Corti Brothers Newsletter for March 2004  Page 4

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 THE BRADY BOOK 

THE BRADY BOOK is the American equivalent of George Saintsbury’s Notes on a Cellarbook. There, I’ve said it. Roy Brady (1918-1998) was an old friend who was probably the most literate, knowledgeable, and committed wine person I have ever known. THE BRADY BOOK is not one of Roy’s works, but a compilation of his unpublished writings on wine, edited by Professor Thomas Pinney, an author in his own right of A History of Wine in America and the soon to be published second volume dealing with Prohibition to the present..

Roy did not make wine. He tried selling it for a while, taught about wine in Los Angeles, edited a wine magazine, and was a wine columnist. He had very particular notions about wine, learned about wine when there was not much information around and got to know wines in the most civilized way possible. He drank them. He was also a great bibliophile, collecting in a very short time a remarkable library which he then turned over to California State University, Fresno. His enormous collection of wine labels (50,000 of them, annotated), wine merchants’ lists, menus, and ephemera are now all in the Special Collections of Shields Library, UC, Davis.

Much like Saintsbury, Brady was an amateur the best sense of the word, interested in both the history of wine and the way it tasted. He began his life with wine in the late 1940s and his writings from that and later periods describe California wine and its producers exactly. This work is a remarkable collection of short essays and longer ones.

THE BRADY BOOK is possibly even more important for Americans than Notes on a Cellarbook since Roy describes the California wines he bought and drank over an almost 50 year period, their special characteristics, and those of most of their producers. For example: In a tasting note from his first notebook, after tasting a Wente Valle de Oro Moselle (5 May 1948) he writes, “It is astonishing how exquisite a drink can be. Wine drinking is truly an art. Surely a great wine can afford that same deep enjoyment that any work of art can–those profound yet vague and elusive stirrings within the soul.” Or this, circa 1960, on the wine lover. “Two things mark him: he has a boundless curiosity about wine and he has a deep respect for good wine. He enjoys a wine more for knowing something about it, but he tries not to confuse knowledge with wine. He is always trying to learn more and to taste more. As much as he may love old wines, every new vintage is as fresh a delight as every new springtime...Every honest wine, however humble, gets his respect.”

Other essays, long and short are: The folly of collecting wine (1981), California’s new little wineries (1966) ( with a wonderful history about what was what and who was who at that time.) Meeting André Tchelistcheff and Louis M. Martini in 1951 in the Napa Valley; an essay on Martin Ray (1976-1983) that begins “Martin Ray was a crook, or, better, a con artist....He was also, at his best, a great winemaker.”

If you want to have a great source book on California wine and classic European wine notes, all in a superb writing style, you should own this book. It is a mirror of time in wine. What is amazing is that all of this started in the 1940s, not all that long ago, but in wine time, it was a formative period which really has not been much thought of, because it is still too close to home.

Only 250 hand-numbered copies of this limited edition have been printed. It is in two-color format, bound in gilt stamped cloth with 24 illustrations, including 13 tipped in color reproductions of wine labels from the Brady collection. Published by the Nomis Press for the benefit of the Wine Librarians Association, a non profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of wine. All monies go to this purpose.

Australia’s Yarra Valley is famous for wine, but who would have thought caviar! Yet, a truly delicious caviar is produced there, and now you can have it from Corti Brothers. Yarra Valley Salmon Caviar is outstanding and uniquely produced. This is not your normal salmon caviar!

Yarra Valley Salmon Caviar is produced from Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), raised in the fast running, pristine waters of the Rubicon River at the foot of the Victorian Alps, north of Melbourne. Atlantic salmon, like most salmonids, is an anadromous fish, meaning that it is born in fresh water, lives in salt water, and returns to fresh water to spawn. The Yarra Valley Salmon company has developed unique farming techniques to raise these salmon throughout their whole life in fresh water. No chemicals, antibiotics, or preservatives (other than salt) are ever used at any stage of production either in raising the fish or processing the caviar.

The important part of the production technology is not killing the fish to remove the roe. The gravid female salmon are milked by being gently squeezed; their roe is caught as if the fish were naturally ovulating. The fish are then returned to their fresh water runs to produce more eggs for future milking. Only when the fish become physically too large to milk, do they become table salmon. It takes three years for Atlantic salmon to mature sexually so that they can be milked.

When the salmon is milked, the roe berries come out singly, obviating the necessity of sieving the roe as is done with roe sack from fish caught in the wild and killed. The berries are then salted with flossy sea salt at 3.3%. At this level of salt, Yarra Valley Salmon Caviar is “malasol,” little salted. The berry size is about 6mm, with a shiny, light yellowish orange color and a darker orange”eye.” The texture is firm, but not tough as are other salmon caviars. The berry will “pop” in the mouth, but not have the tough skin normally found in salmon caviar. This “pop” is also the sign of fine sturgeon caviar. The silky, delicate texture of Yarra Valley Salmon caviar is probably due to its fresh water, rather than salt water, origin.

Yarra Valley Salmon Caviar can be used in all the traditional serving methods. It is also delicious on thin egg pasta such as Spinosi maccheroncini, dressed with a simple sauce of thick cream reduced with a bit of sweet butter, without cheese. As a garnish on fish mousse, in cooked small potatoes, with yeasted blini, or smoked fish such as sturgeon or salmon, the very pretty color, delicate flavor, and special texture of Yarra Valley Salmon Caviar allow you to experience the best of the most modern caviar production.

Yarra Valley Salmon Caviar is shipped frozen to us; we ship it frozen to our customers. It thaws rapidly, and 6-8 hours in the refrigerator will give you caviar in its best condition. It will keep at least 21 days in the refrigerator once opened. Salmon caviar is virtually unharmed by freezing, a treatment that ruins sturgeon caviar. Shipment must be via UPS Next Day Air or Two Day Air with gel packs. Shipping charges will vary.