Month: November 2017

The news from the Brass Door and Pontotoc

Post author By Susan Ellis
Post date November 30, 2017

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

The Gate Clock Bar in the Dublin airport is the place for those leaving Ireland to get their last real pint of Guinness. It was there, at around 6 a.m. some 15 years ago, that Patrick Reilly met Seamus Loftus. They were introduced by Patrick’s wife Deni.

A couple weeks ago, Loftus and the Reillys were at the bar at the Brass Door talking over, yes, a pint of Guinness. The Reillys, who own the Majestic Grille and run the Front Porch, were brought in as consultants to bring order at the Brass Door, which is owned by Loftus and Meg and Scott Crosby.

“It’s a selfish project for us,” says Deni. The Reillys felt a connection to the Brass Door. They loved the building, saw the potential. Downtown should have an Irish pub, they thought. A place where soccer fans can gather and watch the games. What the Brass Door needed, they believed, was just a little guidance.

“The team needed a new captain,” says Loftus. “We found a new captain.”

The Brass Door, which had closed in July, reopened in early November. The pub was given a good cleaning, and equipment was updated. A new staff was hired. The Reillys sought to bring consistency to the pub’s hours, the service, and the food.

Some of the Brass Door’s tried-and-true favorites remain on the menu. The fried goat cheese is there, as are the hand-cut fries, Shepherd’s Pie, and the BELT sandwich.

One new dish is the Vegetable and Chickpea Balti. Balti is a Pakistani curry. This is Patrick’s nod to Birmingham, England’s soccer culture and its large Pakistani population.

They’ve also upped the Irish on their drinks menu. There’s Mangers Irish Cider and Murphy Goode wines. They’re also aiming to have the most extensive collection of Irish whiskeys in the city, including the Dubliner, Sexton, and Power’s John’s Lane. Among their speciality cocktails is the Caskmates Stout Pairing with Jameson Caskmates Stout mixed with Guinness and the Black Barrel Old Fashioned made with Jameson Black Barrel. There is, of course, Irish coffee.

One more thing: The Brass Door is now completely smoke-free, even the smaller side bar.

Deni says once word got out that they were reopening the place, she was flooded with texts and emails. “People have real feelings about this Irish pub.”

“It’s the old Door and the new Door,” Loftus says. “It’s the future and the past.”

Brass Door is open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Thursday through Saturday, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Special early-morning Saturday and Sunday hours for international soccer matches.

Daniel Masters has a lot on his plate these days. The owner of Silly Goose recently opened the jazz bar Pontotoc in the old Cafe Pontotoc space and is now making the finishing touches on Civil Pour, a bar inside the food hall South Main Market, which will have its grand opening on December 2nd.

Masters says that when the Cafe Pontotoc space opened up for rent, there was a lot of interest. He, for one, wanted a spot that was still downtown but a bit away from all the foot traffic where Silly Goose is located. He wanted to spread his culinary wings a bit.

Masters is partnered with Jeremy Thacker-Rhodes and Matthew Thacker-Rhodes. They stuck with the name because they simply liked it. It means “land of hanging grapes” in Chickasaw.

Pontotoc opened in mid-October. Chef Chris Yuer is in charge of the kitchen. The menu can be described as Mississippi Southern: PBR Boiled Peanuts, Alligator Filet Fritters, Sister Schubert Beignet with sour cream gelato … There’s also duck confit, pot roast, and pork belly.

Pontotoc’s cocktail menu features the classics — Side Car, Manhattan, and Moscow Mule. And there are seasonal Old Fashioneds and Daiquiris. The winter Old Fashioned includes pecan bitters.

For the space, the owners carved a cute, sorta enclosed patio out front and brought in a large chandelier as a focal point for the interior. They took out a divider to make a larger dining space and covered up a window looking into the kitchen with a back mirror.

They added a piano, too, all the better for this jazz bar specializing in classic jazz from all eras. They’ll have live music Thursday from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. and Friday through Saturday 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.

As for Civil Pour, Masters says he’s still working on the identity of the place. He says he’s leaving the Jell-o shots at Silly Goose and is envisioning top-notch charcuterie plates and old school cocktails like a Sazerac made with French cognac.

