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  August 29,   2021                                                                                            NEWSLETTER



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The Marx Brothers in "Horsefeathers" (1932)

        

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IN THIS ISSUE

COOPERSTOWN, NY
By Geoffrey Kalish



NEW YORK CORNER
MIFUNE NEW YORK

By John Mariani

CAPONE'S GOLD
CHAPTER 22
By John Mariani


NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
BILLECART-SALMON CHAMPAGNE
By John Mariani




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On this week's episode of my WVOX Radio Show "Almost Golden," on Wed. Sept.1at 11AM EDT,I will be featuring the Songs of the Civil Rights Movement, including singers Marian Anderson, Odette, Rev. Gary Davis, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye and others. .  Go to: WVOX.com. The episode will also be archived at: almostgolden.







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COOPERSTOWN, NY

By Geoffrey Kalish




 

     Yes, there’s the Baseball Hall of Fame (below), with all it’s fantastic exhibits of the sport, but there’s a lot more to do in Cooperstown (a 3½-hour car ride from Manhattan) and nearby environs, from an exceptional art museum and farmers’ museum to an annual opera festival (Glimmerglass) to nearby wineries, scenic golf and surprisingly good lodging and dining options.
      On a previous visit we stayed at the very popular, hustling Otesaga Hotel, but for a change of pace on this visit we chose small, quiet Landmark Inn Bed & Breakfast (below), originally built in 1856 and lovingly restored in 2003, located less than a 10-minute walk to the center of town.
The 11 rooms range in size from the cozy Petite Province rooms to the much larger Summer's Suite, with a number on the ground floor featuring their own private entrances.

      Ours was clean, quiet and contained a walk-in shower and very comfortable king-sized bed. Also, breakfast, with daily changing specials like quiches and omelets, as well as yogurt and fresh fruit, enhanced the overall experience, as did the advice about activities and dining options from new owners John and Keith.
      Other than the downtown Baseball Hall of Fame, not to be missed on a visit to Cooperstown is the Fenimore Art Museum (below), a few minutes’ car ride (or half-hour walk) from the center of town. It occupies a house built in 1933 by Edward Clark (an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune) on land originally owned by novelist James Fenimore Cooper. Housed in the museum are permanent exhibitions of American Folk Art, paintings by artists of the Hudson Valley School and works by European and American impressionists. In addition, the museum features many special exhibits, currently one of Arthur and his friends by Marc Brown, Native American crafts and an extensive selection of the artwork of Keith Haring. And across the street there’s the Farmers’ Museum with displays of farm implements as well as animal demonstrations. (Both museums are open May through December.)
       Overall, restaurants are casual, featuring creative fare using locally sourced ingredients, served by friendly yet professional staffs. Blue Mingo Grill, a few miles from downtown, offers well-spaced tables alongside scenic Lake Otsego. From an extensive list of choices we shared appetizers of meaty crab cakes; large, crisp coconut shrimp served with a sweet and tangy chili sauce; and an order of saut
éed Brussel sprouts doused in a sweet and spicy sauce with chimichurri. Our main courses were a filling half-rack of baby back ribs bathed in a heady barbecue sauce, and a special of a perfectly cooked large pan-fried filet of striped bass (left) served over a mound of rice partnered by a mix of vegetables. For dessert we had a creamy chocolate torte and an order of fruity sorbet, and we accompanied the meal with an easy-drinking, cassis-scented, plummy William Hill Cabernet Sauvignon. Expect dinner for two to cost about $100, excluding wine, tax and tip.
        At the Otesaga Hotel’s Hawkeye Bar & Grill (right), we dined on an outdoor patio at the rear of the hotel overlooking the lake. Following a starter of a Moroccan Sweet Potato Buddha Bowl consisting of a mix of shaved Brussel sprouts, red cress, kale, quinoa, avocado and chunks of sweet potato, all drizzled with a smoky tahini dressing (below), and a crisp green salad. We chose a hefty slab of slow roasted prime rib (medium rare as ordered) accompanied by a baked potato and grilled asparagus, as well as a thick slice of flavorful citrus-marinated swordfish, with asparagus and broccolini. We concluded with ultra-creamy ice cream and accompanied the meal with a bottle of 2015 Tommasi Valpolicella Ripasso, which had a fragrant bouquet and taste of cherries and raspberries with just a touch of tannin in its finish. Expect dinner for two to cost about $100, excluding wine, tax and tip.
       Of the two upscale Italian restaurants downtown we found Nicoletta’s far more Sicilian as compared with Toscana’s (below) dishes favoring the region around Florence. For example, at Nicoletta’s an order of the grilled calamari appetizer brought the squid mixed with a spicy sauce of tomatoes, Parmesan and garlic, and main courses of shrimp scampi atop thin pasta and veal Marsala with earthy mushrooms and baby spinach were both reminiscent of fare savored in Catania. At Toscana the main courses of osso bucco milanese and a large, tender grilled veal chop as well as a dense slice of flourless chocolate cake were more akin to northern fare. Expect dinner for two at either to cost $70-$80, excluding wine, tax and tip.
       And for a great cup of coffee and/or breakfast and luncheon classics go to the local favorite Stagecoach Coffee restaurant on Pioneer Street downtown, which offers indoor and outdoor seating.
       Offering the best experience of the three local wineries that we visited was the six-year-old Pail Shop, in very nearby Fly Creek (named for an actual shop that in the 1800s made wooden pails). Not only were the wines top notch but the convivial tasting was at outdoor tables with the cost of  $7 for generous pours of seven different wines, with a roving pourer offering a discussion of each wine. Our favorites were the Hoop Iron, a fragrant, dry and spicy Traminette ($19)—an American hybrid of Gewürztraminer--and a Portrait of A Cooper ($21), a blend of red American hybrids Marquette and Noiret that showed a bouquet and taste of ripe cherries and plums with a peppery finish. And if you’re into Cider, there’s the Fly Creek Cidery, just down the street from the Pail Shop.
      In addition, if you plan a visit for the last week in July or the first two weeks in August you can attend the Glimmerglass Opera Festival (left), which takes place just a 15-minute car ride from downtown. While most years the festival takes place in an airy theater, this past season (because of Covid) it took place on the lawn behind the theater with excellent 90-minute  presentations by exceptional performers of The Magic Flute, Il Travatore, Songbird (an adaption of Offenbach’s Le Perichole), arias from Wagner, and The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson (a new opera telling the story of the founder of the National Negro Opera Company).
     And, if you’re a fan of golf courses with scenic lake-side views, lots of hilly terrain, wide carpet-like fairways and large, elevated wavy greens, you’ll love Leatherstocking Golf Course. Moreover, the fact that the staff is friendly, the pace of play manageable, even with 200 players per day (it took us 4 hours to play 18 holes on a Sunday morning) and the cost very reasonable (less than $150 per player, including a cart), makes the experience even more enjoyable. Highlights for us included the view to the lake from the second green, the challenges of the uphill 9th and “over the water” 17th par-3 holes and the magnificent par-5 lakeside 18th hole.




