Victoria’s Secrets (Part IV of IV): Get Seduced at Sips
November 30, 2009 by Hedonista · Leave a Comment
Alas, dear readers, your Hedonista and Ronaldo of Cornichon have reached the end of our four-part series of Victoria’s Secrets….
In some ways, we’ve saved the best for last – for everyone loves a happy ending, do we not? This seems an apt end to our scribblings on Victoria’s hidden culinary delights, for Sips Artisan Bistro – located in James Bay, right next door to the James Bay Spirit Merchants – are sinfully splendid Siamese twins birthed by Spinnakers Brewpub, an enophilic foodie’s wet dream, if you will.
And you will, believe me. For although the goal of this hedonistic haven is to share the unique offerings of British Columbia’s impressive and veritable Cornucopia of pleasantly surprising and impressive beers and wines – which are matched up with artisan meats, cheeses, island-grown-and-raised poultry and local pacific seafood, the real find here is Master Brian Storen, who indulged us with a media tasting….
Ah, dear Brian the librettist ... his words coax my palate into a palette that literally create pure art and beguile me without end.... His mastery of poetry and prose makes Cyrano de Bergerac seem rather ... inadequate. (A veritable toe-curling tasting was had here, my hedonists.)
HEDONISTA: I have a confession to make, dear readers. I have a crush on poet-turned-sommelier Brian Storen. Not the kind of crush I have for Victoria’s Linda and George Szasz of Stage, mind you – that wholesome, husband-an’-wife-makin’-fab-food kinda crush. What I feel for this literary libations lover is far more … seductive. An “I’d wish he’d write me a love letter” kinda crush. Think college professor crush, when you hang on every word spoken and every smile, every glint of those seemingly bottomless azure ‘n’ steel hued eyes. When he smiles it’s as if it’s is just for you; when he, oh say, pours you yet another glass of wine (for by now you’ve truly lost count), it’s as if some magical moment, some exceptional gift, has been revealed only to you. By this time you’re drunk – not on the liquid love, mind you, but on the literary love: his words, to be exact. Phrases such as “slap of the baby dragon’s tail on wet slate” (to describe the cold fermented terroire finish of Cobble Hill’s Venturi Schultze 2006 Brut Naturel, made with fermented pinot auxerrois, pinot gris, and kerner grapes) and “burbling wet dream ephemera in the diligence of nectar drunk bumble bees humming frizzante dexterity while they work, not caring how they get into the flower nor whether they ever emerge” (to detail the tasting tones of B.C.’s first meadery, Tugwell Creek’s Sparkling Methode Classic Wassail Mead). And the food pairings … true food erotica – nay, food porn. All you can do is be wined, dined, and submit to a final night cap – rather aptly named “The Leg Spreader” if you can believe it (and, at this stage of the food and wine orgy, trust me when I say you can). His tasting notes for this climactically close-to-coital cocktail concoction:
The Leg Spreader. In Brian's words: "Dénouement of ‘The Leg Spreader’ cocktail composed of Victoria Gin, a drop of Venturi Schulze balsamic vinegar inoculated by a 57 year old starter barrel from their 6 wood solera and Venturi Schulze Vineyards Brandenburg #3." Need I say more?
Fireweed honey esters roil up the glass, pungent with frankincense and myrrh smoked ancient stone and wood shafts funneling the languorous movement of an opulently overripe apricot shedding its skin before slipping into a gooseberry lined bed and the trembling embrace of a post pubescent fig tree, commingling [sic] their rhapsodic liquid essence in the twice blessed womb of myth & imagina.
A fitting grand finale that leaves you feeling weak in the knees and tingly all over – not to mention one that you simply can’t refuse. For Master Storen seduces you with each and every sip of the way, from amuse bouche to night cap, from flirtatious first glance to post-coital culinary ciao. For his professorial lecture is revelation, dear readers. I strongly believe that his class should be entitled thus: The Advanced Enophilic Class of Foodie Philosophy – “the palate as orgasm to the soul.”
You’ve been forewarned, my dear hedonists; heed my words. Now, get yourself over to Victoria and heed his.
RONALDO: Brian Storen, poet laureate of the Kingdom Bacchus, Canada’s 2005 sommelier of the year, is probably the only person to use the terms “sweaty bovine,” “post-coital” and “necrotic” in the same sentence to discuss a wine, and he does it effortlessly, the words rolling from his tongue like arpeggios from Mozart’s fingers. This to describe a Kettle Valley Vineyards malbec grown in the Okanagan’s grand cru Naramata Bench, a fine bottle but not even the standout in an amazing tasting of great wines from British Columbia. (That honor, to Cornichon’s palate, probably went to a Venturi-Schultze pinot noir.) Storen would not mind. He riffs in another dimension, a whirlwind of free-association, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Blake and Jack Kerouac all at once: “earth, bramble and spice olfactory escalator’s ascendance into gossamer strands of first crushed carnations then blackberry and melted purple crayon sylphs riding bare back through a heaving pack of saddle mounted black currant.” (Take that, Robert Parker!)
Spinnakers' James Bay Spirit Merchants, located right next door to - nay, connected to - Sips.
Sips is hardly the environment you’d choose for a seduction, let alone a tasting of benchmark wines. The room itself is spare, a shoebox illuminated by the garish fluorescent fixtures mandated by the Provincial Liquor Board to keep PLS (private liquor store) licensees from making their products too appealing. And Sips, you come to realize, shares its premises and its liquor license with Spinnakers, the pioneering craft brewery, gastropub and guest house located across the Inner Harbour in Esquimault. Beyond the glass divider, a plethora of smiley-faces indicating products not carried by government stores. “Every bottle has its story,” the signs say, and it falls to the mild-mannered, long-haired, Storen to tell them. And tell the stories he does, with clarity, erudition and enthusiasm.
“Hardwired to the trigeminal brain stem, the palate is portal to the soul,” Storen’s story begins. It would be a shame to paraphrase it, to do more than pay homage to his 13-part seduction. His 1,500-word tasting narrative, fully annotated with matching foods, is available right here, in PDF format. Can you keep a secret? It’s not too many notes if you’re listening, it’s not too many wines if you’re paying attention. The trick is let yourself be seduced (by the wine, by the music) without falling asleep.
