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By Sarah Hubbard
Writer Eric Hansen
roughed it around the world to find the most remote bar for Outside
(September 2006). For the premiere issue of Go, we sent him, and his
wine-importer neighbor Tim, vineyard-hopping in Portugal atop luxury
Buell motorcycles. Amazingly, he and his bike each came back in one
piece, but Eric may have come out of it a new man. Sarah
Hubbard caught up with the self-proclaimed wine snob
post-metamorphosis, to learn a little about elusive Portuguese reds,
avoiding high-speed crashes, and how to dress like Steve McQueen.
Be honest: How many times did you watch Sideways before
this trip?
[Laughs] I didn’t prep much. I read some Hugh Johnson [and
Jancis Robinson, authors of The World Atlas of Wine]. But Tim really
knew what he was doing. He has a phenomenal palate.
Do you own a bike?
I have owned four motorcycles, but don’t have one right now. In
college, I used to buy a motorcycle every spring and then sell it in
the fall and buy a crappy car to get through winter. I’ve driven
down the West Coast, and driven off-road in Baja for a week.
With a strict schedule of boozing and biking on this trip, were
there any close calls?
Honestly, we never drove drunk. After a while you lose interest in
getting drunk. You actually get really excited about the taste and
you don’t care if you get to swallow.
One time we were
entering this little town and we came to a roundabout and this huge
delivery truck came bombing around the curve. Tim had to slam on the
brakes, and fell right over in front of all these old men. It was
hilarious.
To his credit, didn’t he have the wrong size motorcycle?
Yeah, he couldn’t touch the ground when he was straddling the
bike. To start off he would sort of hang one leg over and then give
it some juice and jump into the saddle. The inseam to his pants is
like 28 inches and he was a solid half-foot too short for the bike.
Did you ever want to ditch the bikes and just grab a taxi?
No, just the opposite. We almost missed a few wine visits because
we wanted to cruise the countryside on the bikes.
You were on the hunt for the next great red and you may have found
it in Touriga Nacional. Any other varieties that you would recommend
in the States?
Portuguese table wines are so new to the international market that
almost anything is going to be great. They are a great value, and
unlike other old-world wines Portuguese varieties are not picked
over. When importers go over there, they can pick whatever they want.
I would say almost anything from Portugal that you can find is a good
choice.
But did you ever find that elusive $15 low-budget wonder?
Yes, Henrique the Grape’s Monte do Valagão was fucking
phenomenal. To the point that Tim recently got married and he and his
sommelier bride served it at the reception.
Winemaking is for the most part seen as a rich, romantic, deeply
rooted culture, and you spent quite a bit of time with vineyard
owners and their families. What was the sense you got of the real
lifestyle?
I don’t want to generalize. I didn’t come out with any general
impressions. But one of the neatest things about doing the trip in
Portugal versus Australia or France, where there are huge corporate
wineries, is that you go there and you actually meet the families.
The vineyards are fairly small, so after you taste the wine you get
to talk to them about the farm and what they do. The wine becomes a
great excuse to get to know the people and the company.
So are you ready to cash it all in and buy a vineyard?
Not yet, but I would like to write an exposé on how bland
most wines are.
So we can assume that you’re a wine snob now?
Yes. I used to think that if you threw a dinner party you
shouldn’t spend more than $10 on the wine and bread combined. But
now I not only like sophisticated wine, but after visiting Portugal
and these unique vineyards, I have really lost my taste for polished
new-world wines. I am a snobbie snobbie snob.
It did seem an easy fit for you to slip into the Euro-biker
identity. The leather jacket, the Prada shades. Very Rebel
Without a Cause…
[Laughs] We got a little carried away. Tim’s jacket is actually
a direct descendent of the one that James Dean used to wear, and mine
was like Steve McQueen’s. It made me realize that no matter how
many designer clothes I bought, I’m never going to look like Steve
McQueen.
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