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NEW YORK CORNER


MIFUNE NEW YORK

                                                                                                   245 East 44th Street                                                                                                                                                                                      646-581-4702


By John Mariani



 


      Located within a chopstick’s throw of the U.N., the four-year-old Mifune has been one of New York’s most distinguished Japanese restaurants that has evolved under the leadership of chef-owner Hiroki Yoshitake—he named it after Japan’s favorite action hero, Toshiro Mifune, star of such classic samurai movies as Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Rasho-Mon—whose original restaurant in Paris is called La Sola. In New York the hands-on skills of co-executive chefs Yuu Shimano and Tomohiro Urata manifest a cross-cultural refinement very different from other Japanese restaurants around town.
       Shimano (right) studied at the Tsuji Culinary Institute in both Osaka and Lyon, France, then worked at various Michelin-starred restaurants, including La Villa des Lys at the Hôtel Majestic in Cannes and Guy Savoy in Paris. Urata (below) also studied at Tsuji, then became Chef de Partie at La Relais de la Poste in Magescq, Régis & Jacques Marcon in Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid and Maison Troisgros in Roanne. They are now joined by Executive Pastry Chef Celia Lee, whose training has been at the French Pastry School in Chicago and stints at Ladurée and The Modern in New York.
      I mention all this bio because the flux of French and Japanese cuisine is as seamless here as in certain dishes you’ll find at Le Bernardin, where Chef Eric Ripert has long used Japanese techniques to enhance his classic French cuisine; here they do the opposite with impressive results. If you’re dying for sushi at Mifune, however, you need to go downstairs to Sushi AMANE (which has a new chef) for an omekase meal.
     Mifune was
designed by Katsunori Takeuchi, with a well-lighted counter as you enter that leads to a large, high-ceilinged main room done in traditional natural wood, with three large shoji style panels on the far wall accented with the Mifune family crest. Tables are well separated and the noise level low, with soft modern jazz playing in the background. The service staff, under new general manager, Mayumi Kobayashi, is well-versed and extremely affable. There is a very interesting cocktail list (try the Manhattan/Negroni-like Throne of Blood!, named after a 1957 Mifune movie ), excellent sake list and good wine list.
         There are two menus at Mifune—eight courses at $125, with additional courses for a $40 “upgrade”—done in the
traditional washoku style geared to the seasons, and at the moment, with food shipments both domestic and abroad undependable, the chefs are ferreting out the best from local New York markets. Thus, the dishes I am about to describe may not be what you order tomorrow or next week, but you’ll see the extraordinary range from what my wife and I were served at summer’s end.
        Dinner began with a marvel of chilled celeriac-cauliflower soup whose mild flavors were joined by drops of pistachio oil and the crunch of tiny croutons. I was frankly amazed at the good aroma and taste of Australian winter black truffles arranged on top of the soup.  Wonderfully fresh scallop tartare followed with a lime gelée and touch of caviar, along with marbled potato chip with braised nori seaweed and rich Hokkaido uni sea urchin. The Koumbu-cured fluke came with a cool tomato gelee, trout caviar, tomato salad, kohlrabi leaf puree.
     