Pontotoc is open Monday through Friday 4-11 p.m., and Saturday 2 p.m.-midnight, and Sunday 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

Tags Brass Door Irish Pub, Cafe Pontotoc, Daniel Masters, Deni and Patrick Reilly, Pontotoc, Seamus Loftus

Music Music Features

Memphis, 2017

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date November 30, 2017

CREDIT: Alex Greene

A large portrait of Bach hangs in William Eggleston’s apartment; pivot to the left and you’ll see stacks of oscilloscopes and other electronic modules, green waveforms pulsing; pivot again and you’ll see his treasured Bösendorfer grand piano. Such disparate images capture both his love of music and the contradictions inherent in it. Of course, one must begin with the disconnect between his notoriety as one of the most compelling fine art photographers in the world and the fact that his latest project has nothing to do with photography at all — at least on the surface. His debut album, Musik, released last month on the Secretly Canadian label, explores his other great passion, one that blossomed long before he had his first camera.

“I began playing classical music when I was about four,” he explains, adding that “I have an ability to play anything I’ve heard.” Indeed, he is completely self-taught. “We had a piano in the hallway of our home. Whenever I’d pass through, I’d stop and play something.” Eventually, he deciphered musical notation, but his playing has always sprung from his ears more than his eyes. “People that are really good at sight reading, generally that’s the only thing they’re good at. Without the score, they can’t play a damn thing. Sight-reading is not musicianship to me.”

Alex Greene

William Eggleston at home

That’s a rare opinion for a classical music fan. Yet Eggleston listens to practically nothing else. He remains disdainful of most rock music, from Elvis Presley to Alex Chilton (despite having been a close friend of the Chilton family). And he’s even skeptical of jazz. This is especially paradoxical, as nearly all of Eggleston’s own recorded output is entirely improvised. Nonetheless, its closest stylistic affinity is with the harmonies and cadences of orchestral classical music.

For an artist who resolutely uses only real film stock, it’s ironic that his orchestral ambitions were made possible by modern digital synthesis. In the early 1990s, after a lifetime of playing piano, Eggleston discovered the Korg 01/W sampling keyboard, able to trigger hundreds of different orchestral sounds simultaneously with a split keyboard: cellos with the left hand, flutes with the right, and so on. His love for finely crafted machines, from guns to cameras, now extended to the Korg. “It’s manufactured in Tokyo, but a hundred percent of it is a bunch of engineers in California,” he notes admiringly. “It makes maybe a billion different sounds. When this model of Korg came out, I was so enchanted with the machine.” In fact, he bought four of them. And as he began improvising symphonies on the spot, the machine would record his every move.

Korg 01/W

“The machine has a memory, but also it has a floppy disc drive. And once you cut the power off of the machine, the memory’s erased. If you’re lucky, you’ve made a disc from the memory, which sounds just like it did when played.” Eggleston would improvise one orchestral piece after another, compiling many hours of music. His friends and family were the only listeners privy to these works, though readers of Robert Gordon’s It Came from Memphis got a taste from that book’s accompanying CD, which included an excerpt from the then-freshly recorded “Symphony #4, Bonnie Prince Charlie.” (As Eggleston notes, “I’m very much interested in Robert Burns.”) But after that initial exposure and a flurry of such spontaneous “compositions,” Eggleston’s recorded output tapered off.

“Now, this release that these people are doing was not my idea. I had nothing to do with it,” he notes. “This fellow, Tom Lunt, is the main force behind [Secretly Canadian’s] productions. And he’s been here a lot of times. All told, we went through something like 60 hours of music, all from floppy discs. I had tons of them.” None of the music was recorded in a conventional sense. “They would say, ‘Well, you must overdub.’ No. It was just straight, accurate recordings of what was played.” Each floppy disc was a snapshot of what he produced when sitting at the Korg.

The snapshot metaphor is apropos, given the artist’s freewheeling approach to photography, whereby he riffs off images encountered in everyday life. This tactic is especially apparent in the film Stranded in Canton, edited down from many hours of unstaged video footage that Eggleston shot on the fly in the mid-’70s. He is quick to affirm the similarity between improvised music and what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the “decisive moment” to which a photographer must always be attuned.

