Absolutely! I'm writing this from a plane going from Chicago to Portland. Maverick Wines, our distributor in Chicago, had a wonderful tasting yesterday and I had a thoroughly productive and enjoyable time. One thing I learned is the importance of communicating with young buyers in the market. Although I get older every year, the buyers out there are constantly 27-years-old. I don't know how they manage to do this, but their average age never advances. Many of these 27-year-olds like our selection of wines, but they are naturally put off by my age, conservative manner and my distance from their 27-year-old culture. After all, my children are almost their age! I see these 27-year-olds facing me across the table at trade tastings as they taste a range of interesting wines made by 27-year-old hipster vignerons. The look of disgust and dismay in their faces is unmistakeable. They are wondering, as 27-year-old somelliers, what hole I happened to crawl out from. I overheard one Chicago 27-year-old sommelier saying to another: "Tasting with Dressner is like landing in one of of those tropical islands, exploring the forest and being attacked by giant Gila monsters." Another star somellier started a betting pool where the winner had to guess how many years older than Leo Fox I am. So there's the dilmena....for whatever reason we're importing cutting edge, dynamic and youthful wines, but the vehicle for this importation is a broken down cast-off from the liquor industry whose idea of dressing fashionably is buying black button-down dress shirts from Eddie Bauer and not tucking them into his pants. I've attended an Arcade Fire concert (18 months ago) in a vain effort to update and upgrade my personna. I bought an IPOD today at the O'Hare airport but wound up returning it before my flight took off. Those silly earbuds were just so uncomfortable in my ears. I've posted some podcasts on this site to appeal to the youth market but the web log reports of my blog activity indicate that the podcasts are principally downloaded by IP addresses originating in Southern Florida or Phoenix. Even the addresses smack of gated communities. I don't want to say "cool" at the end of all my sentences, I don't want to shave my head, I don't want to give hearty bear hugs to all my male friends after shaking their hands as if we were former members of the Black Panther Party. I find the HBO hit series Entourage to be repulsive and have had terrifying nightmares of being forced to attend Hollywood parties filled with beautiful, scantily-clad women eagerily succumbing to Dharma and Turtle. The only gesture and concession I feel I can make to the youth wine buying public is to promiscuously and inappropriately use the word Absolutely! in daily conversation in exactly the same way all the 27-year-olds out there use the word. I ate yesterday at a trendy wine bar in Chicago filled with 27-year-olds. At one point during the meal I asked our server (a young woman) to fill my water glass. Her reply -- Absolutely! Later, I asked for salt. Her immediate and unwavering response -- Absolutely!. Both times, the Absolutely! was delivered with total certainty, in great haste and the server immediately took care of me and went on to her next urgent task. I thought to myself, how wonderful to be so young and in control of the world! What determination, what power! Apparently, the word is only used as a response to a trivial or inconsequential request. Later during the meal, I was served a Linguini with Shrimp which had been generously seasoned with tarragon. Long-time readers of this blog will recall I am incapable of eating tarragon. It is all part of my grumpy old man routine. After one quick smell and bite of the plate, I asked the waitress if there was tarragon in the linguini and instead of that happy Absolutely! which met my requests for water and salt, my server took a deep breath. To the best of her knowledge, she informed me, there was no tarragon in the dish. Nevertheless, she offered to consult with the chef to find out if my fears were correct, that is if I felt it was necessary. Five minutes later she returned to the table and told me that the chef would be willing to redo the dish without tarragon for me but that it would take some time. There was no admission to my tarragon appraisal, just a grudging and only implicit admission that the dish had been herbed to my discontent. I gladly agreed and had a glorious tarragon-free linguini some five minutes later. The whole exchange was disagreeable, alienating and it was clear that our party had been downgraded from elite Absolutely! status to just another group of grumpy customers who hopefully would never return to the place. Our table, which had been animated in its pre-tarragon phase was now dispirited and unglued. We were hesitantly served our final plates of cheese and dessert, ate it quickly and rushed out to get our cars from the ever-present Chicago Valet Parking guys. So, I have resolved in the next week to limit myself to situations where I and the people around me can confidentally and without hesitation exclaim: Absolutely! My hope is that this will get me back in grace with all the 27-year-olds who are the natural market for our natural wines. It is going to be a lot of work and I am going to need to rethink my every thought, action and gesture. But for the sake of Olivier Lemasson, I'm willing to give it a go!
Just FYI, the serious road warrior would never consider using the earbuds with an iPod on a flight. Bose noise cancelling headphones are where it's at.
Joe,
Oh just hire Yi Xin already. Even Griffan Vandernate is too old now.
Joe; I think what's really going on is that it's Spring, there's a lot of pollen in the air, and what you heard as "ABSOLUTELY!" was, in fact, the waitperson sneezing, in the inimitable Chicago accent. I hope she covered her mouth.
Great, now I feel old.
Right On!
Is a "dilmena" one of those old people words that I don't know the meaning of?
Awesome!
Well, according to you, I'm a year older than you. I do shave my head since it seems to me to be a matter of accepting my baldness, so maybe I'm truckling by your standards. But still, I have a couple of suggestions:
Loesberg Rocks!
That blooms, mister!
this is Absolutely the best post in a while.....your a wicked cool old man mr dressner....
Joe, had you considered that if you had stuck with the iPod (better fitting/sounding headphones, of the discreet 'earbud' variety, exist btw) then it really wouldn't matter if she was exclaiming Awesome!, Absolutely! or A$$hole!, because you'd be rocking the new Arcade Fire man and unless you can lip read it'd be all good, if you know what i'm saying.
No, Greg.
Hey Mr. Dress(e)ner,
I hope that you are finding your fulfillment center. |