So far dishes stayed fairly within the style of modern Japanese cuisine, but next came luscious duck liver mousse with sweet fig jam and spiced bread with pickled vegetables that could have come from any of the Michelin-starred French restaurants the chefs had worked in. Squid (below) was very delicately fried tempura-style with a subtle yuzu-miso sauce, lime zest and zucchini squash ribbons, while porcini mushrooms were done in the chawanmushi style of steamed egg custard.
       Smoked eel found a delightful complement in foie gras with a sunchoke puree, fried sunchoke chips and a surprising coffee sable. A palate cleanser was next: Grilled eggplant ice cream with more of those black truffles. Then came smoked sea bass with a classic sauce vierge and artichoke puree.
        Four years agio I applauded Mifune for not going with the fad for wagyu beef, but the chefs have now hopped onboard, albeit with Kobe A5 from Japan (below). Served with brioche, a too-sweet teriyaki sauce and roasted seasonal vegetables, it still strikes me as too fatty and rich, especially at this point in the meal, after ten previous dishes, with a rice dish still to come, which was a
soupy uni risotto with nori, shiso and a big bowl of miso.
       If I have one real criticism of the food is that too many dishes have a smoked element, not always light of touch, which is fine in one or two dishes but not as a leitmotif throughout.
       Celia Lee finishes the meal with an intense raspberry sorbet and sumptuous dessert of caramelized banana, butter beer ice cream, oat streusel, rum anglaise, banana foam, and brown butter Chantilly.
       I am not a big fan of long tasting menus whatever the cuisine, but our twelve courses came at a reasonable pacing, and, though portions are more generous at Mifune than at most Japanese restaurants, I didn’t start to flag until that wagyu course. This is definitely a place I would bring friends who are both hungry and adventurous, and the price for this lavish a meal is very reasonable—certainly less than you might spend solely on sushi elsewhere.
       I keep calling Mifune a “Japanese” restaurant, but by its own statement, the element of French culture is deep, which makes Mifune both unique and uniquely exciting in New York.

        

Mifune is open for . Dinner: Wed.-Sat.






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CAPONE’S GOLD


By John Mariani

To read all chapters of Capone's Gold beginning April 4, 2021 go to the archive
 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 


 

         The next morning they had the atlas spread open on the dinner table.  David felt funny not having a change of clothes. Katie was in jeans and a v-neck t-shirt that David couldn’t keep his eyes off. She seemed to notice and said, “It’s a little chilly in here. I’m going to get a sweater.”
         The age of the atlas was ideal for assessing how boundaries changed before, during and after World War II.  By the end of 1939, Italy had taken control of Ethiopia and Germany occupied the Sudetenland, Bohemia, the Czechoslovak Republic, Poland, the Saar Basin, and Austria. Russia had invaded Eastern Poland and claimed Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia to be under the Soviet “sphere of influence.” 
        
