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Numbers 5 and 6 of My Top 10 List of This Year's Louis/Dressner Selections' Imports
I’ve been busy working the past few days and apologize in advance for not having blogged lately. I am in desperate need of guest bloggers, something along the lines of what David Brenner and Jay Leno used to do for Johnny Carson. Any interested party should contact me by e-mail. I am going to need some help during the holiday season, particularly as one of my business partners is on vacation for the next three weeks. I will gladly tolerate opposing viewpoints, although it is hard to call this web site a ‘viewpoint.’
5. Quinta do Infantado Ports
We became port importers through a convoluted route. We used to work with Marcel Richaud in Cairanne, a very good producer, who took a vacation to Portugal in maybe 1995 or 1996, I forget. I happened to go visit Richaud after he came back and he insisted that I taste some open Infantado bottles he had brought back from the Douro. Richaud wound up there because the owners of Willy’s Wine Bar in Paris, who are good friends of Richaud, told him that he had to visit Infantado when in Portugal as they were simply the best. That they most closely approximated what Richaud was doing, real vignerons working their soil, letting their wine express their terroir. I was thrilled with the wine – by its authenticity and richness. So many ports are so dominated by sugar, here was a meio-seco, a semi-dry wine that didn’t emphasize sweetness as there was just so much material, so much terroir to show. I like naturally made wines not because they are ‘correct’ but because I think they make the best wines and here was a port estate moving toward organic viticulture which was not a consulting oenologists creation but the real item. You could taste it in the bottle. Honest.I called friends in the States and Infantado was already represented, with the country divided between two importers. It being a small world, Robert Callahan turned out to be good friends with João Roseira from Infantado. Infantado eventually needed a new importer on the east coast and we got the gig.
You might object that it is unfair to have Quinta do Infantado ports as wine number 5 as there are so many different bottlings ranging from ruby, tawny to vintage. But to me, what is so striking about Infantado is the quality throughout their offerings. I don’t believe there is a better Ruby in the marketplace and the Organic Vintage Character along with the Estate Reserve are just smashing. It’s a domaine, not a négociant with a ‘low-end’ and a ‘high-end’ and much as the great domaines have a level of greatness throughout, Infantado makes great ports.
6. Clos de la Roilette Fleurie 1999 and Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvée Tardive 1999
Once again, I’m cheating. There are two bottlings here, the regular and the Cuvée Tardive (a selection of the estate’s best parcels). I always visit the Cru Beaujolais in the February after the harvest and always stop first at the Coudert estate. Tastings here take forever as we taste many cuvées and then endless bottles of olders vintages are brought out. And we talk, chat, smoke (unfortunately I’ve had to quit as has Fernand Coudert, the father and founder of Roilette), joke and get a little drunk. It’s a ritual.We started here with the 1989 vintage but 1991 was the best we’ve done. It was a great, even historic vintage for the Cru Beaujolais that was badly viewed as 1991 Red Burgundies had a bad reputation and the press/public always views the Beaujolais as a weaker sibling. But they pick earlier in Cru then in the Côte d’Or and 1991 was a superb summers until it rained. But everything was always in the cuverie at Roilette before the rains began. The vintage approximated the Côte Rotie more than Vosne-Romanée.
When I started tasting the Coudert 1999s I remembered the excitement of tasting the 1991s there. The 1999s are not far off. It’s a Fleurie, but in fact Roilette is really one of the great climates of Moulin-à-Vent. Don’t rush to drink this wine though. Put some aside and give it a few years.
The oddest thing about it all was that the vintage does not seem exceptional elsewhere. It is a good harvest, but northing more. Except for the Coudet.
Sentence fragments again.
I need some guest bloggers.
posted on Sunday, December 17, 2000
Numbers 7 through 11 of My Top 10 List of This Year's Louis/Dressner Selections' Imports
7. Chinon Croix Boissée 1998 from Bernard Baudry
Not a particularly good year, just a great wine. This is Baudry’s best site, although in young vines. Whenever I taste in the cellar it always interesting to see how the pedigree of the vineyard makes it stand out against other parcels that are in old vines.There is just beautiful concentration and balance to this bottle. I’ve been drinking this over the past several months and only wish I had more. Kermit Lynch also gets this wine as does Neal Rosenthal. We're sold out, but they might have some.
