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Februrary is
Drink a Wine Made by a Peasant/Vigneron Month!
Yes, there are lots of négociants making good wine.
Lots of moneyed folks, be they from Barcelona or San Francisco are making good juice.
Many Château owners wouldn't even know how to prune a vine.
Be that as it may, February is:
International Drink a Wine Made by A Peasant/Vigneron Month!
There is still no substitute for someone who works, knows, lives and dies with their land!
Fernand Coudert, the visionary who replanted the Clos de la Roilette in the 1950s and brought back to life one of the great terroirs of the Beaujolais.
Wine phenomenas come and go. Todays Helen Turley will be tomorrow's Bob Foley will be tomorrow's Priorat hotshot will be some Marco in the Barolo. What ever happened to Guy Accad?
But the land and the peasants who worked that land came before them and will still be there after everyone forgets whose wine was The Wine of the Year in 2003. Yes, there is globalization, yes there are armies of consultants, but someone still has to get out there and work the land. There is still a Peasant/Vigneron out there who wants to make great wine. And February is the month to show them that we care about their work, that we are ready to plunk down some money and keep them going.
So, don't forget. Throughout February, wine shops and restaurants will be running promotions around the country.
Be sure to tune-in here for more details.
What are you drinking tonight?
Are you sure it was made by a genuine Peasant/Vigneron?
What's New at Seattle's Unique Wine Company?
Unique Wine Company is a distributor based in Seattle, Washington. They don't buy our wines, but as a public service I thought my readers would like to know what's new over at Unique.
Unique has recently acquired several new product lines. These brands include:
- Fess Parker
- Mont St-Helena, which inexplicably seems to come from Napa
- Block 13, which seems to be a sub-brand of Gundlaud-Bundshu. I've always loved the name of that winery.
- Several new wines from Frontier Imports, including Campo Purisima de Concepcion, Bodegas Aruspide and Bodegas Manuel Piquer. I've never drank any of those wines, so I have no critical insight to offer about any of these Bodegas from trend-setting Frontier Imports
- most importantly, the fabulous Il Bastardo is back in stock.
Unique Wine's web site describes Mr. Mason as "our fearless leader" and has the following revealing quote from the company's founder, explaining why he participated in the Firefighter Survival week:
I have never done anything like it, and need to see how difficult it might be. I have never failed at anything I've attempted!
Unfortunately, Unique's web site does not give any details about what Mr. Mason did on Ohana Island, although they do have a remarkable picture of him in his volunteer firefighter's uniform. I did find more information on Firefighter Survival Week on the ever-useful Firehouse.Com site:
Learn More About Firefighter Survival Week on Puget Sound!
Keep up with all the lastest developments at Unique Wines of Seattle by adding a bookmark to their website:
Click to See More About Unique Wines and Bert Mason!
As a public service, I will be featuring wine distributors from all over America on this site in the weeks to come. What a wonderful way to learn more about America and what makes this a great nation!
Wine Importer Quoted in AFP Article on "Typicity"
The article reprinted below, is being sent all over the world by the AFP, which is France's equivalent of the Associated Press.
The article addresses the important issue of the French INAO refusing to give the Appéllation Origine Contrôlée to some of France's best vignerons. Incredibly, Réné Rénou, who is the head of the INAO and a producer of Bonnézeaux, is quoted as saying:
"If a certain wine is excellent, but the average level of the AOC is not, then it is normal for that wine to be excluded from the AOC...."
Frankly, it is reprehensible for Rénou to say such a thing! One can only hope that he was misquoted.
The article also includes quotes from other famous figures in the international wine scene like Patrick Baudouin from the Côteaux-du-Layon, Marcel Richaud from Cairanne and Joe Dressner, The Wine Importer.
The only place I think the article has been printed is in the Tapei Times of December 27th.
The article is reprinted below:
=========================================
Furor over French wine system a case of sour grapes?
AFP , PARIS
Saturday, Dec 27, 2003,Page 12
His eyes as intense as his prize-winning wines, Loire Valley vintner Patrick Baudouin is hopping mad. So are 100 winemakers across France, some with reputations spanning the globe, who have joined him in a movement that is exposing deep rifts and flaws in the French wine classification system, and shaping the debate on how best to reform it.