But don’t expect Eggleston to reprise his Musik in a live setting anytime soon. “I don’t do public performances,” he says. “I really play for myself and a select group of friends that might drop in. I’m delighted to play for them. Concerts, public performances — not interested. It wouldn’t be difficult. I don’t have any form of stage fright. So it wouldn’t mean anything to me, except a career like that is just a hell of a lot of trouble.”

Tags Korg, Musik, photography, William Eggleston

Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor

Post author By Susan Ellis
Post date November 30, 2017

I have a friend (it’s Bianca Phillips) who notoriously holds on to outdated food. One time, she told me that something was still good because the package wasn’t puffy yet. I just about fell over because I had heard this exact reasoning on an episode of Hoarders.

I get it. At any given time, my freezer is filled with leftover soups and disappointing bean patties. Last May, after the storm, I felt something like relief to dump all that food (except for that bag of IKEA meatballs). The decision had been made for me.

I had read years ago that hoarding is putting sentimental value on things that have no sentimental value. I believe it. A few years back when I moved, I got rid of about four boxes of sentiment. I had kept every letter I had ever received like someone someday was going to do my bio. I had all those school photos of folks whose names I’ve long since forgotten. I put it all in the trash can — the rolling city-issued kind. It filled the whole thing. I haven’t really thought of it since.

I have become something of the family’s Goodwill. Nine large boxes of various stuff from my mother’s move, more boxes of family photos from a brother. I have all of my late father’s diplomas in frames. What should I do with my late father’s diplomas in frames? Someone told me to take the diplomas out of the frames and put them all in an envelop. But then I would still have the diplomas. And the frames.

I’ve been recently looking at condos, ready to downsize again. One was in a great old building downtown. It had exposed brick and large windows with great light. It screamed character. I was even charmed by the view into a dank alley and the weird stain on the tub. But it had no storage. Where would I put the 80 years of family albums and three sets of dishes?

The other side of the hoarding coin is the idea that this will come in handy some day. Old towels. Stacks of magazines (New Yorkers, natch) to be read. All the ratty t-shirts I will paint in (I will never paint). The large, nice panini press I’ve used exactly twice — once with the person who gave it to me. The plastic bags and odd containers that multiply by the day. The baskets to put more stuff in.

I’ve been thinking about all the stuff we (I) accumulate. The company is moving from its longtime headquarters in about a month. I’ve gone through my drawers once, tossing business cards and dozens of those paper salt and pepper packages. I saved a tiny cartoon of a baby putting a fork in an outlet, a weird one-eyed chicken thing, a bag from the Peanut Shoppe with a cute peanut on it reading “Happiness is a Peanut” (so true), a little bag of blue rock candy made to look like the meth from Breaking Bad, a knife Bruce gave me to stab people.

When I began here in the ’90s, the bluff across the street was covered in trees where now mansions stand. There was some crime. We ate at Spaghetti Warehouse all the time. We had a party in the parking lot when the trolley began its Riverside loop. We’ve had plenty of dock parties since. There’s been some arguments within these walls. But there’s been way more good work and lots of laughter — those are the things worth hoarding.

Susan Ellis
ellis@memphisflyer.com
Bruce VanWyngarden is on vacation this week. His column returns when he does.

Tags getting rid of stuff, hoarding, moving

Opinion Viewpoint

Making the case for instant runoff voting.

Post author By John Marek
Post date November 30, 2017

In 2008, 71 percent of Memphis voters agreed by referendum to rid ourselves of expensive low-turnout runoff elections through instant runoff voting (IRV). If implemented, this would save taxpayers $250,000 a year, and it would end run-off elections with as much as an 85 percent turnout drop-off from the general election.

Instant runoff voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference as opposed to only being able to vote for one candidate. Once the votes are tallied, if no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. The votes of the eliminated candidate would then be transferred to those citizens’ second choice for the seat. The votes are then re-tallied, and this process continues until a candidate has a majority of the votes, hence no need for the costly and mostly ignored runoff.

