Sipping and Swinging into Summer

Dear All About Jazzers,

Welcome back to your quarterly wine and song pairing, Jazz & Juice, which I hope inspires you to taste and listen with more delight. This trio of wine and song is poised to bring you into the festival season —let me know if any of these bottles find their way into your picnic baskets!

If you'd like to get the pairing sent to your inbox every-other-Friday, I invite you to join a merry band of wine and music lovers and subscribe here.

Wilder Things

Juice

France's Loire Valley is famed for its white wines (hello Sancerre) and also its reds, where, to me, cabernet franc finds its most authentic expression. I could also make the argument that beyond that, Chinon is the place within the Loire where this is most true—and the wines of Domaine Olga Raffault have long stood as one of the region's most shining examples.

I've had vintages of this wine going back decades, and I am always stunned at how composed yet rustic they are. You cannot mistake the grape, or the place, for anything else. Its idiosyncratic character makes me slightly more sympathetic to a few of my loved ones who don't like this grape—intense personalities can be polarizing.

The grape's unique personality makes me love it more fervently and this bottle even more so. The 2018 "Les Picasses" has an unmistakable personality while still being a transparency of the place from which it hails: dark cassis fruit is punctuated by cinnamon bark, licorice and a hint of mace on the nose. On the palate, an etched graphite minerality leads into the the dry finish, like fallen forest leaves; at once both strict and wild.

You can find the bottle here. (For those in the U.S., be sure to make sure you select your state to see availability.)

Jazz

Andrew Cyrille has been at the forefront of avant-garde jazz for his entire career and continues to make ageworthy music while ever evolving in mastery and message as a composer, drummer, and bandleader.

His album Lebroba, (ECM, 2018) made with the incomparable Wadada Leo Smith and Bill Frisell, is a shining example of restraint, transparency, and invention. His song, "Pretty Beauty," is evocative and exquisitely focused. The trio allows sounds to begin and decay freely, embracing subtlety in texture, feeling expansive yet disciplined.

When venturing into unfamiliar territory, best be in the hands of greatness.

Of the Moment

Juice

A wine can be refreshing for a lot of reasons—because it's made with an offbeat technique, features a fringe grape, or is from an unheralded region. However, wine that is made beautifully, of a known grape in classic style, sometimes offers a more subtle kind of invigoration.

Montsecano Pinot Noir 2020 from the Casablanca Valley in Chile is such a wine. Though intentional effort and attention has gone into its making (horse plowed vineyards, biodynamic farming) the result is refreshingly effortless elegance.

Sweet red cherry and minty herbs are on the nose, while the palate has fruit that feels round yet buoyant; tannins splash the finish like a lightly brushed cymbal.

This pinot is young yet sophisticated, made by a fusion of talents from France and Chile (the winemakers hail from both places.) It's my new benchmark for what this grape from the region can do.

You can find the wine here.

Jazz

At a recent dinner with some fellow wine and jazz lovers, we were talking about artistic movements and how eras of time are delineated in art and in music. We debated what the difference might be between modern and contemporary jazz when my friend dropped the mic by saying "Contemporary jazz is whatever the last jazz is that I listened to." His words encapsulate how, in jazz, yesterday and today combine in the musical moment of improvisation to become music's now.

So, that brings us to trumpeter Anthony Hervey's track, "The Rust From Yesterday's Blues" from his debut album Words From My Horn (Outside In, 2023) which is full of history and tradition, yet very much in its own time. Hervey's tune, and singing trumpet weave in and out of references from the blues to '70's jazz with zest and contagious energy.

I caught him and his band a few weeks ago downtown, and reveled in his young ensemble alloying their fresh talent with elements of tradition. Totally contemporary.

In Space

Juice

Does ubiquity make something less valuable? Rarity is oftentimes coupled with worth for good reason, but just because something is easy to find (or grow) doesn't make it any less great.

Chardonnay is a grape that vingerons call vigorous—it successfully grows just about anywhere, contributing to its popularity, yet not diminishing its finest examples.

If chardonnay is familiar to you, I can bet that chardonnay from Argentina is not (or at least, it wasn't to me). The Finca Suarez '24 Chardonnay from Paraje Altamira is made from a producer with generations of legacy on the land and massive contributions to Argentine winemaking, dating back to the 1920s.

This bottle is refreshing in the way it opens up space on the palate—It feels like a cirrus cloud in the mouth—broad yet vaporous, misty and expansive. There's a prickle to the nectarine fruit, and a meringuey quality that lifts the wine. It is slightly hazy to the eye, but never has a wine come across with more clarity.

Jazz

The song "It Had to Be You" by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn, has been around since 1924. It's one of those ditties that feels like it's simply in the water—we all know it; yet I for one have never thought about it too much despite having heard versions from voices running the gamut from Daffy Duck to Ray Charles.

Shirley Horn is one of the most essential jazz singers, period. She also accompanies herself on the piano, which is astonishing given how incredible she is at both. Her economy, grace, and sensitivity are unparalleled—actually, to be verbose about her contribution feels at odds with her art. So, how about this:

Shirley
is
poetry.

Her rendition of "It Had to Be You" from You Won't Forget Me (Verve, 1991) is a study in spaciousness. In her hands, it is a song not so much about affection as destiny. She knows exactly what she is doing and has such trust in the music it becomes a spell, made all the more enthralling by Brandford Marsalis' tenor. When she sings the last "it had to be you" it's not even a question: you are hers.

This track should come with a warning label—I'll let you decide what for.

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I look forward to leading you into fall with another pairing compilation, and if you'd like pairings sooner (along with more fun things) come join me at the newsletter here! Cheers!

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