mardi 24 novembre 2009

Retsina

Some years ago at the Psaro Taverna, a small park Avenue Greek restaurant in Montreal,  we tasted a strange wine, a Retsina Cambas.  The waiter had recommended it with fried calamari and red snapper.  At first sip we were taken aback...but the taste sort of grew on us and it definitely enhanced the taste of  the calamari and the snapper.
We later bought a few bottles at the Société des Alcools du Québec and had friends tasting it with venison and spiced meat roasts of various kinds.  The results were persistant: hesitation followed by "give me more".
Several years ago the Retsina disappeared from the SAQ shelves.  Last week, to my astonishment, I saw a golden liquor on top of a low stand at our nearby SAQ outlet, about 6 bottles of Malamatina Retsina, 500 ml, bottles for 4, 95$C.  I immediately got one and we drank it with a fish dish.  Although not as good as we recalled the Cambas to be, it was still a great treat.
Some years ago, in a short notice in the national Geographic Magazine I read that divers had found a sunken Phoenician barge off the coast of Turkey.  It contained amphoras carbon dated to circa 2000 B.C. containing what turned out to be retsina...thanks to the cold waters of the deep it was still drinkable.

13 commentaires:

  1. Oh fun! An ancient concoction, still enjoyed in modern times. What does it resemble?

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  2. It is a white wine with a golden robe produced around Thessaloniki in north eastern greece. It is a dry wine and has resins added to prolong it's life. That gives it a strong nose and a, at first sip, rotten apple taste that subsides with the second sip. It gives all it's best with seafood, fish and strongly spiced BBQd meats. To be enjoyed with friends around a nice meal. Serve fresh but not chilled for that kills it. Retsina means resin.

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  3. Ah, that explains the immediate strong reaction you had.

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  4. Sorpresa, surprise I felt, when I read you had known retsina only some years ago. Retsina is well known here since Greece is close.

    The same hesitation I had the first time I drank it. I was at a taverna table in the Greek island of Corfu, and I had in front of me the just met girl that had to be my wife. From that day we started to love that pungent taste, not only because it is a sweet souvenir of our love story. I forgot the brand we liked better. I'll bet my wife remembers it.

    It seems – I did some web research - it was an ancient habit all over the Mediterranean to seal amphorae with pine tree resin. The resin leaked into the wine and people started to develop a taste for it. The west soon lost this gusto but the eastern med stuck with it, thence its persistence in Greece.

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  5. Retsina was made known around here by Expo67 as were many other delicacies from all over the world. The retsina used to be available in two SAQ outlets in Montreal, in the Greek area of Park Avenue. I don't know if it still is so...not easily reached from where I live. Thus my surprise when I saw a few bottles at the outlet near home; not many Greeks around here, as far as I know since I'm not connected to the greek community.

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  6. Your indications as for the food that goes with Retsina are interesting. I asked my wife about the brand we liked but she forgot as well. Should she lose memory too we are done.

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  7. Cheer up MoR, the planet will survive.

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  8. Alors tout va bien, le doute, C'est ce qu'il y a de pire.

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  9. Pas pour moi. Je vis dans le doute et dans le relativisme. Pour vous catholiques, je le sais, il est différent. Le doute, il vous terrorise.

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  10. J'ai été baptisé dans l'Église orthodoxe grecque et j'ai grandi dans l'église catholique. Depuis longtemps j'ai laissé toute pratique religieuse...mais je crois en Dieu. Le doute fait parti de ma vie et ne me terrorise pas. Pour moi, c'est un puissant moteur qui anime la recherche et empêche l'immobilisme et la nécrose.

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  11. Mais alors nous sommes d'accord et vous comme d’habitude voulez seulement plaisanter !
    Et mois qui étais déjà en train de préparer mon harnachement dialectique ...
    ;-) ;-)

    O zi buna

    ('have a nice day' in Romanian - our Latin brothers après tout)

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