“Italy sounds the most likely because of his mob connections there,” said Katie.
         David wagged his head. “Mmm, yes and no. I don’t know if Capone would trust the Mafia in Italy. They gave him so much trouble in Chicago and New York.  Plus, I seem to recall the Mafia had a rough time with Mussolini, who wanted them put out of business because they were too powerful in the south. That needs more research.”
         “What about the Camorra? Those were Capone’s own people from around Naples.”
         “It’s possible. Anyway, Italy seems like a good bet. And I wouldn’t mind a trip there. Have you been?”
         “Yeah, a couple of times,” she said. “Mostly the tourist cities and my grandparents’ home town in Campania. Place called Laurino, south of Naples. You been to Italy?”
         “I did go once,” said David, “but it was purely for detective work. I went to Naples, but spent most of the time with the local police in their office. At least they took me out for some good dinners. And the pizza was really great.”
         “Tell me about it!” said Katie. “Did you go to a place named Ciro?”
         David seriously wanted to continue to talk more about pizza but said, “Let’s put in a little more time on these maps, then we’ll get something to eat.”
         “No problem,” said Katie, who returned to the maps. After a while, she said, “Well, we’ve eliminated a lot of countries.  Some too far away, some unworkable. But, hey, what about Germany?”
         “It’s pretty landlocked except up north on the Baltic Sea,” said David, tracing his finger over the map of Germany.
         “True, but Germany didn’t get belligerent until the late ‘30s.  And it was the one country not trying to get its gold out. Germany needed gold.”
         “Hmm, that’s right. But would Capone have the connections to make that transfer?  You think he’d trust the Nazis to safeguard the gold?”
         “Well, at the time of the heist nobody was at war with Germany, and weren’t there German-American mobsters Capone must have known?”
         “Sure,” said David, “most famous was Dutch Schultz (right)—another Bronx kid gone bad—though he stayed in New York. Real name was Flegenheimer. I think he got involved with the Italian families in New York, Genovese, Frank Costello, Lucky Luciano.  Hey, he even beat a tax evasion case. Schulz also stashed away something like $150 million in cash, jewelry and gold somewhere in the Catskills. That’s never been found either.”
         “Maybe that’s our next story. Anyway, so he might have helped Capone with contacts in Germany.”
         “Maybe, that is, before he was shot full of holes by a rival gangster in 1935.  And it was at a place called the Palace Chophouse in Newark.”
         “How ironic,” said Katie. “Restaurants also seem to be part of the standard procedure for whacking your enemy.”   
     
“Well, John Dillinger got his outside of a movie theater. Anyway, Schultz was a miserable guy. Made a miserable movie about him too, called Portrait of a Mobster.”
         “Guess I missed that one,” said Katie. “But, hey, wasn’t he also a character in Doctorow’s novel Billy Bathgate?”
         “That I wouldn’t know. Anyway, he couldn’t have had any connection with Capone or the Germans because he was dead two years before the heist took place.”
         “Okay, so we’ve narrowed it down, for the moment, to Italy and maybe Germany.  What do we do now?”
         “First we need to learn a bit more about Italian and German history, I’d say.  That seems to be your strength, Miss Cavuto.  Hit the books!”
         “And you will be doing what?”
         “I have a few ideas now that we’ve narrowed things down. So, let’s reconnoiter”—he said the word with comic swagger—“in what, three, four days?”
         “Busy, busy, busy.”

 

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         David busied himself re-connecting with old cronies and contacts in the police department and the F.B.I., sharing with them details—not all with everyone—that might get them to thinking and helping him to figure out the mystery of Al Capone’s gold. 
        
One contact suggested he check through records of the sale of gold flatware in the early 1930s. Another, who owned his own boat, said that a lot of the former rumrunners converted theirs into personal yachts after the war.  An F.B.I. contact told him there were some topics he was not at liberty to address, and when David called Frank English, all he said was, “Yeah, that is still secret info. Not top secret, but I really can’t speak about it.”
         “About what?” asked David.
         “About where we think the gold might still be located.”
         “Well, can you tell me if it’s in the U.S. or the Caribbean?”
         English hesitated. “I can only tell you there is little evidence for us to think so. Remember, we’ve been looking for this gold for fifty years, and frankly, we don’t feel real good about not finding it.  I’d like to help you more, David, but my hands are tied.”
         “All right, I understand, but something tells me if I were still with NYPD, you’d be more forthcoming.”
         “You may be right, but you’ve already told me you’ve come up short with your NYPD contacts.”
         “I’ll grant you that,” said David, “but then the gold heist was never a New York-connected case as far as anyone believes.”
         “Well, I can tell you that the gold is definitely nowhere in New York or Chicago, if that helps.”
         “Narrows it way down, Frank. How about Timbuktu? Any chance it’s in Timbuktu?”
         “My God!” said English, “How did you find out?”
         “Wild guess.  But seriously, can you just tell me if you think it is more probably in Europe or outside the U.S. rather than here or in the Caribbean?”
         “If you’re asking me, David, I’d say yes. But that’s not an official response.  I haven’t a clue where the gold is, but personally I don’t think it’s here or hidden in some cave in the Caribbean.”
         “Okay, your opinion bolsters mine, Frank.”
         “Sorry, man, it’s the best I can do.”
         David knew from his conversation that the F.B.I. knew something about something but that the location of the gold was still a mystery to the feds.  After fifty years had gone by, it wasn’t as if the F.B.I. was about to pounce.