IRV has been implemented in 11 cities. Where IRV has been used, it has resulted in the election of more minority and female candidates—but only candidates supported by a majority of a district’s voters. It has also led to more positive campaigning. If you’re an IRV candidate, you want to be the first choice of your base and the second choice of your rival’s base. Thus, you don’t want to do attack-ad, mudslinging campaigns. As a former council candidate myself, I can tell you that our city’s elections would benefit from candidates having to not only garner their own base, but also get along well with their opposition.

IRV also increases opportunities for first-time, lesser-funded, lesser-known candidates. You don’t have to worry about “throwing away your vote” on a favorite underdog; you can rank the underdog first, and a “safer,” more established candidate second.

Why was the will of Memphis voters ignored until possibly now? Election Commissioners and others on the state level claimed that the “touch-screen” voting machines were not capable of allowing instant runoff voting, even though that was not actually the case. Recently hired county election administrator Linda Phillip has recognized IRV can be done with our current machines, and she plans to implement IRV in 2019 for the seven single-member-district City Council races.

Now that the election commission has become part of the solution instead of part of the problem, incumbents worried about how IRV will affect the status quo are attempting to put their concerns in front of the concerns of Memphis voters by forcing an already debated and decided issue back onto the ballot. Councilman Edmund Ford Jr. and other elected officials are attempting to end IRV before voters even get a chance to use the method that they overwhelmingly supported in 2008.

Well-funded interest groups contribute heavily to candidates, and these groups are able to buy local elections for much cheaper than they are able to buy state and federal seats because of the low turnout. It should come as no surprise that workers’ rights and labor interests have faded in influence over the past 40 years. While much attention has been given to the buying of elections on the state and federal level, it is rarely discussed on the local level. Special interests like Wall Street don’t stop at Congress; they go after local government control as well.

The Memphis City Council really has no business interfering with a process already chosen by the voters in 2008, and it is an attack on democracy and Memphians’ rights that IRV was not available during the 2011 or 2015 elections. Let us come together and demand that IRV be implemented in 2019.

In the wake of Citizens United v. FEC and numerous restrictive voter ID laws that were passed across the country, elections are being bought and votes are being suppressed. The affront to IRV is no different except for the fact that we can actually do something about it since it is a local issue. IRV provides a more democratic system that will more truly represent the will of our city’s voters at a much cheaper rate.

For more information, please visit saveirvmemphis.com. Please email the entire council at IRV@saveirvmemphis.com, and ask them to respect the will of the voters and vote no on repeal.

John Marek is is a Memphis attorney, local activist, and former campaign manager for Congressman Steve Cohen.

Tags Instant Runoff Voting, John Marek

Fashion Fashion Feature

Shop Local Downtown

Post author By Shara Clark
Post date November 30, 2017

This holiday season, we’re encouraging our readers to support local businesses by shopping right here at home. Consider these Memphis-area establishments for your gift-giving needs.

Sachë

Your giftees will sport their love for our city in style with Memphis-inspired T-shirts designed and screenprinted by the passionate people at Sachë. With 901 designs, skyline styles, and shirts supporting our grit-and-grind Grizzlies, these unique tees will please even your hard-to-buy-for friends. And “Hey, you guuuys!” we love this Goonies/Grizz mash-up; truffle shuffle optional ($25). Available at 525 South Main or sachedesign.com.

Stock&Belle

At this lifestyle store, shoppers can find men’s and women’s clothing, home goods, and made-in-Memphis items from Letters&Co, Rowdy Dept. by Kyle Taylor, Embrace Your Inner Memphis, Kreep Ceramics, and more. We’re fans of the tumbled marble coasters from ARCHd, creations of Memphis-born sisters Kristen and Lindsey Archer. A variety of coaster sets ($29) showcase some of the city’s most iconic views and spaces. Visit Stock&Belle on Facebook, instagram, or 387 S. Main.

Lansky Bros.

Dedicated Elvis fans will love this fashionable pair of Blue Suede Shoes ($155). The longtime Memphis retailer offers these and other Elvis-inspired garments for men, as well as stylish activewear, polos, and more — for both men and women. Pick a gift from Lansky, and the recipient will “Thank ya, thank ya very much.” Visit Lansky Bros. at 126 Beale Street inside the Hard Rock Cafe, 149 Union Avenue inside The Peabody Hotel, or lanskybros.com.

