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Don't Miss Fabulous Harvest Report at Louis/Dressner Selections Website!
The people at Louis/Dressner Selections are posting 2005 harvest reports as fast as they come in.
Don't miss the daily ups and downs of Harvest 2005:
Exciting Uncensored Harvest Reports!
Harvest Starts at Terres Dorées in the Beaujolais!
Jean-Paul Brun reports by Telephone on September 19, 2005
We started picking in Charnay today. I’m optimistic and confident. We have a beautiful harvest in front of us.
I’d take a growning season like this any year. Everything went well, we had less to do, less corrections to make in the vineyards than we normally have. The vines look magnificent.
The summer had lots of sun and dryness. I was never that concerned about the vines being overstressed, by the dry weather but the small rains we had at the beginning of September and last week were perfect. They refreshed the vines and reaccelerated the maturation.
The Gamay we picked today was about 12 degrees with good acidity. They yields are low and correct. We’re waiting to pick the Chardonnay as I’d like to have some noble rot.
The weather report predicts good weather through the next seven days. That can always change, but we might be on the verge of a great year..
Many of my colleagues are in too much of a rush. Most of Charnay has already stopped picking and I’m just starting. They get into a mind frame that they are making Nouveau and the point is to rush out there, pick the grapes, get the vinifications going and pump out the Nouveau. Even if the grapes are not yet ripe. It’s a shame.
I’m completely confident.
Putain
Chez Panisse
Jonathan Waters, the sommellier at Chez Panisse, invited me to dine there on Wednesday. Every so often, I hear someone talk about how disappointing Chez Panisse is and how they found the experience boring and without excitement. I had a wonderful meal.
Alice Waters pioneered the notion of working with local, natural producers and putting their work on the restaurant table. This notion of fine dining, which ought to be the rudimentary spirit of every great restaurant, seemed almost revolutionary in America.
I lived in Berkeley briefly in early 1970. I was thrown off the campus by undercover police for not having a valid student identification card. At the time, I was appearing in guerilla theater projects against the war in Vietnam. I am a large fellow and was always cast in the role of the American Imperialist.. One of my friends, who started out small and skinny, had a crystal methadone problem and was cast in the role of the Vietnamese revolutionary peasantry. At the end of the skit, the Vietnamese peasant would convincingly defeat me, bludgeoning me senseless with an empty box or Rice Krispies.
One morning I walked on to the UC Berkeley campus to perform, and four stiffs in sunglasses and polyester suits followed me onto the campus. They looked like extras out of the old Mod Squard television series. They turned out to be undercover police and quickly asked for my student id card. I didn't have one.
California, under Governor Ronald Reagan, had passed a law after the Free Speech Movement demonstrations banning outside agitators from entering the University of California campuses. Since I was an outside agitator, I was informed to leave the campus or I would immediately be arrested. I was also informed that I would be arrested if I ever set foot on the campus again. I have not been back, although I am skeptical that I would be arrested in my current role as wine importer.
I was renting a room somewhere not far from Chez Panisse with a group of hippies who had made a killing producing an unauthorized Bob Dylan album of primitive recordings taped at Dylan concerts. As a joke, they inserted on the album an old Muddy Waters blues song that they played themselves, although they credited Dylan. If memory serves me right, it was the Hootchie Cootchie Man, although I could be wrong about that. Anyhow, Rolling Stone Magazine actually gave the bootleg album a rave review, declaring that my roomates' blues effort was the highlight of the album and Dylan's greatest blues rendition.
During my Berkeley stay, I was caught shoplifting at the Coop Supermarket. I was low on money and those were the days where every kid thought that petty crime was in the spirit of Che Guevarra and liberating chopped meat at the supermarket was striking another blow against the Imperialist Beast. I was taken into a private office, where a manager of the Coop explained to me that stealing from the Coop was like stealing from the people, since the people themselves were the owners of the Coop. I immediately told him that I had thought the Coop was like the A&P and the Safeway and I had no idea that I had been stealing from the people rather than from the Imperialist Beast. The manager understood my confusion over this issue, asked me to promise to never shoplift again from the Coop and let me go. On my way out, the manager told me: "Many of our shoplifters have become our best customers."
So, I always enjoy going back to the Bay Area and dining at Chez Panisse was a great pleasure. Why people find it disappointing is a mystery to me. I suppose, it is the same kind of sickness that makes people like Cult Cabernets and avoid Pineau d'Aunis. I had a salad with the best radishes I have ever tasted in America, mixed in a delicious olive oil, and with slices of beef brisket from an organic producer in Sonoma. The main course was a sumptuous Couscous with summer seasonal vegetables that were incredibly savory and flavorful.