 

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         Meanwhile, Katie was doing her research on the state of gold in the international market during the years just before and during World War II, and confirmed the fact that European nations were parking gold in the U.S. Treasury for safekeeping.  Yet neither Germany nor Italy did so, although they may have had some stored in Swiss banks, which discreetly kept even their most notorious clients’ business transactions secret.
     
Katie found that in 1934 Switzerland passed an act that said any banker who revealed depositor information would be tried as a criminal and put in prison—this, at a time when the Third Reich decreed that any German citizen found to hold foreign capital would be executed. Largely those citizens were German Jews trying to get their life savings into Swiss banks. Those who could not get their money out had it confiscated by the Nazis—some of it Jewish wedding rings—who melted it down to destroy the identifying national markings in order to finance the war.  Ironically, the gold and money Germany plundered from conquered countries was often shipped off to Swiss banks.
         At that point in her research Katie thought it best to contact her old European History professor, Karl Mundt, himself a German and a scholar of the Third Reich.
        She met him on one of those brisk autumn days she remembered when she attended Fordham University (below) a decade before.  How she’d rush across the Rose Hill campus after taking the bus across Pelham Parkway.  Past the Collegiate Gothic buildings and University Church whose stained glass windows were a gift from France’s King Louis Philippe I.  The air smelled of autumn, the clouds scudded quickly across the sky, and Katie thought how much she’d loved those college days.
         Professor Mundt looked ten years older but still retained all his European courtliness, rising from his office chair and bowing slightly when Katie arrived.
         “Professor Mundt, it’s so wonderful to see you,” she said.
         “Yes, yes, Katie, how have you been?  You live so close and haven’t come to visit.”
         Katie defended her absence owing to her preoccupation with work, then, after appropriate small talk about the days she was a student and how things have changed, Prof. Mundt asked how he could be of help.
         She explained that she had been given an assignment by McClure’s Magazine to try to hunt for an enormous amount of gold bullion said to have been stolen by Al Capone from federal armored trucks back in 1934.  She was working with a former New York City detective who was very involved in putting mobsters like John Gotti in jail.
         Katie went on to tell her former professor a brief version of what she believed were Capone’s intentions vis-à-vis the Fed, and how they’d been stymied trying to locate what happened to the gold.
          Professor Mundt nodded, saying, “Very interesting,” asking questions of a kind he might have when Katie took her oral exam a decade before.
         “So,” said Katie, “since you’re the authority on the Third Reich and how it financed the war, I was hoping you could tell me more about the way they acquired gold, and if it’s at all possible that Al Capone might have shipped some of his to Germany for safekeeping, that is, before Germany became a hostile nation in Europe.”
         “Well, let’s for the moment leave Mr. Capone back in prison and talk about Nazi gold, for it was the backbone of the Reich’s financial system.” Katie took out a notebook she’d already labeled NAZI GOLD and began writing, with her recorder as a back-up.
         “You will recall that after World War I Germany was left in dire financial straits by the League of Nations, and it was central to Hitler’s appeal to the German people that he would bring the country back to economic health.  For that he needed gold, because the German currency was the weakest in Europe at the time.  He desperately needed gold to build Germany’s infrastructure and, in particular, his very expensive and expansive military.” 
        
