Happy Friday!

You might have seen that in NYC this past week, we mourned the loss of Flaco the owl, who had escaped from the zoo about a year ago.

I also just happened to be listening to Ambrose Akinmusire's "Owl Song" (Nonesuch, 2023), which was made it all the more resonant for that event.

Onto the pairing!

Jazz

I came to the "Owl Song" album in all it's elegiac, restrained beauty in the perfect season. The spare arrangement of Akinmusire's trumpet, Bill Frisell's guitar and Herlin Riley's drums feel like winter: spare, mature, and very much alive in the empty spaces.

I chose the track "Grace" because of its tensile unisons, a soaring trumpet part that feels very aware both of its flight and the ground, and the evocative drum work that felt in dialogue with the ancestors and time itself.

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Grace (feat. Bill Frisell &... Ambrose Akinmusire, Bill Fri... PREVIEW   ​

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Juice

Vallana's "Cuvée Bernardo Vallana" Spanna 2019 jumped off the shelf when I sought to find a pairing, and not only because the label gives 80's metal band vibes (I think it's the font and the fire.) It's stunning and pensive.

Spanna is the name given to our friend nebbiolo in this northern region of Piedmont. All at once it has transparency and intensity. Taught raspberry fruit cast over with fertile earth, and a gripping finish all make this a wine of grace and character.

This wine is a product of mastery and patience in harvesting, maceration and aging. It takes a lot of judgement to know what to leave out and when to wait, but the results in this wine and in this track are the proof.

This wine is somewhere between $21-$24 (if you can find it,) or just ask your local store if they have something from the Alto Piemonte...it's hard to go wrong.

I hope you enjoy, and have a great weekend.:)

Truly,

Kristen