It is a system, they contend, that rewards mediocrity and standardization while at the same time punishing vintners who choose more rigorous, labor-intensive methods yielding wines that are often among the best in their regions, but which are nonetheless rejected by peer tasting panels as "atypical."
The financial repercussions for a winemaker of having a vintage declassified can be disastrous. Without the state-backed certification-of-origin known as the AOC, or appellation d'origine controlie, the market value of a wine plummets.
Add Pomerol or Chateauneuf-du-Pape to the label, to cite two well known AOCs, and prices soar.
The key word in the debate sparked by Baudouin and his like-minded confreres, federated in an association called Winemakers in our Appellations, is "typicity" (a neologism in French, typiciti, as well as in English).
In the eyes of France's powerful wine administration and large-scale producers, "typicity" is a virtue and a necessity, the signature taste that distinguishes one AOC from another, and all of them from non-French wines.
"We have to reestablish a common denominator, a family resemblance, for all the wines in a given appellation," explains Reni Renou, the government's top official directly responsible for overseeing and enforcing the AOC system.
There is no room within the AOC household, Renou told reporters, for overly eccentric offspring, even if they are very talented.
"If a certain wine is excellent, but the average level of the AOC is not, then it is normal for that wine to be excluded from the AOC," Renou. And that, for Baudouin and his supporters, is precisely the problem.
"Typicity has come to mean `majority rule', and the majority in a given AOC" -- there are more than 460 distinct winemaking regions in France -- "is too often overcropping, machine harvesting, artificial yeasts or enzymes, and chaptalization," says US wine importer Joe Dressner, who works exclusively with the small minority of French wine-makers who eschew industrial methods.
Chaptalization is the adding of sugar during fermentation to increase alcohol content.
The local tasting juries instituted in the mid-1970s were designed to weed out wines with obvious defects, and did help to remove embarrassing aberrations that damaged the overall reputation of individual AOCs. But today "the AOC system has become a marketing machine for standardizing wine, a machine that crushes things outside this norm," good or bad, says Baudouin.
One perverse effect of the system is forcing quality winemakers who use natural, non-interventionist methods to break the rules in order to make the best wines possible.
"What I am doing is illegal," says Marcel Richaud, a small-scale vintner in the Cotes du Rhone region of southern France.
The same wines selected by top restaurants in Paris and importers abroad were judged "atypical" by his peers this year and refused AOC certification after he had bottled them.
Baudouin, noted for a sweet, white Coteaux de Layon, also describes himself as a "fraud." Because he refuses to add sugar to artificially boost alcohol levels, in contrast to the majority of winemakers in his region, some of his wines don't conform to certain technical standards.
Baudouin's signature wine was rated 99 out of 100 by influential wine critic Robert Parker, so he can afford to jest. But he and Richaud are clearly angry about the situation.
"They are simply making real wines," argues Dressner. "In a better world they would be models for their terroir, instead they are pariahs."
Part of the impetus to link typicity with an AOC comes from the challenge of New World wines, which have eaten away at France's once dominant position as the world's top exporter of quality wines.
Renou, who is president of the National Appellation Institute's National Committee, says the only way for the French wine industry to fight back is by reinforcing the identity of each AOC and trans-forming them into individual "brands" in the mind of consumers, who are too often confused and intimidated by France's complex classification system.
But the de facto standardization of French wines has deeper roots in the post-war shift to intensive, chemical-based agriculture, which had much the same homogenizing impact on wine as it did on fruits, vegetables and meats.
Despite their diverging views, both Renou and Baudouin see themselves as true defenders of "terroir," the quintessentially French approach that emphasizes the importance of soil and climate over grape variety and wine making skills. AOCs mandate which grape varieties may be used, but generally ban winemakers from including this information on the label.
But whereas Renou sees "typicity" as the guarantor of AOC identity and the silver bullet that will make French wines more competitive in the international marketplace, Baudouin see its current application as a straitjacket impeding originality and, even worse, obscuring "the true typiciti of the terroir," which can vary dramatically from one hillside to the next.
Annual Louis/Dressner Christmas Dinner a Blast!
What an event!
We gathered at 360 Van Brunt Street for a fabulous black-tie dinner featuring wines from Domaine Peyra. The restaurant is getting better and better and everybody should get over to Red Hook and enjoy the food and ambience. New York City is blessed to have such a restaurant.