Prof. Mundt spoke in detail of how, once in office, Hitler quickly began confiscating German Jews’ gold, and when the Anschluss occurred with Austria, he acquired all their gold holdings, then from the Czech National Bank and the National Bank of Hungary. Next, of course, was Poland.
         “So they paid for all their reconstruction with gold?” asked Katie.
         “Not entirely.  You see, once they stole the gold from the countries they conquered, the local currency became worthless and the people were forced to use only Reichsmarks, so that those people had to buy German products. There was nothing left in the banks to support their own currency.”
         Prof. Mundt explained that Germany made its currency and gold convertible on the world market by using the neutral countries like Spain, Sweden and, most of all, Switzerland, as exchanges. Therefore, after converting the Reichsmarks to pesetas or kronors or Swiss francs, Germany could buy raw materials, munitions, and industrial tools from France, Belgium, and other European countries.  Without tremendous stores of gold, Hitler could never have waged war. Once the war began Germany looted the gold reserves of every country it invaded, including more then $200 million from France and Belgium, smelted it down and stamped it with the initials “RB” for Reichsbank, along with the German eagle.
         “What happened to the gold after Germany began losing the war?” asked Katie.
         “When the Nazis were pushed out of Italy they stole $100 million from the Italian banks.  I believe the estimate of all the gold they stole from 1934 on was something like $27 billion—which would be many times that amount in today’s dollars.”
         “And after the war?”
         “Well, of course, many of the high Nazi officials attempted to get as much of the gold as they could into Swiss banks, but there was simply too much of it to protect entirely from the Allies.  In fact, a month before the war ended in Europe an American infantry battalion found a vast store of the gold in a vault 1,600 feet down a mine shaft (below).  I seem to recall there were thousands of bars of bullion and many bags of gold Reichsmarks.”
         Nevertheless, he said, there was still a great deal of gold stored in Berlin, which was under attack from both the Allies and the Russians, so the Nazis somehow transported much of the gold to southern Bavaria, where the top Nazi officers had a fantasy to re-group and fight on.  None of this gold had ever been found, though when the Allies began searching certain mines and tunnels in Austria, they found that at the last minute they’d been dynamited, making everything irretrievable.  After the war, one of the Nazi banking officials said that a tunnel in Walbrzych, Poland, contained several train cars piled high with bullion.  They have never been found.
         “Amazing story,” said Katie.  “So, Professor Mundt, do you think it was possible or even feasible that Al Capone could have made a deal with the Nazis to store the gold for him, allowing them to use it for rebuilding before the war?”
         “Well, I don’t know how Mr. Capone felt about Adolph Hitler in the mid-1930s, but his hatred for the U.S. officials who sent him to prison might well have caused him to come to some agreement, even if it meant that his gold would be part of the Nazis’ cache in Switzerland.  Before the war there might have been some way for Mr. Capone to get the gold to Germany, but after 1939 it would have been impossible.”
         “And what about Italy? Mussolini?”
         “Again, Katie, I don’t know how Mr. Capone regarded the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, though Il Duce was intent in wiping out the Mafia.  It’s all possible.  You know that Italian women, including Italian-American, were encouraged to send their gold wedding rings to Il Duce?  Anyway, perhaps you’ll find out all this interesting information and publish it as a serious scholarly history?”
         “Thanks for your faith in me, Professor Mundt.  But I think I’m very far from that prospect.”
         “Well, then, Katie, I hope I have been of some help and I would very much like to be kept informed of your progress.  Call me any time.  And now, I’m sorry, but I have a class to teach.  And believe me, Katie, the students these days are nothing like you.”
         Katie Cavuto exited his office and stepped out again onto the broad campus lawn, thinking that maybe she could turn this all into a book.  Maybe she would even someday teach journalism classes at her old alma mater.  But for the moment, she thought she’d better fill David in on what she now knew about German gold.




©
John Mariani, 2015



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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR


BILLECART-SALMON 2021
By John Mariani


 

      Billecart-Salmon has been consistently ranked among the finest Champagnes, dating back to 1818 when Niçolas François Billecart married Elizabeth Salmon and has been in the family ever since, today managed by CEO Mathieu Roland Billecart (below) about where the house stands in 2021. 

Tell me a little of your own background. How many family members are involved? 

I grew up in Champagne, but was trained internationally. I studied Economics and Business in London, and more recently, I graduated with a Champagne vines pruning degree that teaches how to prune vines the Champagne way, as well as all other steps in growing Champagne vines/grapes. While it is not strictly necessary to do my job as CEO of the house, it was very important for me to understand the finest details of how to get the very best grapes across our different vineyards as it is the essential cornerstone to making amazing Champagne. I came back to Champagne in 2017, and I have run the estate since 2019 as the seventh-generation CEO.  Our family has created and has remained at the helm of the house since 1818. I am the 7th generation of the family to lead the house and I work with two other family members who focus on sales:  Antoine Roland-Billecart is Deputy General Manager for export;  François Roland-Billecart is Chairman. Jean Roland-Billecart is fifth generation and honorary member of the Billecart-Salmon tasting committee.

 

When did Billecart-Salmon begin its rise to eminence?

The house has long been known to produce some of the very best Champagnes, and  my great-great grandfather got them into the Court of Russia.  Our reputation has continued to grow organically amongst the connoisseurs and the elite of food and wine lovers since then. We have never done much communication or advertising compared to other brands. It is basically word of mouth and informal patronage from top chefs, sommeliers, wine lovers, collectors, etc. that have made Billecart’s reputation as a top quality producer. More recently, we were in the spotlight in 1999 as our prestige cuvée Nicolas François 1959 was elected Champagne of the Millennium by a panel of the most esteemed international wine critics.

 

How much Champagne does Billecart-Salmon make and sell? (It is believed production is about 1.7 million bottles.) Where are its biggest markets?

Billecart does not publish numbers on quantities produced, but in terms of markets, geographically, France remains our largest market, followed by the USA, the UK, Italy and Australia. In terms of market segment, we focus on high-end gastronomy restaurants as well as luxury hotels and independent wine merchants. We also work in partnership with independent luxury brands and are fortunate to have a long list of private clients and collectors. We simply try to be available where they go, but we have to be very selective as we have limited quantities to sell, relative to the demand.