8. Montlouis Clos Habert 1998 Demi-Sec from François Chidaine
Also a lousy year and a great wine. So many of the Layons are difficult to taste in 98, so many Vouvray make you think longingly for 1997, but this Montlouis is perfectly sculptured Chenin. I don’t know if it because he is in biodynamie, but Chidaine has made a grand vin here that could be mistaken for a great vintage. It's also time to talk more about the secs and demi-secs and less about the sweet wines. There is some shipping to Chicago and some to Connecticut. Otherwise, there is nothing around.9. Bois du Boursan Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1997
Jean-Paul Versino is a charming character who has 40 some odd parcels in Châteauneuf, with the average age being 60-years-old. The yields are tiny, the élavage is in foudres and the wines have concentration and beautiful mouth-feel. The 1998 will be coming in soon (it was only recently bottled) but the 1997 drank beautifully throughout the year. We only started working recently with Versino – Paul Pernot in Puligny-Montrachet knows him and gave us his phone number about 18 months ago. There is none left.10. Anything from Mittnacht-Klack --
We don't import this wine, but I love the name. Mittnacht-Klack. Mittnacht is Jean Mittnacht and Klack is Annie Klack, making them Mittnacht-Klack. Robert Parker has the following to say about them in French: Les grands crus du domaine Mittnacht-Klack ont une pureté aromatique et une richesse de sève qui les placent au premier rang de la production alsacienne. I'm not sure if Mr. Parker said the same thing about them in English.My wife, Denyse Louis, grew up in Alsace. The first time we looked for a grower in Alsace we drove all over and tasted all over. We had an appointment in Pfaffenheim, parked the car in the town square and the local village drunk eyed us over. Finally, he said: "Vous avez les narrines des amoreuses." In English, this means: "You have the nostrils of lovers." We continue to be happily married.
11. Château St-Anne Bandol 1998 --
I like Mourvedre a great deal and Bandol is the purest expression of the grape. There is so much good wine being made in the AOC that I am happy we have one of the best estates. There are others.St-Anne has hit a stride, after a few years of disorganization, and Françoise Dutheil de la Rochère, has now taken charge of the vinification. Her husband François had died right after the 1995 vintage and it took a while to get back on track. This estate is one France's forerunner's in organic production and was one of the first estates to decide to stop using sulphur.
I was once in Detroit seeing retailers and some retailer tasted this wine and asked what the grape varieties were. I told him it was Mourvedre and he told me he also loved Mourvedre. When I asked him which one was his favorite Mourvedre, he told me "Cline Cellars." At my next appointment, the retailer asked me what grape varieties went into the wine. I told him Bandol. He admitted that he didn't know that Bandol was a grape variety and I assured him that it was in fact one of the great grape varieties of the world. He should look it up in Jancis Robinson's book.
That's it. Happy New Year to everyone and happy blogging!
posted on Monday, January 1, 2001
Going to Detroit to Sell Wine
I'll be off to Detroit soon to sell some of our horrible wine. I love that town and always read the excellent Detroit Free Press web site before arriving. This puts me in the know and helps me prepare for the often difficult negotiations I have with savvy Detroit's wholesalers, retailers and consumers.
What I find particularly useful is the Free Press' obituary column -- there is nothing more embarrassing for a salesman like myself to call an account only to discover that they are dead. This is not not only embarrassing, but often alienates the surviving family members, many of whom are responsible for major wine purchasing decisions.
I am always amazed, when I read these death notices, at the longevity of the average Detroit resident and the beautiful and literary names so many of them seemed to have. One can only hope that future generations of Detroitonians have names to match Joseph 'Jack'' Duda, Kathleen Joan Armbruster, Lillian K. Fishtahler and Reginald Napolean Forcade.