Tags Lansky Bros., Sache, Shop Local, Stock & Belle

Opinion The Last Word

Don’t Be Gross

Post author By Jen Clarke
Post date November 30, 2017

CREDIT: Pixattitude | Dreamstime

Can you believe (male politician, prominent businessman, or celebrity) (showed his penis to, inappropriately touched, or said repulsive things to) all those (women and/or girls, or men and/or boys)? We have to go with the Mad Libs format here for deadline’s sake, as the flood of sexual harassment and assault allegations washes up a new crop of creeps every day.

What a scary time it must be for men. Seeing their heroes fall, exposed as the predators they are — it must be so exhausting. Almost as exhausting as working twice as hard to earn half as much as less-qualified male colleagues who treat women like secretaries.

How does one live with the uncertainty as he awaits whatever bare-minimum consequence his behavior necessitates? It sounds downright frightening. Almost as frightening as walking alone at any time of day, right ladies?

It must be so unfair for men to have to answer for incidents that occurred 20, 40 years ago. Those were different times! Back then, men were men and gals weren’t allowed to wear pants. It’s almost as unfair as asking a victim “Were you drinking?” and “What were you wearing?” before “Are you okay?” even comes up.

Way to go, men. All these years, you could have been listening to women, treating us as equals instead of objects, and acting like civilized people whose mamas raised you right. Now, the reckoning has arrived and the U.S.S. Patriarchy is on rough seas. You might be one of the “good guys,” but if you were surprised when every single woman you know shared a #MeToo story on Facebook, you are guilty by association. We’ve been trying to tell y’all, the filth is rampant. Now your favorite music, shows, and movies are tainted, and you can’t make Stuart Smalley jokes anymore. These are dark times indeed.

How do you cope in this brave new world, where all of a sudden it is NOT OKAY to casually strut around in an open bathrobe and honk-honk your co-workers’ breasts? Should you just adopt the “Mike Pence Rule” and avoid altogether the company of those temptresses who, as it turns out, do not inhabit this world merely for your pleasure? No. Instead of punishing women for your inability to act appropriately in mixed company, maybe just don’t be gross. We’re not going away, so figure it out, okay?

Pixattitude | Dreamstime

If “just don’t be gross” is too vague an instruction, here are some simple guidelines to follow.

First: If you think something might not be an appropriate thing to say, it probably isn’t. Ask yourself: Would I say this to my grandmother/a male friend/someone to whom I am not sexually attracted? If the answer is no, then you should definitely not say that. For example: “You cut your hair! It looks great!” is an acceptable way to compliment a friend, male or female, on a new haircut. Who doesn’t love a compliment? However, “You should call your mama and tell her thanks for giving you that ass” is not a compliment. It’s not okay. Creative, yes. Appropriate, no.

Second: Assume by default that nobody wants to see your sexual apparatus. Not on the street, not in your office, not in your car. Even if someone wants to, um, interact with it — she probably doesn’t want to see it even then. It’s not cute. Sorry. Keep it to yourself. And definitely don’t send photos of it. 2a: If someone wants you to disrobe, you’ll know. These signals are hard to misinterpret. Pro tip: Err on the side of caution and keep your clothes on at all times.

Third: Don’t touch anyone without permission. Some people like to hug when they greet people or say goodbye. I think it’s a Southern thing. Not everyone’s okay with it, though. So just ask! Say something like “It was so good to see you! Give me a hug!” If the person says no, back off! If she obliges, give a brief polite hug. No hair-sniffing or putting your head on her shoulder or any weird stuff. This really isn’t complicated. The same thing goes for handshakes. No hand-kissing, no soft lingering two-handed business. Just shake hands like a person. Do not try to kiss anyone on the mouth. Finally, if you make an honest mistake — again, these situations usually can be avoided if you don’t presume everyone in the world wants to sleep with you — apologize immediately. Remember, don’t be gross. Hope that helps!

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian and digital marketing specialist.

