Wine for Doggie Communication

As anyone who has pets can tell you, after a while you develop a certain understanding with your pet, a way that you communicate with each other, verbal and non-verbal cues you pick up on so that you can understand what the other wants and needs in a given moment.

Watching and interpreting Tuco's signs and signals is an ever-amusing and evolving sport, and seeing how he interprets us is even more so.

For example, Tuco's peeing style: I always thought that all male dogs cocked their legs to pee right from the get-go, but I have since learned that this is not the case.

Much of the time Tuco just kind of stretches his back legs out slightly and dips his hips and pees like that, kind of splay-legged, both back paws on the ground. He has quite a devil-may-care stance when he does this, in my opinion, a kind of "A-hoy Matey!" attitude.

When he is trying to send a message to other dogs however, be it on a walk or at the dog park against a shrub or tree trunk, then he cocks his leg. He does this with quite a bit of exuberance, shoving his leg up as high as it will go standing on the tip of his other back paw, I assume for maximum coverage.

The problem with this is that he lifts his leg so high and lifts it with such a sudden movement that he often teeters over mid-pee, and then has to try and recover his dignity and make sure the other dogs don't suspect that he just fell over while having a wee wee.

But the pee on the tree is always a clear message to other dogs that he was there.

In other ways he makes himself clear to us:

It's pretty clear when he stands by the door of the house that he needs to go out to pee, or when he won't leave the kitchen that he's telling us it's time to eat.

He seems to understand us much of the time, too. When we say "sit", he sits. When we say "In your place", he runs into his crate. When we say "Do you want your breakfast (or lunch, or dinner)?" he runs into the kitchen, tail wagging.

There are a few things that seem not to be quite so clear. Most dogs will become apoplectic when asked if they want to go out, or go for a walk, or go to the park. Tuco, however, when we ask him any of those questions, simply stares at us, maybe giving a slight tail wag, and then runs away from us as soon as he sees the leash.

This is made more confusing by the fact that when I ask "Do you want to run an errand?" he is delighted and wags his tail no end and can't wait to go. Running an errand usually involves me driving somewhere and leaving him in the car while I go to Trader Joe's or Target. This seems, however, to be no end of fun for him for some reason.

The fact that he runs away from us when he sees the leash is the oddest thing by far, because this is a dog that LOVES to go to the park and run and chase the ball, and in the mornings, when he needs to go somewhere to run, he lets us know it in no uncertain terms.

It begins with him rolling around on his back, teeth bared, making odd snuffling and snorting noises. It then progresses to him staring at us from a distance. And staring. And staring. He then moves closer. And closer. Still staring (see photo above). Then he puts his chin in one of our laps. And stares.

If that doesn't work, he moves on to the windows, raising the shades noisily with his snout and staring longingly outside. Then back at us. Then back outside.

If this still doesn't produce results he then progresses to operation-squeaky-toy, during which he picks up a variety of squeaky toys and pillows in turn and obsessively squeaks them, so that there is no possibility of ignoring him and no way we can hear the television, or ourselves think.

If that also fails, then he brings out the big guns: the chew toy. This is a dense, hard, plastic object which he will pick up and fling around the house, causing it to crash loudly against our hardwood floors. He will do this until our heads explode, or our floors are dented, or we finally, finally, take him out.

Once in the car he paces around the back, whimpering, whining and groaning like Chewbacca until we finally get to the park, whereupon he flings himself dramatically against a tree to announce his arrival with a pee, loses his balance and falls over.

My Wine for Doggie Communication is a 2009 Yves Leccia Domaine d'E Croce Patrimonio Rouge. This is red wine from the Patrimonio appellation in Corsica. The wine is made from 90% Niellucciu and 10% Grenache.

Now if you have never heard of the Niellucciu grape varietal you are not alone. I had never heard of it either! In fact, I just made it up.

No, that's not true either! Fact is, there is some dispute about the varietal itself, with some people claiming it is indigenous to the island of Corsica, while others maintaining it is a clone of the Sangiovese grape from Italy.

Regardless of its origins, the wine is yummy. It can be something delicious and surprising to bring out for guests who tend to like Pinot Noir, but might like to try a wine that is unusual and probably unlike anything they've had before. It is not an overpowering wine, with lots of bright, juicy red berry fruit, notes of rose soap leaves and a pronounced essence of damp stone.