Louis/Dressner employees and their loved ones at last nights gala Christas Dinner. My son and daughter are standing, at the extreme right end of the photo.
This has been a difficult year at Louis/Dressner Selections. The dollar is on the skids, Bush went to war with Chirac, our southwest regional manager left the company, many of our vignerons had short crops and Australian wine has taken over the wine world.
But there is still much to celebrate. We have added several new estates, new territories and are confident that the Euro will soon be 1.5 and that business will be booming!
Happy Holidays from Everyone at Louis/Dressner Selections!
It has been a crazy year!
The dollar is at an all-time low.
Americans hate the French for not supporting the Iraq war effort.!
Crops were short in 2002 and will be even shorter in 2003.
The Rhône was flooded out during the 2002 harvest.
My son is about to leave the family to go to college.
I can't control my weight problems.
I can't get going on my book proposal.
I exposed myself to large quantities of Marquis Phillips Shiraz 2002 despite firm counsel from my cardiologist to avoid the stuff.
My dog snarls at me.
But Happy Holidays to all of you from everyone at Louis/Dressner Selections!
Denyse, Myself, and a Migrant Laborer
The Top 100 Louis/Dressner Wines of the Year
Every year I award the Top 100 Louis/Dressner Wines of the Year Awards.
None of our wines were memorable this year and there will be no award ceremony.
By the way, the 1988 Top Louis/Dressner Wines of the Year Ceremony is appearing these days on the Trio Network, which is channel 102 on my cable box. That was the year that Machard de Gramont Chorey-les-Beaune Les Beaumonts swept the awards.
Compliments 1
Jamie Goode is a prolific wine writer in Britain. I think he has a daytime job, but at night he is writing up a storm about the wine world. Some of his articles are even thoughtful. The site is called Wine Anorak, but you have to be British to know what that means.
Mr. Goode has the following to say about this site on his site:
For the record, as far as I am aware, the original wine blog is that of US wine importer Joe Dressner, found at www.joedressner.com, the large majority of which you will quickly recognize (I hope) as a satirical creation, poking fun at the wine trade and internet wine personalities. I haven’t met Joe, but I’ve communicated with him online and by email. He has a wonderful portfolio of largely manipulation-free wines from small French producers, including many made from biodynamically and organically grown grapes.
This is true. This site is the oldest and most active wine blog in existence. Unlike Mr. Goode, I do not have a day job.
Compliments 2
I received the following urgent e-mail message from Lawrence Li:
Dear Mr. joe Dressner,
We are a trading company in Hong Kong. We have great pleasure to know that you are the greatest importer of wine. In connection with wine, have you ever considered to import some oakwood wine barrels for your customers. Our company is supplying the oakwood wine barrels ranging from sizes of one litre to ten litres. These barrels are very having very attractive outlook in addition they can improve odor of the wine. They are lovely to people of admiring wine not only because these barrels can store wine but these barrels can serve as a beatiful craft that is attractive to people in shops/restaurants or in the office.
Thank so much, Mr. Li!
Columnist Matt Kramer on Clos des Briords Muscadet 2002
I hate to quote the Wine Spectator, but we are sold out of this wine, so there is no possible commercial gain for us. So, here is what Matt Kramer just wrote in a column entitled "My Wines of the Year:"
Marc Ollivier Muscadet Domaine de la Pépière Clos des Briords Vieilles Vignes 2002: When will Muscadet get its due? Frankly, only when more wines such as this single-vineyard Muscadet from 70-year-old vines are made and tasted by serious white wine lovers. Give this wine 10 years' aging and I promise you a revelation. All that for just 12 bucks a bottle.
Very kind words, but somewhat misleading. The problem is not that Muscadet as an AOC does not get its due, but that the very few great wines from the Muscadet do not get their due. The general mediocrity of the AOC drags down the reputation and appreciation of the very few growers who continue to make great wines in the area.
Guy Bossard, Jo Landron, Monique and Pierre Luneau and several others.... There ain't 100s of great growers in the region. And all of the truly good ones have limited quantities available.
Of course, if more people clamored to get the few great wines that are available from this region, it would be an incentive for younger growers to work better. To aspire to make great wine.
