"There's a lot of winemakers who are frustrated musicians.
I'm one of the them," said winemaker Chris Carpenter. "I play trombone; I play
horribly." But despite his lack of music-playing ability, he adores music.
Cardinale Winery's Chris Carpenter is such a fan of music
that he and a group of friends have been traveling from all around the country
to attend the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival every single year since
1988. He continued, "Most of my friends were into music. As music fans, Jazz
Fest was the ultimate pilgrimage. As we've progressed in our lives and our
careers and families, we spread out around the country. There's a core group of
8 of us that have gone since 1988 and reconvene every year for the fest to
reacquaint ourselves with each other and see great music."
Chris could not stop naming the best acts he's seen over the
past decades: Bruce Springsteen after Hurricane Katrina, Van Morrison playing
in the rain, and, of course, native son Trombone Shorty. "The great thing about
Shorty is that he weaves funk, rock, R&B, and soul all into one sound. It's
rare that you have guys who can take all those different influences and create
a sound that's unique. That's what he's done. I love to dance, and that's one
of the great things about New Orleans music in general is the ability to move
your feet. His music, you can move your feet to nonstop. He has such energy and
soul to his sound that I was immediately attracted to."
In celebration of Jazz Fest coming back in 2022, Cardinale
Winery released a very special wine that was to be enjoyed while listening to
Trombone Shorty's latest album Lifted. Some wine-lovers were able to get
their hands on the multi-sensory box while others were invited to join Chris in
New Orleans for an exclusive wine-paired dinner during the first weekend of
Jazz Fest. I was incredibly fortunate to get to experience Cardinale's 2018
Vintage Cabernet Sauvignon while experiencing Lifted, and I must admit
that it was transcendent in many ways.
The unboxing of this special delivery was so exciting. A
black envelope with the gold inscription of "Cardinale" was tied to a big black
box. Velvety-soft cards attempted to introduce this special wine and the music
that was meant to go along with it, but I knew that it was very difficult to put
into words due to the physicality of the pairing. Trombone Shorty's latest
album Lifted which came in record form features a charming black and
white photo of himself as a child playing a toy horn as his mother lifts him
above the crowd gathered in a street during festivities.
After much unwrapping came the wine. The bottle is
incredibly sexy, yet unfettered. You cannot see if the bottle itself is black
or if the wine inside is too dark to see through. Only opening the bottle up
and pouring out its content solved that mystery. The 90% cabernet sauvignon,
10% merlot blend is so incredibly rich that it becomes a black mirror in the
glass. The dark reflection allows you to see the entire room behind you which
looks otherworldly.
To me, it tastes of dark berries, but it has a thrilling
acidity that tingles the edges of the tongue almost like pineapple. Cardinale
explained that this vintage includes seven appellations and 32 individual wine
lots. Paired with Trombone Shorty's signature blend of slow brassy funk,
intense groove, and edgy rock moments, notes of chocolate, blackberries, and a
hint of vanilla play on the tongue. This was created intentionally.
"There's a lot of synergies between how I look at layering
flavor when I'm putting blends together with how musicians layer sound. There's
highs and lows, there's timbre, there's beat, there's the progression from one
moment in a song to another, it's the same with flavor and how flavor develops
on your palate. There's a lot of that connection. Musicians that turn me on,
whether it's Mozart, Springsteen, or Trombone Shorty, are people that I look to
for inspiration when I put my wines together. What I do is use my love of music
and my understanding of music from an experiential standpoint to frame how I
experience flavor. A musician like Shorty who can take so many different levels
of sound and different techniques in music, that's inspiration for me because
I'm putting together what could be five different varieties of wine and trying
to make one wine out of it, one complex and synchronist experience of flavor
very similar to how he does that with music. When I run into those kind of
musicians or experience them, that's how I connect with them," explained Chris
excitedly.
There's a lot to be said about how sound, scent, ambiance,
et al can influence your taste. Chris is keenly aware that music will affect
one's mood, and one's mood can bring out different notes in his wine. He said,
"Whatever you're doing, if music is in the background, it's going to influence
the experience that you're having in that moment. That's why music is so
important to everything that we do setting the tone, setting the mood. If
you're listening to Metallica versus Andre Bocelli, it's going to change how
you perceive that wine in that moment because your body is responding to
whatever that sound is that's coming into your brain and changing how you're
thinking about things. And it's going to change how you perceive the wine as
well."
I cannot wait to see what other musical ventures Chris brings
to his future bottles. His closing note was, "I'm honored that I had the
opportunity to get to know Troy and chat with him about his music. I think his
sound and his approach to music and his thought process is incredible and
inspiring. That said, there's so many musicians in New Orleans that are that
way. The cultural center for me and my pals is New Orleans. There's no place
quite like New Orleans for that wellspring of sound."