I got it from Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley, CA for around $28/bottle, and if you want to try it they ship anywhere in the US that allows.

The Wine Shadow

Well, I am happy to report that my first evening as a "vintern" at Masa's Restaurant went very well. The place has a cosy, sort of old-world elegance to it, without being stuffy. Luckily, the place is small, so the staff is relatively small and, I am happy to report, extremely nice. I think they fight the stuffiness by having a younger waitstaff, which brings a lightness to the atmosphere. They laugh a lot and don't seem to take themselves too seriously.

This atmosphere is definitely fostered in large part by Alan Murray, their Head Sommelier. He also seems to be manager, and does everything from serving wine and making mixed drinks, to helping to seat new guests and even taking their coats. Everybody helps everybody and pitches in to lend a hand wherever help is needed. I like that philosophy, since it them seems to avoid any notions of superiority, of "I don't do THAT, that's YOUR job".

The wine list is, to say the least, overwhelming. At 800-strong, it would be a major feat to try to memorize it, so at this stage of the game, I'm not even going to try. Since the food is French-inspired California cuisine, the wine-list is heavily French-based, with a large number of wines from Burgundy.

But Alan has fun with his wines, and he seems to enjoy presenting wines that are a bit on the funky side, a bit unusual. One such wine was a wonderful gem from the Loire region of France, a Christian Venier "Les Clos des Carteries" Cheverny 2009. This wine is made from the Sauvignon Gris grape, and if you're like me, you have probably never heard of the Sauvignon Gris grape, but here it is!

The varietal is thought to be a clonal mutation of Sauvignon Blanc, and the flavor it imparts is somewhere between Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. This wine was absolutely delicious: delicate apple notes with a gorgeous floral bouquet of honeysuckle and chamomile. If you have the opportunity to try this wine, please do. It's a lovely discovery.

Other fun wines Alan introduced me to on my shift was a wine from Corsica, a blend of Grenache and Sangiovese; a lovely crisp white from Northeast Italy, very close to the Slovenian border; and a white from the Jura region of France (located between Burgundy and Switzerland), a blend of Savagnin and Chardonnay, with an oxidative quality that gives it a slightly sherry-ish flavor.

The fun thing was getting to taste so many wines throughout the course of the evening, since Alan himself tastes every bottle he opens. So what Alan tasted, I tasted! He also did a comparative wine-pairing tasting with me in a down moment. He had been pairing the roasted Hearts of Palm with a German Riesling, and wondered if he might try pairing it with a dry white instead. So we tasted the salad with the dry white, and decided it just didn't work. Somehow the flavors were just wrong together.

But when we tried it with the Riesling, it was like a little bit of magic: suddenly the flavors in both the wine and the salad were amplified. That's the joy of pairing, and the challenge. It really is trial and error much of the time. You don't know until you taste the two together.

One more fun fact I learned: wines, especially those that can age for a long time, will cycle in and out of drinkability. I mean, I knew, of course, that wines can often improve with age, but i always thought of it as more of a linear progression, that a wine would just keep improving with every year. But apparently that is not the case; it is more of an ebb and flow rather than a straight line.

For example, the 2005 Burgundy wines that had been tasting delicious in the last few years are apparently now "shutting down" a bit; the flavors are just not there at the moment, to the point where Alan is thinking of removing them from the wine list. But in another 3 years or so, according to Alan, those wines will cycle back around to being drinkable again, with even more complexity of flavor then they had before.

That is one of the things I love about wine: it is a living, breathing organism in its way, and it grows, changes, flourishes, and even languishes at different times in its life.

The biggest challenge of the evening was in the "shadowing" element of what I am doing. How to shadow without menacing, without breathing down someone's neck. Plus, people are constantly moving around the floor with trays of glasses, stacks of plates, etc. and it took a lot of focus to find some place to stand where I was not in the way of anybody, not right over Alan's shoulder, not making the diners uncomfortable, but was also close enough to be able to hear what Alan was saying.

I think I managed to find a decent balance; at the very least he invited me back, so it must have gone all right. This Saturday I will return, and Alan will actually not be there, so I may have more opportunity to pour wines myself and really be a part of the evening. I am looking forward to it.

Because of Thanksgiving, I will not be writing a post on Thursday (unless I find myself inspired by massive amounts of Turkey, pie and vino), but will return on Monday. In theory.

Have a wonderful holiday everyone. Let me know if you have any yummy wines with your vittles.