Unfortunately, the entire Muscadet is sunk into a terrible economic morass where only a few brave souls continue to shine. There is literally no economic incentive for people to do better. Only the fanatics and crazies continue to work well because they get satisfaction out of their work.
Mr. Kramer finds 12 bucks a bargain. Certainly, it is horribly cheap for the quality of the wine and Marc Ollivier should be able to charge more and make a better living out of all his hard work. But I cannot tell you how many times I go around the country working with wholesale reps and have top restaurants tell you they have no room for a Muscadet because it is too cheap and have retailers tell you that the wine is great but they have no room for a Muscadet that costs over the magic figure of $9.99.
Thanks though to Matt Kramer for a very kind and generous review.
Meet the Wine Importer at Alias Restaurant's Full Moon Dinner
Monday December 8th
Call 212.505.5011for reservations
Janet and Mary-Beth Nelson have announced an exciting new Full-Moon Dinner Program at Alias Restaurant at 76 Clinton Street, on New York's Lower East Side.
The Nelson sisters, who are also proprietors of 71 Clinton Strreet, are generally credited for launching the new restaurant scene on Clinton Street.
The Full Moon Dinner will cost $75.00 and includes five dishes and five wines designed for the Full Moon experience. Executive Chef Anthony Rose, along with Executive Wine & Beverage Manager Warren Fraser, have decided to inaugaurate the Full Moon Dining Program with a selection of Lunar-complementary wines prepared in partnership with executives from Louis/Dressner Selections.The following menu was organized through extensive tastings of 25 mystical wines from the Louis/Dressner portfolio:
Oyster and Sweet Dumpling Squash Stew served with
David Léclapart Champagne Cuvée l’Artiste Non-Dosé
Chatham Cod with Sunchoke Purée, Frisée and Braised Pork Belly served
with Domaine Viret Cosmic 2000
Duck Breast and Sausage with Cured Savoy Cabbage and Russian Banana
Fingerling Potatoes served
with Domaine Overnoy Arbois Pupillin Savignin Blanc 1998
Plateau du Fromage
with Mas de Chiméres Côteaux-du-Languedoc 2001
Empire Apple Flatbread with Il Laboratorio Gelato flavored
with Eric Texier Noble Rot 2000 (botrysized Mâcon-Bussiéres)
Put this exciting event on your calendar.
Call today for reservations. Places are filling up fast!
I will be attending and will be available to discuss the wines.
Warm Welcome to Ryley Wheeler
Congratulations to Linda Brown and Michael Wheeler!
Had a Great Time in New Orleans!
Denyse and I had a great time in New Orleans.
We're still drunk from consuming endless Daiquiris.
I think the best Daiquiri made in New Orleans, without a question, is at the Dacquiri Deli on 617 Decatur Street. Conveniently, there is also an ATM in the store, if you run out of cash while downing their delicious Daiquirs.
This is an establishment for purists -- no pina coladas here! The store is technically in the French Quarter, but is discreetly located off the main Bourbon Strip. This is a Daiquiri shop for the serious Daiquiri drinker.
What a town!
We tried some Daiquiri magic last night at home in Manhattan. It is not quite the same as being in New Orleans, but we had a great time. So did the kids and the dog. Try this Daiquiri recipe:
Joe Dressner's Banana Daquiri Mixer
1.5 oz ( 45 ml ) Lower Shelf white rum
1.5 oz (45ml) banana liqueur
1 oz( 30ml) creme de cacao
1 large ripe banana (broken into chunks)
12 ice cubes
Put all the ingredients in a Hamilton Beach Blender (put ice in first, then liquids). Break up most of the ice then blend until no chunks of ice remain. Pour into tall glasses. Makes two drinks. Repeat seven times to serve two people.
Polama is Wine Spectator Wine of the Year!
Congratulations to the whole Polama team!
Frankly, I have no idea what this wine could be. Who makes it and where does it come from? Is it any good?
I'm a fairly experienced wine person, being a wine importer, but it is true that I don't keep up with New World wines. Maybe this comes from California?
Do you know anything about this wine other than it is the Wine of the Year? Please let me know by cell phone, e-mail or in the comments section of this site.
