I’ve just gotten back from a vacation to a wine-lover’s paradise. No, not Tuscany. Not Burgundy. Not even Sonoma. No, my trip was to a little piece of heaven called New Jersey.
Wine was not on my mind as landed at Newark International Airport and examined my surroundings. If the rusted industrialism of Jersey reminded me of anything, it was Tony Soprano or Portnoy’s Complaint. But I was here to visit an old friend, and I was determined to make the most of it.
A couple hours later I was pulling into the ancient town of Princeton on a train known locally as “the Dinky” — the site (in 1963) of the last horseback train robbery in United States history. My friend dragged my weary limbs to a lovely eatery called the Calico Grill. I immediately asked for the wine list so I could pour some life into our dry bones. The waiter smiled at me sadly. “We have no liquor.” I can’t say that I clutched the table, but I can’t say I didn’t either. My memory is not exactly clear.
“No wine?”
“No wine.”
“But you have chairs and hot water. The other fruits of civilization.”
“But we have no license.”
“Well, go procure one. My friend and I will wait here with the breadsticks while you march on city hall.”
The waiter demurred and explained that New Jersey has very restrictive laws that peg the number of licenses in a city to its population. Princeton’s transitory student body doesn’t factor into the census, so – on paper – it is just a small town. It only has 6 licenses for the whole city (each is worth well over $500,000 on the open market). How odd the customs of our fellow man and how savage.
I was just about to try drinking water when the waiter stayed my hand, saying “The wine store is next door – bring something back.” I stared at him blankly. Further cross-examination revealed that – unlike Ontario – not only are unlicensed restaurants permitted to allow anyone to bring their own wine to a meal, they are forbidden from charging a corkage fee. BYOB is free?! I guess this is what the founding fathers meant by “liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
What followed was a three day idyll of loitering at bistros and patios, uncorking bottle after bottle at a fraction of what it would cost in a restaurant in Canada. My favourite combination (and one hard to find in Ontario’s sushi bars) is sashimi with Manzanilla. Manzanilla is the lightest kind of sherry. It is dry and crisp with notes of raw almond and bread. Chilled, it is refreshing in the sun and it stands up well to soya sauce while enhancing the flavours in the fish. Both Bodegas Hildago and Lustau [Ed. note: No longer available] make excellent manzanilla that’s available in Ontario. Too bad Ontario isn’t New Jersey.
Matthew Sullivan is a lawyer with the Department of Justice in Toronto. He writes a weekly blog entry here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca