Black steel and the hour of chaos .....

“Straight up - word'em up on the level The reasons are several, most of them federal
Here is my plan anyway and I say I got gusto, but only some I can trust – yo….”

Back in the day,…(I like saying that more than you know) I had this almost perverted affinity for chuck D and the rap band Public Enemy. Not once though did I ever think id end up in Atlanta Ga, and if I had, I would have saved my entire collection of what must have been 15 or 20 different baseball caps with the letter “P” on the front. It could have been anything, from an unknown minor league in Cincinnati, to a vintage Phillies in flaming red to the classic die hard “p-ist” of them all Roberto Clemente Pittsburg Pirates in yellow with the black “P”,….it really didn’t matter. What did though was that while no one else would ever know or understand, I thought that chuck D and his troop were some of the sweetest dudes around. In all my whiteness I fancied their politically charged musical weaving and most of all, just shortly after the solid droning beats, I loved that every time you saw a clip of chuck in an interview or music video he was wearing the “P”.

So late last night after a long day with the kids and an evening full of various house duties, I turned on some ole PE. I grabbed a bottle of Portuguese table wine called Quinta do Portal Reserva (notice the double “P” factor) made from Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz. Last year in the subterranean labyrinth of Bones restaurant in Buckhead I tasted some older vintages and then a sneak preview of these 2003 bottlings. I had since that day proclaimed their value and last night confirmed the snippet. A wine ideal for the new world Zin meets Petite Sirah, meets Malbec drinker, this stuff is crammed full of spicy, dark fruit from start to finish. Brooding In that oh so Portuguese way, there’s no mistaking the Port varietals however, the combination of an ideal growing season and what appears to be a decision to lighten the alcoholic load, and make an international wine ,…well,..this stuff is officially on my best 10 wines in the world for under 10$ list-o-rama! Evenhanded, powerful, perfumed, and pleasant. Unlike Public Enemy, this stuff may be different in its next vintage so do the double whammy today, go get yo self a bottle, jump on I-tunes and download an album or two, put that “p” cap on sideways and relive the 80’s Atlanta style!