| Additional Thoughts about Charles McCabe, My Favorite Critic I shaved about 30 minutes ago and realize that I left out an important element of my shaving philosophy. I have to do a great deal of travelling as a wine importer. I spend the summer months in France, where we have a home in the Mâconnais, but use our home to travel around viticultural France to see our vignerons. In February I go to France for between three and four weeks to taste the new vintage, talk business with our growers, and usually to take some gullible American customers of ours on a tour of our producers. Lastly, I have to travel in America, visiting various cities where I try to convince gullible distributors, retailers and restaurant owners to buy our wines. All this travelling is extremely wearing and I have spent years trying to figure out how to pack for these various trips. Bear in mind that I am large fellow and my clothes take lots of space in my luggage. For several years I would pack for my winter trip with enough clothes to last for two weeks, which usually required two suitcases that were tiresome and draining to drag around with me. I would time my trip so that I would wind-up in the Beaujolais after about two weeks and quickly get my clothing to a dry cleaner/blanchisserie in Anse (near Villefranche). By sheer coincidence the two brothers who own the dry cleaner are childhood friends of our former supplier of Rully and Givry and they would quickly do my clothing, although they would not give me a discount. Commercial clothing cleaning is extremely expensive in France -- the whole deal would cost me about $40 to $50, depending on the currency -- and is more of a luxury service than in New York City, where I reside for most of the year. New York City seems to have thousands of dry cleaners, even more dry cleaners than Duane Reade Drug Stores, and all of these dry cleaners bill themselves as authentic French Dry Cleaners. Of course, there is no such thing as a French Dry Cleaner and I have always wondered what the origin of this term might be. When I first started going to France I tried to figure out if there was a truly a native dry cleaner culture, distinct from the American dry cleaner culture, that has inspired our dry cleaner industry. This is the case for French cuisine, for instance, but does not turn out to be the case for dry cleaning. My neighborhood in Manhattan has one French Dry Cleaner per 12.3 residents, according to the latest Census Bureau figures. There is even a cleaner named Madame Paulette. There is no Madame Paulette at Madame Paulette and the whole story makes no sense. I understand why California WIneries call their wineries Château Something-or-Other, as this recalls the prestigous wine estates of France and is a clever marketing ploy. But why French Dry Cleaners? Anyhow, I had no choice but to end this packing/travelling regiment because we stopped buying wine from our Givry/Rully producer who was overcropping and raising prices in direct proportion to his annual yield increases, leading to a dilute wine of little interest to anyone. Our Givry/Rully producer was a good friend and I always regretted that we stopped working with him, but we had little choice as the wine was becoming dilute and bad. Simultaneously, his wine was selling like crazy in France at high prices and he had no incentive to do any better. Of course, this ruined our friendship with the grower and I was quite depressed by the whole turn of affairs. Given that I was no longer going to see the grower, I could not in good conscience take my dirty laundry to his dry cleaning childhood friends in Anse! Around the same time, I stumbled upon Doug Dyment's excellent web site on travelling with one carry-on bag: The Compleat Carry-On Traveller. Having studied this site, I now travel with but one carry-on bag filled with polyester clothing (all of which have several secret pockets to carry money and sensitive documents) that signal Europeans that I am an American rube. I also have various gadgets that are meant to lighten my travel load. This brings me back to the problem of shaving. I've never liked an electric razor, even when it was dual voltage, and have always preferred the manual jobs. The problem is which shaving cream to travel with? For years I liked Noxzema and would buy their smaller can for travel, even though it was still quite large and consumed a large spot in my luggage. But Noxzema stopped producing the small can (although maybe they still produce them but New York City's Duane Reade Drug Stores have discontinued carrying the small cans) and I would have no choice but to carry the enormous regular Noxzema regular size can. I suppose what I always liked about Noxzema was that it was 'medicated' and seemed truly bracing first thing in the morning. But when I thought about it, it made no sense to cover your face with a white cream that made it impossible to see the very skin you were shaving. Some years ago I tried Edge Gel, which is transparent and comes in convenient travel sizes, but I found it gave a horrible shave. It turned out that Edge's protective shielding gel not only made it impossible to cut or nick your skin, it also made it impossible to shave your beard. Finally, through the advise of Doug Dyment, I have discovered Somerset Shaving Oil. As Mr. Somerset says: At first, it seems totally impractical: requiring only two or three drops of this lightly fragranced liquid to be rubbed into the beard. What follows has to be experienced to be believed. A liberal splash of water activates its extraordinary lubricating powers, allowing the blade to simply glide through the toughest bristle. It's 100% natural, made from only pure essential oils and menthol giving an almost perfect shave, free from nicks and razor burn. It contains no alcohol or astrigants and won't irritate even the most sensitive skin. Used over a period of time, the oil actually conditions, leaving the face moisturised and supple. It's also incredibly economical, each little 1/4 oz bottle delivering up to 90 perfect shaves. And being small,it's also very portable - perfect for travelling! I give this product my strongest recommendation -- if I had a choice between a 1997 Saumur-Champigny Poyeux, an absolutely radioactive bottle of wine from the Frères Foucault and the Somerset Shaving Oil I would take the Poyeux, but would regret it the next morning when I woke up to shave. Click on the link above and you go the the Magellans web site, where you can order this wonderful product. Magellans specializes in travel gear and I have no commercial relationship with them. But, if you order Somerset Shaving Oil by December 15th and mention that Joe Dressner, A Wine Importer, sent you there, they will ship you a complementary bottle of California Cult Cabernet! Please note that the Magellans' on-line order screen has a spot for a special message to their customer service staff -- you should mention The Joe Dressner, A Wine Importer, Promotional California Cult Cab Offer in that spot. Alternatively, if you speak to them by phone, please mention promotional offer TJDAWIPCCCO. In fact, if you mention TJDAWIPCCCO on the on-line order form it should be sufficient to get you the free bottle.
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