this was what I needed in my life, and when I got back home I went online and found www.berbertrad ing.com and immediately purchased a Koutoubia Lantern for $99: “the most typical of all Moroccan lanterns.” When it arrived, it was so big —almost 3 feet high — that I thought I must be losing my marbles, but I couldn’t wait to get it home and hang it in the corner of the room. I bought a huge white candle to go inside and counted the minutes until nightfall when I lit it.
The beauty of this object, and the patterns of candlelight that it throws across the ceiling and the walls, continues to entrance me. I can sit on my couch and just bathe in its warm glow, and the lattice work of light and shadow evokes for me … Araby … as James Joyce put it: the exotic, the souk, the desert at night, the far away. In fact, the shape of the lantern is based on the minaret of the Koutoubia mosque in Marrakech, completed between 1184 and 1199, a shape that inspired countless other minarets as well as some church architecture of Spain. So this lantern, a simple thing made by hand out of what I take to be scrap steel, feels like a relic of ancient time and in fact, I suppose it is.
I won’t pretend to be an expert on Moroccan design, but certainly it has a unique quality: beauty, luxury, richness, comfort and mystery. It is also very inexpensive. I’ve seen lovely lamps for $10 on Amazon.com.
I do know that Morocco is a kind of multi-cultural melting pot, and has been for centuries, so the feel of the design draws from many sources. The country has more than five official languages and countless dialects. The Berbers, who have lived in the mountains for 4,000 years, are a hardscrabble agricultural people, set in their ways and with their own particular cultural and artisanal practices. Then you have Arab culture, as they took over in the 7th century, bringing their traditions rooted in the Islam of the desert. Beginning in the 17th century, Europeans began to get involved, and parts of Morocco came under Spanish domination while France took the rest over in 1912 (think of the movie Casablanca), and remained in control until 1956.
The upshot of this is that Morocco is uniquely cosmopolitan, rich in languages and traditions, a place where Islam and Christianity, the mountains and the deserts, and the ancient past and the heady present have all come together. The result is astonishing beauty. The Berber Trading website has lovely stuff, but there are many other sites. The furniture is beautiful as well.@