All my thanks to Jonathan Waters for the invite and for the reminder of how good American cuisine can be when someone taks the time and energy to bring lively and delicious products of the earth to our table.
I had a great time in the Bay Area and will hopefully write more about my trip. My special thanks to Rick Franco for his restaurant and hotel tips.
Meet the Wine Importer Next Tuesday in the Bay Area
I will be serving a group of fabulous wines at the Estate Wines Ltd. annual tasting next Tuesday. All card-carrying members of the Wine Industry are welcome to attend. Please contact EWL for information.
Next Monday, I will be hosting a BYOB dinner at San Francisco's famed La Taqueria restaurant on 25th and Mission. The event starts at 7:20 pm. Please bring your own stemware. Call me on my cell phone to make reservations: 347 384 3134.
See you there!
Food & Wine Magazine Awards This Blog the Top WIne Blog!
The October issue of Food & Wine Magazine has an article on the Seven Best Wine Blogs.
Incredibly, this site was the first one mentioned! I suppose this means that I author the top-rated wine blog!
It is difficult to know if I should be proud or ashamed of this coveted award. Being a blogger is a full-scale admission of egomania and self-indulgence. Being rewarded for blogging and boasting about it on one's blog is the act of a confirmed madman.
All my thanks to all the little people who helped in the long blog climb uphill.
I'll never forget you!
I haven't mentioned Jim Bassett for some time. Jim is the guy who came up with this blogging software and has been incredibly generous and patient in allowing me to maintain this site (along with the Louis/Dressner site which uses his software).
Thanks Jim!
And I'd also like to thank my wife Denyse, without which none of this blogging would have been possible. My children who have given me so much blogging support over the years. My parents, who have stood by my blog in the tough times and the good times, My business associates who have suffered my blogging when there was actual work to do. Then, of course, there is my dog Buster, man's best friend, who was loyal during the blogging lows and the blogging highs. Not to forget....
Food & Wine writes:
Joe Dressner is part-owner of Louis/Dressner Selections, an American wine importer specializing in small producers, mostly French wines from highly regarded names like Bernard Baudry and Didier Barouillet. When he's not traveling the world on business, he publishes one of the least pretentious blogs on the Web. It's wise and unspoken, as in a post about the state of wine tasting today: "Wine is not a vehicle for egomania, boastfulness and self-promotion. All the great 'tasters' I have known are able to submerge their ego and understand what is in the bottle."
That's It
The blog is officially closed while I return to New York.
In a few hours we're off!
It has been a productive summer and there will be some great new wines available later this year. We've driven over 10,000 kilometers through viticultural France and have some interesting finds.
See you soon in New York!
I'm Dreaming of a Great 2005 Harvest
Denyse, Alyce, Buster and I are returning to New York on Thursday..
We are spending our last days seeing vignerons we haven't seen, packing, cleaning and dreading a return to New York.
We always stay here long enough to feel settled in and then poof!, it is time to return to our other life in New York. The one with tasteless radishes and tasteless haricot verts.
France remains extremely dry and the vineyards could use some rain. But domaines who maintain living vineyards, with vines that extend into the soil, are not suffering even if they could still use some rain.
Most important, the weather has turned splendid over the past few days and hopefully we are heading into a period of sun and cool nights before the harvest. It appears to be a smaller harvest than 2004, thankfully, and could be of very good quality if the weather holds.
Then again, it is always too early to tell until the harvest actually starts. But if nothing else, it looks promising.
Speaking of Great Food and Wine Matches
Denyse, Alyce and I will be dining with Emmanuel Houillon and Pierre Overnoy tomorrow afternoon.
We will be enjoying one of the most sublime food/wine matches imaginable. Great Comté and great VIn Jaune.
I don't think this matching is feasible in America. All great wine lovers in America ought to travel to the Jura to experience this wonderful pairing.
Be on the lookout for the next issue of The Art of Eating, my favorite little, private food/wine journal. There's been a serious of brilliant articles this year in this magazine and the next issue will feature an exploration through the Jura by Ed Behr, who came all the way to the Jura to eat Comté and drink Vin Jaune.
It is reassuring to know there are still journalists out there with sound priorities.
Radishes
Can anyone tell me where to get good radishes in the greater New York Metropolitan area?
I've been chomping on radishes all summer. I'll never forget the first time I saw a French person eat a radish. I thought it was a gag. My future wife cut a large slap of butter, put it on a plate, spread a pile of salt right next door, and ate a buttered, salted radish. I had never seen such an exotic custom, but my wife assured me the entire French nation eats radishes like that.
