Steve brought a mystery wine last night:
- HarlequinCllrs Syrah MinickVnyd/YakimaVlly/WA (14.6%; www.HarlequinWine.com) RobertGoodfriend/ElizabethCook/Touchet 2005: Very dark color; strong plummy/boysenberry/Syrah/blueberry/chocolaty bit milk of magnesia light toasty/oak/smokey bit complex lovely nose; soft very lush/rich/mouthfilling huge fruit/boysenberry/blueberry/Syrah/chocolaty/spicy slight roasted/Rhonish light smokey/oak beautiful flavor; very long/lingering ripe/plummy/boysenberry/Syrah/blueberry/chocolaty light toasty/smokey/oak slight roasted/Rhonish/spicy finish w/ soft/smooth/round tannins; not showing a lot of complexity or evolution but a wonderful drinking Syrah probably as good as it’s going to get; a wonderful match to a slice of razz maz. $22.00 (TTR/Seattle)
More stuff from TheBloodyPulpit:
- Harlequin: I have, of course, followed HarlequinCllrs from the very start. In fact, well before the very start. RobertGoodfriend is a long-standing good friend. He & DougMohr opened up a wonderful restaurant in SantaFe in the late '70’s by the name of e.k.mas. Robert worked the kitchen and Doug the front. They both were very interested in wine and had an exemplary wines list, not a bunch of heavy-hitters, but reasonably priced and always some very interesting stuff. Both Doug & Robert came to SantaFe from Detroit. I spent many an afternoon on the patio tasting wines w/ those two. The menu was simple California cusine but very well prepared.
They used to do winemaker dinners that were very popular. NickMartin, BobLindquist, BrianBabcock were some of the folks who came. One dinner, the Qupe I believe, was when the DetroitPistons were playing in the NBA finals. We would hear coming out of the kitchen huge cheers (and groans) periodically, as the Pistons waxed & waned. The courses started coming out of the kitchen slower & slower. The waitstaff kept pouring more & more wine and the decibel level on the patio rose & rose. Finally, the Pistons put away the Knicks, 97-95, out came the razz maz, and we all wobbled out into the darkened Guadalupe St.
When the restaurant abruptly closed, Robert went out to Paso to do some events for GaryEberle. He worked a crush or two w/ KennyVolk/WildHorse, living in his tent pitched out among the vines. He eventually opened a restaurant in Paso, probably the first really good restaurant there in Paso. But the wine bug was planted and Robert eventually moved up to the WilametteVlly and worked in several wineries there. He opened an Italian restaurant in Bellingham. Eventually he married ElizabethCook and moved down to the Seattle area & settled in, where he & Elizabeth started HarlequinCllrs, making mostly WashState wines. The wines, across the board, were excellent, particulary the Viognier.
Eventually, Robert opened up TheTastingRoom on PostAlley in Seattle as a place to sell a bunch of small WashState wineries. SteveCostigan was in there over a week ago, met Robert, and picked up this btl to bring back for us to try.
Not sure what Robert is doing these days…other than hanging out at his tasting bar. The Harlequin WebSite has been “under construction” for yrs & yrs. Many of the wines available in TheTastingRoom are old vintages, at least on the BebSite (https://tastingroomseattle.com/). Not a good sign. But the TastingRoom is apparently going strong.
Anyway…an absolutely delicious Syrah that brought back some very good memories of times when we both had a lot more hair. I still have two feathers on my wall from
Zeke & Lucy, Robert’s two parrots. Robert used to line their cages w/ copies of my TN’s, probably the greatest use they’d ever see.
Tom