Tags Don't Be Gross, Tips for Men

We Recommend We Recommend

Booksigning by George Jared of West Memphis 3 book

Post author By Susan Ellis
Post date November 30, 2017

George Jared is a journalist who moved to the area just before the horrific West Memphis 3 murders and covered the case for the Jonesboro Sun. Over the years, he went from being convinced that Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr., and Jason Baldwin were guilty of murdering the trio of 8-year-olds to thinking they were convicted on the basis of a false confession.

Jared interviewed Echols on death row. He has written, he says, more stories on the case than anyone else in the world. The culmination of all this work is the recent publication of Witches in West Memphis: The West Memphis Three and Another Story of False Confession. He’ll have a booksigning at Novel on Saturday, December 2nd, 2 p.m.

The story of the West Memphis 3 has been told many times by now. How is your take unique?

I realized there was no scientific evidence tying them to the murders. My opinion morphed, and it was during this period that I interviewed Damien Echols while he still sat on Arkansas’ Death Row.

Who are the “witches” of the title, and what does false confession have to do with the murder of the boys?

Many, including Damien Echols, have compared what happened to the West Memphis Three to the Salem Witch Trials, held about 300 years ago in Massachusetts. Supposed “witches” were burned at the stake with little or no proof of witchcraft, and often “false confessions” were leveled. In this case, there is no DNA or forensic evidence that ties the three to the murders. The center of the prosecution’s case is a confession by Misskelley. He confessed several times, and each time he got critical facts wrong. To those who think the men are guilty, these confessions are the smoking gun evidence, even though they are highly inaccurate.

Echols (left) and Jared

Do you have a theory who killed the boys?

Many West Memphis Three supporters think a stepfather to one of the boys killed them. A hair that is a strong DNA match for him was found in a ligature that bound one of the boys, and another hair that could be a DNA match for his alibi witness was found on a tree stump next to where the bodies were dumped. I interviewed his wife numerous times and she told me she thinks he took part in the killings. I’ve interviewed him several times, and he has denied any role in the boys’ deaths.

George Jared signs “Witches in West Memphis” at Novel Saturday, December 2nd, 2 p.m.

News The Fly-By

Dead Water

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date November 30, 2017

Follow that big, muddy Mississippi River all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and you’ll find a dead zone the size of New Jersey.

Nutrients found in everything humans dump in the river — sewage, agricultural runoff, industrial waste, and more — stimulate the growth of algae, which sucks up much of the oxygen out of the water, killing fish and marine life in “one of the nation’s largest and most productive fisheries,” according to the United State Geological Survey (USGS).

That dead zone this year was 8,776 square miles, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The toxic plume stretches from the tip of Louisiana’s boot to the Texas coast, and in it, you can find Tennessee.

The state ranks seventh nationally in the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus, the nutrients that mainly contribute to the dead zone, it puts into the Mississippi River, according to figures from the USGS. The state is responsible for 5.5 percent of nitrogen in the river each year and 5.3 percent of the river’s phosphorus. Illinois leads this list, contributing a total of about 29 percent of those dead zone nutrients.

Most of the nutrients come from farms, especially from corn and soybean production, according to the USGS. Farmers spray fertilizers and other chemicals on their crops, and rain waters carry them into streams, which eventually drain into the Mississippi.

Nitrogen levels in the river were near the highest levels since scientists began measuring it in the river in 1997. Couple that with heavy rains in the Midwest earlier this year, and you get the record-breaking dead zone, according to NOAA.

Efforts are ongoing to reduce the pollution and shrink the dead zone. A federal task force formed an action plan in 2008 and has reported its work to Congress every year since then. Also, back in 1997, the federal government asked farmers in the Mississippi watershed to voluntarily reduce their pollution levels.

“The latest Mississippi River water quality measurements demonstrate that spending $46 billion since 1997 to encourage farmers to reduce farm pollution voluntarily simply has not worked,” according to Emily Cassidy, writing for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

The river is a funnel that drains about 1.2 million miles of all or parts of 31 states and two Canadian provinces. Renée Hoyos, executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, said the river drains about one-third of the nation, and the nation uses it as a “sewer.”

“By the time it gets to Memphis, it’s in pretty bad shape because it’s at the bottom of different sources of pollution that’s come to us from as far away as Montana,” Hoyos said.