By the way, I've gotten lots of requests from readers to see pictures of Mike Wheeler and Linda Brown's baby. Ryley.
I hope to have a picture soon.
Congratulations to Mike and Linda. I will be buying them a Jeroboam of Polama 2003 when Polama releases the vintage. If I find out where you order Polama wines.
New Orleans
What a city!
We've had some great meals and eaten a lot of delicious debris.
Today, we are doing a trade tasting at Cuvee Restaurant, who has graciously asked us to find a way to get Louis/Dressner wines into this city. This might be the first wine trade tasting ever scheduled the day before Thanksgiving. We are planning a follow-up tasting in Dallas, Texas on December 24th. We also lack distribution in that important state.
There is a lot of alcohol being consumed in this state. Perhaps more Alcohol is consumed than debris.
Just last week, my son came home drunk. I had a father-to-son talk with him, in my den, on Sunday morning and told him to avoid getting drunk. My son was exasperated and pointed out that I was a wine importer. I asked him what he had been drinking and he responded: "Claude Dugat Grand Crus from off vintages."
Maybe my son is drinking Charmes-Chambertin, but my guess is that most of the revelers in New Orleans are drinking something else.
Walking through Bourbon Street, one thinks longingly of Prohibition.
The Wine Importer Proudly Partners With New Blogging Journal
We are pleased to announce that The Wine Importer is now partnering with Bloggers, an international Blogging journal.
The object of this new venture is to forge ties between the international blogging community. This community includes both wine and non-wine blogs.
We hope you buy the premier issue of Bloggers, which is now available at your local newstand. It does not include any pornographic photos of Paris Hilton, has no articles about Michael Jackson, and does not mention the 100-point wine scoring system once!
Terres Dorées Beaujolais Nouveau Vieilles Vignes
We just did a double-blind tasting of Beaujolais Nouveau in our office. We went back to the 1998 vintage and all told there were wines from seven different Beaujolais Nouveau producers.
The unanimous favorite was Domaine des Terres Dorées Vieilles Vignes 2003! The wine has structure, some tannin, loads of fruit, depth and a long finish. Yes, it is almost too good to be a Nouveau, but it is a beautiful reminder of that hot, hot, awfully hot summer.
From my tasting notes:
Fresh and youthful, probably from this year's vintage. Tastes like it is from limestone, rather than granite. This is a lascivious, powerful, smoky sex pot of great fruit intensity, purity, and voluptuousness...."
The wine will officially be for sale tomorrow.
Unfortunately, we did not have a bottle of the regular cuvée.
Tomorrow, we will give samples to The Wine Spectator, who will savage the wine, as they do annually.
Great Spam
I am now using a great product, Mailblocks, to get rid of spam. I get nearly 400 e-mails a day, with maybe 10% of them actually being real messages from real people to me. The rest are the usual array of penile enlargement, viagra, breast enlargement, mortgages, Christian dating (I'm big with these people), etc.
Today, I got some interesting wine spam from Jennifer Pollock, a salesperson at Vino Veritas. Jennifer can be reached at 1-707-836-8855, which is the store number. This is a store in an unlikely place called Windsor, California.
The spam read:
2001 Hundred Acre Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon
Hundred Acre Vineyard
Napa, North Coast, California, USA
Cabernet Sauvignon (a dry red table wine)
36b available $150 a bottle
Said to be the next Screaming Eagle. This wine has yet to be released and has limited allocation.
Wine Advocate #142 (Aug 2002) Robert Parker (92-94) points Drink 2002-2017 The 2001 (1,500 case of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon) may be the Le Pin of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a lascivious, powerful, smoky sex pot of great fruit intensity, purity, and voluptuousness...."
I passed on this offer, but the 36 bottles might still be available.
Plus, I have to hand it to wine journalist Robert Parker for coming up with the phrase: a lascivious, powerful smoky sex pot of great fruit intensity, purity and voluptuousness.
Wine journalism is a difficult field and it is great to see Mr. Parker finding new ways to describe exciting new wines. We need this sort of creativity in the wine industry!
What is a Po' Boy Anyhow?
I'm going to New Orleans on Monday and still have no idea what a Po' Boy is and where I should buy one.
Which Savenièrres and what vintage goes best with a Po' Boy?
Are there many different Po' Boy flavors?