It turns out to be the case.
Ever since my stroke and bypasses, I am on a reduced butter/salt diet. But man, do I love radishes. And for some reason I can never find the same taste, crispiness and freshness in an American radish. I think they have a different breed in America, they like the fat radish that conserves well in transport and stockage. It is kind of like the difference between the old vines in Europe and the UC Davis clones.
I like eating a radis masale, not a radis clonale.
I'll trade a rare bottle of Muscadet for a good source of radishes in New York. Let me know if you have sources.
Library Release from Domaine de la Pépière!
Who knew, but Marc Ollivier has a library.
Just like the Californians have. Packed with old vintages.
He's releasing the 1999 Clos des Briords. This was a vintage that was closed in its early years but is now a living/breathing testament to the Melon de Bourgogne. This was a fairly hot vintage and it is drinking fine right now. The wine is available in modest, yet real quantites and should be arriving in America in the fall.
In other Muscadet news: Ollivier is releasing a new cuvée called Le Moulin la Gustaie. This is a new vineyard for him and is in gneiss, unlike the Clos des Briords which is in granite. The 2004 is being bottled in a few days and was last tasted by me a couple of weeks ago. It is fat, rich and more typical of the Muscadet than Marc's granite vineyards.
About 1/3 of the vines are between 55 and 60-years-old and the rest are 25 to 30. There was an actual Moulin in the area, which strangely enough decapitated one of Marc's ancestors several generations ago.
This is a celebratory bottle that should not be missed.
Emmanuel Houillon/Pierre Overnoy Gift Packs!
I'm off to the Jura tomorrow to make our annual selection of Emmanuel Houillon/Pierre Overnoy Christmas Season gift packs.
We're looking for a range of old Poulsard and old Savignin. They have a 1996 Savignin available that was made like a Vin Jaune but is considerably cheaper. Not to say that it is cheap.
Stay tuned for more exciting news from Pupillin.
Anyone Attend the Polaner Selections Tasting?
I was in France and could not make it.
I heard Eric Solomon was there!
Anyhow, how did it go? Any highlights?
Did my cousin from Radio Coteau show up?
Chardonnay from the Haut Mâconnais
Does anyone really have to be convinced anymore that one of the greatest expressions of Chardonnay in the world is the premier côte of the Haut Mâconnais?
There's also the advantage here that the vignerons did not have the money to totally screw up the chemical balances of their vineyards with too much fertilizer and chemical treatment. At least in the best sites.
Unfortunately, the area was always dominated by cooperatives and the Haut Mâconnais has never developed the reputation it so richly deserves.
Denyse and I had the pleasure last night to dine with Henri Goyard and his wife. Goyard is the retired vigneron of the Domaine de Roally, whose Mâcon-Viré and Mâcon-Montbellet were always among the top standards of this region. Last night we drank a 1997 Viré followed by the memorable botrysized 1994.
My God, what wines!
Why bother with a tasting note. What a sublime experience.
The French Expression for Spoofulation
It is difficult to come up with a direct translation.
But, I heard the next best thing the other day while tasting with a producer of white Burgundy. Unfortunately, I cannot mention the vigneron's name due to commercial restraints.
His phrase:
Les vins réanimé.
Not bad, that.
Haricot Verts
Denyse and I spend the summer buying and eating Haricot Verts here in the Mâconnais.
Why can't we find good Haricot Verts in America?
No doubt, there is a deluxe vegetable sales outlet in New York or elsewhere that sells first class string beans for a king's ransom.
But here in Poil Rouge, we have no trouble finding delicious Haricot Verts from a wide array of farmers and merchants. No specialty store need apply.
Over here, its just an agricultural product, not a fancy food.
Contest for New Louis/Dressner/LDM Logo
We have been conducting a serious competition to find a new logo for our company.
The current frontrunner, an original design from Ghislaine Martemot, the famed Meursault vigneronne, is shown below:
Any feedback?
I tell you, its great having a vanity website!
What Sort of Egomaniac Runs a Commercial Web Blog?
Yes it takes a lot of ego and a lot of free time.
Someone demented enough to spend their spare moments indulging in endless self-promotion.
Yes, self-indulgence is the word.
But sometimes, there is something else lurking behing the successful Egomaniacal Web Blogger.
My real motivation:
Posting pictures of my dog Buster on the internet.
Thank God! It's Raining in the Mâconnais!
This has been a summer of terrible dryness all over France.
Today, Sunday, August 14th, it is raining here in Poil Rouge.
Thank goodness. The vines could use some water.