Memphis has oft-times made that Mississippi River water worse. The city now operates under a 2012 federal consent decree after a number of agencies alleged the city illegally allowed its sewer system to overflow into the river. In 2016, the city’s system spilled millions of gallons of untreated wastewater into the river. (See our cover story for more.)

Tennessee is not alone, though. In a 2016 study, the Mississippi River Collaborative found that no state has effectively reduced its nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. And it may not end soon.

“I honestly can’t see the [Environmental Protection Agency] under the Trump administration taking the steps necessary, such as setting enforceable limits on dead-zone-causing pollution, to reverse this alarming trend,” said Matt Rota, senior policy director for the Gulf Restoration Network.

Tags Dead Zone, Gulf of Mexico

Food & Wine Food & Drink

Drink, Be Merry

Post author By Richard Murff
Post date November 30, 2017

CREDIT: Msheldrake | Dreamstime.com

By the time you read this, you will have mostly come out of that red wine- and tryptophan-induced coma into which you slipped sometime during the Detroit Lions’ game. While your post-meal memories might be a tad fuzzy, your motivation likely isn’t: That’s just what we do this time of year.

I’ve never been an unqualified fan of the hallowed holiday turkey, although my love of dressing is drastic. For years, I’ve been trying to make lamb the go-to meal for the holidays on the grounds that it is so much better in every conceivable way. Since this genius has been largely ignored by both my family and in-laws, I’ve decided that if we are going to set the menu on autopilot with reliable standards, at least we can give a little more thought to our wine.

If white wine is your thing, that Chardonnay that you were drinking in the summer or the last fund-raiser you went to likely won’t stand up to that roast turkey or ham. Try a Pouilly-Fumé or a white Bordeaux as a dry and crisp alternative. Of course, it’s hard to beat Champagnes and sparkling wines for the holiday spirit.

For reds, a Bordeaux and a Côtes du Rhône are tasty on their own and play well with that rich holiday fare. If you like a little lighter style with more fruit, try a Beaujolais. These wines must come from their regions in eponymous France to be labeled, but if you know the varietals that go into these wines, you can get good pretenders from almost anywhere.

Pouilly-Fumé and most white Bordeaux are made almost entirely out of Sauvignon Blanc grapes, so it’s easy to find a stand-in. The reds, that famous “Bordeaux blend” is 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 15 percent Cabernet Franc, and 15 percent Merlot. Unless you are from the “right bank” of the river Dordogne, in which case it’s reversed a bit with 70 percent Merlot and 15 percent Cabernets. The Brits call all of it a “claret” because they love to annoy the French. Penfold’s in Australia got its start making great French “style” wines down under and produce a Koonunga Hill Cabernet Merlot blend that is a nice stand-in for a Bordeaux with black currents and plum and a little oaky spice.

For a slightly earthier route, it’s hard to beat a Côtes du Rhône, which aren’t terrible expensive. By law, save a few small producers, Côtes du Rhônes are at least 40 percent grenache with at least 15 percent supplementary Mourdére and Syrah to finish out the blend. So just look for a grenache/Syrah blend, and you will have a good pretender for this stable of French wine.

Msheldrake | Dreamstime.com

A less “big” option, is a Beaujolais, which Karen MacNeil — who knows a lot more about wine than I do — described as the “the only white wine that happens to be red.” They tend to be light-bodied with a lot of fruit. The always trendy Beaujolais Nouveau is available only in the fall, and you aren’t doing it any favors by laying it up. Fortunately, standard Beaujolais are available all year round. They are largely made with the big, fruity gamay grape, but Beaujolais are made with a unique process called carbonic maceration, which involves fermenting the grapes in a carbon-rich environment before they are crushed. A good stand-in here would be to look for a gamay or a young Australian Shiraz. Or just open a bottle of gamay’s diva cousin, the Pinot Noir.

It’s worth noting that one of the reasons you hear a lot more about Pinot Noir is that the gamay was actually outlawed in 1395 by the Duke of Burgundy Phillippe the Bold for being “a very bad and disloyal plant.” And if that isn’t a reason to pop a cork of the stuff, I don’t know what is.

Tags Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, gamay, holiday wines, Pouilly-Fume, Shiraz