The Wine Importer

In New Relief Effort, Vast Quantities of First-Rate Muscadet to be Parachuted into Chicago -- Operation Mineral Meltdown Begins!

My employer, Louis/Dressner Selections, has been selling wine in Chicago for about 10 years now. We are on our second wholesaler, a well-regarded firm, as was our first wholesaler. We switched wholesalers when I got sick of the first wholesaler telling me that it was impossible to sell first-rate Muscadet in Chicago. How could this be?

At first, I was discouraged by the new wholesaler. They also insisted that it was impossible to sell first-rate Muscadet in Chicago. They also argued that retailers and restaurants look for high doses of sulphur, dilution, greeness and low prices.

Finally though, Direct Imports has come around to my point of view and is ordering an industrial quantity of Marc Ollivier's 2000 Clos des Briords from the Domaine de la Pépière. The wine should be in Chicago shortly after the new year.

Louis/Dressner Selections Praised by Wine Writer Bob Franken!

The latest issue of The Fine Wine Quarterly Review says the following of my employer:

"Louis/Dressner is to be applauded for all their hard work and originality. At a time when everyone is playing it safe with the same old same old, this firm is importing Mënu Pineau's, Pineau d'Aunis', Cerdon du Bugeys and God knows what other obscurities from the remote vineyards of France. Kudos to Kevin McKenna and Denyse Louis."

Beaujolais Cult Winemaker Lauded by French Wine Writer Guru

France's Michel Bettane, the leader wine writer in France, has just published his annual wine guide. Beaujolais Cult Winemaker Jean-Paul Brun has been awarded one star, the first guy in the Beauolais AOC to get this ranking. Bettane's text is below:

Le Classement des Meilleurs Vins de France 2002
By Michel Bettane et Thierry Desseauve
Editions de la Revue du vin de France
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Domaine des Terres Dorées * Beaujolais
Red: 17 hectares, Gamay 90%, Pinot noir 10%
White: 3 hectares, Chardonnay
Average yearly production: 200,000 bottles

Jean-Paul Brun is one of the rare artists-winemakers in the Beaujolais. His estate stands at the confluence of granite and clay/limestone veins in the pays des terres dorées ("land of golden stones", so named because the limestone is strongly colored by ferrous oxides, NT). This situation allows him to use Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, in addition to Gamay. Of course, his talents as a winemaker and his taste for experiments are apposite to his colleagues' notions, and they often take revenge by refusing to give his wines the AOC label. The local INAO bureau (National Institute for Appellations of Origins), with its usual lack of guts, piteously goes along with them.

Fortunately, wine lovers rave, and with good reason, about the red Beaujolais from his estate and négoce business (i.e., some grapes are bought elsewhere and vinified at the estate). These are vinified with total destemming of the grapes, and have an absolutely unique delicacy and finesse. The white wines easily surpass anything produced in the area, with fat, finesse and fabulous purity, in 1999 as well as 2000. The Pinot Noir wine has to be declassified into Bourgogne-Grand-Ordinaire (i.e., cannot be labelled Beaujolais Pinot noir), and it gets better with each passing vintage with the aging of the vines. Its finesse, its natural class, belies its humble origins, and sets a new ideal for all clay/limestone plots of the Southern Beaujolais, an economic disaster zone in viticulture. Labeur d'Octobre is a cuvée of late harvested Chardonnay grapes, with noble rot, which ressemble Jean Thévenet's best wines. (Jean Thévenet of Domaine de la Bongran, in the Mâconnais, is the best -and only, almost-- winemaker of botrytised Chardonnay wines, NT)

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