 

What sets it apart from other grand marques?

The quality of wine is at the center of everything we do and we have our own way of creating our very fine bubbles with no compromise. Our family ownership and management mean that we thrive to build long-term, sustainable and resilient relationships with all the people involved in the Billecart-Salmon ecosystem, from our grower partners to our customers across the world. It is the accumulation of small things that make a big difference of quality in the end. It is easy to say that one focuses on quality—whether it is the vineyard, in the wine making, approach to people etc.—but it is quite another to build a reputation around it as we have done. To be more specific with examples, I can’t think of any other houses that have:

                 Uninterrupted family ownership, have a CEO that is a direct descendant of the founders of the house and are over 200 years old.

                 Won the awards of the best Champagne ever produced with the Champagne of the Millennium award for our (now called) Cuvée Nicolas François in Vintage 1959 and our 1961 also finished second.

                 Source its grapes from 2/3 Grand Cru and Premier Cru. 

                 Use a unique cold fermentation technique that gives additional freshness and longevity to all its wines.

                 Is present in the vast majority of the Michelin star restaurants in France and across the world.

 

 

What happened to the vineyards during the two world wars?

They stayed where they were, and they were still worked, but it was clearly a troubled time. Champagne was still produced, but mainly consumed by the Germans. Stocks were re-built by setting aside a part of the production every year that was not sold to rebuild our stock of bottles and reserve wines. These are huge financial sacrifices for a family to make, particularly in hard times as it was then, but it is the price to pay if you want to offer exceptional Champagne to your clients.

Champagne workers in the vineyards during World War II


How has climate change impacted Champagne?

Temperatures have gone up in the last decade. The rise in the temperature in Champagne over the past three decades has been 1.1C (about 2F).  So far, it has meant it is easier to get our grapes to maturity, which is a good thing (for now!). We have had to adapt our methods in the vineyard from pruning, taking some leaves out, harvesting early, etc. Longer term, we may have to change the type of vines we use and the density of plantation but we are not quite at that stage yet. The CIVC has approved the use of Voltis as a potential grape to use in the future to fight against global warming. It is still very early days, and we have not experimented with it as a house for now.

 

What are the reasons prestige cuvées are so much more expensive than other Champagnes from the same marque?

They are the best of the best: the best parcels that give our best wines, long ageing in our cellars, and they are only done in selective years. All our prestige cuvées are vintage Champagne (i.e, made from only one year instead of a blend of several years). What makes the prestige cuvées stand apart at Billecart-Salmon is that they are only produced in the very best years, from the very best parcels that have achieved the ultimate maturity. They are aged significantly longer than our NVs, typically a minimum of 10-12 years before they are released, thereby gaining additional depth and complexity. Finally, the blends of our prestige cuvées are made to age for a very long time so our cuvées Nicolas Francois, Elisabeth Salmon and Louis Salmon can frequently age well over 20 years. It is best to think of these cuvées as the “best of the best” that a house’s vineyard and know-how can ever produce. The vintage element means you get a different expression in the wine from one year to the next depending on the weather conditions of that particular year, which makes it a one off.

 

Describe to me the differences of the vineyards and why they were chosen for the bottling Elisabeth Salmon, i.e., Montagne de Reims and the Grande Vallée de la Marne; the Côtes des Blancs; Valofroy, a parcel of old vines in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ with a full southern exposure. 

They are decided at the harvest based on the tasting of the grapes directly in the plot. For the Elisabeth Salmon 2008 blend, we sourced our Pinot Noir Grand Cru and Premier Cru from Montagne de Reims and Grand Vallée de la Marne and Chardonnay Grand Cru exclusively from Cotes des Blancs. Vallofroy is the name of a parcel of Pinot Noir planted in the village of Mareuil sur Aÿ, and we used the grapes from that parcel to vinify as red wine that was used to make this cuvée as a rosé (blending white and red wines).

The most important thing is when we blind taste the wines from these parcels and we select the very best to use in these top cuvées.  It is hard to summarize, but it comes down to:

                 The soil (at Billecart-Salmon, we favor deep chalk soil that you find in the premier and grand cru and we use over 2/3 of Grand Cru and Premier Cru)

                 The choice of the right grape variety in specific regions (for example, Côte des Blancs is amazing for Chardonnay but less so for other grape varieties)

                 The age of the vineyard (the older the vines, the more concentration you get )

                 The maturity level at which they are harvested

                 Aside from these technical elements, we confirm the above when we press the grapes and taste the must that we make wine with. Great taste is what it is all about ultimately if you want a great wine and champagne

 

 

How have sales been impacted during the pandemic?

They were badly impacted at the start during Spring, but, taking a step back, Billecart-Salmon has more demand than the bottles we have for sale, so we switched our allocations across different markets/channels and, over the entire year, we sold the same number of bottle as in a normal year. We are fortunate to have much more demand globally than we can supply, so we simply increased their allocation to markets/regions and wine merchants/retailers that we knew typically wanted more of our bottles (knowing that our restaurant/hotels clients would not want to take their usual allocations since they were closed).

 

Did restaurants stop buying when they were closed by Covid?

For the vast majority, that’s the right, but our clients kept buying our bottles from retailers and websites to enjoy at home and make their lockdown a little bit more enjoyable.

 

What are the differences between Reims and Épernay wines? 

Reims (left) and Épernay are indeed cities where other houses have based their HQ, but it is not where the vines are grown. Also, virtually all three main grape varieties are planted in all villages around Reims or Epernay and indeed across the wider Champagne region. At Billecart-Salmon, we have made the choice to stay in the heart of the vineyard at Mareuil sur Aÿ and not move our HQ to a City, so we can stay close to our vineyards. We are very fortunate that the vast majority of the Premier and Grand Cru are 20km radius around our village and that’s where we source our grapes from. You are right that there are differences between each of the villages individually and even sometimes within a village, and our 200 years of experience and know-how gives us the ability to hand-pick where to get the very best from each parcel and great variety to make great Champagne.

 

How do you balance tradition with modernity?

Tradition gives us the experience and know-how to make exceptional wines. It has taught us the sacrifices and commitment we must have to produce the very best Champagne, but nothing is ever set in stone and you have to keep challenging yourself to do better. We embrace modernity and technology where it helps us make better wines and / or work our vines better.  That said, we are a little weary of trying every little new fad. We have to be humble in our approach, we have been making wines for over 200 years and we know that one has to take time to achieve excellence and not be distracted all the time. We tend to avoid anything that does not contribute to long-term and sustainable improvement in quality, so that excludes much of the trends in short-term partnership with celebrities, advertisement. We work with nature and that requires long-term engagement and patience, if you want to make any kind of improvement.

 

How has the competition from sparklers from other countries, including the USA, Italy, Spain et al, affected Champagne sales?

It is hard to say. We know the sparkling category is growing faster than Champagne but equally Champagne production is limited so it is to be expected. It may affect some of the bottom end Champagne producers in terms of direct competition but that does not directly affect us with our customers that want the very best wine, instead of buying something (mainly) based on price.

 

Are any of the great marques owned by non-French?

Many ´grand marques’ are owned by listed international groups (LVMH, Pernod Ricard, etc.) and I suspect many of their shareholders are non-French. At the very top in terms of quality and at the top end of Champagne, I can’t think of a house with a non-French owner.

 

 





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. . . AND THE EDGE TASTES JUST LIKE THE TIN CAN

“Conventional wisdom says that fresher is better, but when it comes to umami-packed brine and easy volume, canned clams have the edge.”—Anna Hezel,
 The Shortcut to Clam Opulence,” Taste (8/21)

 









 
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 Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com.



   The Hound in Heaven (21st Century Lion Books) is a  novella, and for anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance, inspiration, even the supernatural, I hope you'll find this to be a treasured  favorite. The  story concerns how, after a New England teacher, his wife and their two daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their barn in northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise. But when tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and the spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring his master back from the edge of despair. 

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The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink by John F. Mariani (Bloomsbury USA, $35)

Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but let me proudly say that it is an extensive revision of the 4th edition that appeared more than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and so much more, now included. Word origins have been completely updated, as have per capita consumption and production stats. Most important, for the first time since publication in the 1980s, the book includes more than 100 biographies of Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.


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"Italian restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far outnumber their French rivals.  Many of these establishments are zestfully described in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by food-and-wine correspondent John F. Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street Journal.


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FEATURED LINKS: I am happy to  report that the Virtual Gourmet is  linked to four excellent travel sites:

Everett Potter's Travel  Report

I consider this the best and savviest blog of its kind on the  web. Potter is a columnist for USA Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury  Spa Finder, a contributing editor for Ski and  a frequent contributor to National  Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com  and Elle Decor. "I’ve designed this site is for people who take their  travel seriously," says Potter. "For travelers who want to learn about special  places but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for the privilege of  staying there. Because at the end of the day, it’s not so much about five-star  places as five-star experiences." 






Eating Las Vegas JOHN CURTAS has been covering the Las Vegas food and restaurant scene since 1995. He is the co-author of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants (as well as the author of the Eating Las Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas. He can also be seen every Friday morning as the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3  in Las Vegas.



              



MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani,  Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish. Contributing Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 

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