I also noted with sadness that Stanley Kowalski passed away on January 6th. I had always assumed that Mr. Kowalski was a fictional character, but in fact he had 10 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren! Some of the other recently deceased had over 30 great-grandchildren, all with fabulous names!
posted Monday, January 8, 2001
Famous Wine Critic Describes a Louis/Dressner Wine as "Nearly Mind-Boggling!" And in the Best Sense of "Nearly Mind-Boggling!"
Wow!
I've not only been in a rut about keeping this blog up-to-date, I have also been lax in following the exciting wine press.
I was shocked to read that our firm actually imports and markets a 'mind-boggling' wine. We are not cited as the importer by the Famous Wine Critic, as we share this wine with another importer in the Midwest. But, finally, I could look my children Jules and Alyce straight in the eye, and say:
Listen up children, stand tall and be proud. Your mother and father import a "hedonistically-styled" wine that nearly boggled the mind of The Famous Wine Critic. Not only did he say it was nearly mind-boggling but he also wrote "Wow!" in describing the wine.
Jules was not impressed. "Big deal," Jules said and pointed out that 'nearly mind-boggling' seemed to be a qualified endorsement, falling considerably short of both mind-boggling and absolutely mind-boggling.
Of course not, I answered, the critic said the wine "is an amazing creation that pushed the sensory circuits into overdrive." You can't get much getter than an amazing creation and overdrived sensory circuits, I answered my son.
Jules and Alyce asked me what the wine's color was like, and I responded: the famous wine critic said it was "impressively saturated ruby/purble."'
Alyce then asked me what the wine smelled like and I said, according to the same critic, "the nose offers up sumptuous aromas of wood, spice, schored earth, and blackberry and cherry liquor."
Jules then asked if there was a long finish. Of course, I said, according to the wine critic it "possesses a 45-second-finish."
Both children wanted to know if we were now wealthy. They were disappointed to learn that this wine is made in small quantities and that the wine would never make us wealthy. Alyce suggested that we charge a fortune for the wine. We had considered doing that, but the wine seems to be available through numerous grey market channels at a reasonable price. We're out-of-luck.
posted on Monday, January 08, 2001
Off on Exciting French Buying Trip
Last year I bought a container of Overnoy. I also tried to buy two Loire Valley estates specializing in Overnoy/Plagolles style wines from Chenin. Happily, both went out of business before they could ship us the wine.Who knows what I'll find this year?
Stay posted here. I am armed with my Casio PocketPC, a modem, and plan to blog like crazy.
posted Sunday, January 28, 2001
Notitis
I'm sick of tasting notes. I get accused of wasting time and bandwidth by blogging. But I cannot imagine anything more useless than tasting notes.It colors like cassis.
It smells like cassis.
It attacks the frontal with cassis.
It mids the palate with cassis.
It lingers with cassis.
Wow!
Change cassis to whatever you like and you have the reductive, all-purpose tasting note. How to reduce a year of work in a vineyard to a trite text that tells nothing about nothing. And with hedonistic gobs of nothingness, lingering on and on.
If the New York Giants can play in New Jersey and the Cleveland Browns can play in Baltimore and call themselves the Ravens, then certainly we can come up something more imaginative and engaging.
posted Sunday, January 28, 2001
Cross-Posting Australian Shiraz
Speaking of industrial wines. I had to give a seminar in Chicago on Friday and ran to a supermarket to buy what I imagined would be an industrial wine to serve blind.
Wow! My first Lindemans Bin 50 Shiraz!
The Lindemans' winemaker wrote of this wine:
Colour: Deep plum with a crimson rim.
Nose: The bouquet shows an assortment of aromas including black pepper, nutmeg, ginger and raspberry cheesecake.
Palate: The attractive and enticing nature of the bouquet is duplicated on the palate, which is succulent, soft and mouth-watering. The wine features fruit flavours of blueberries and mulberries with spicy, slight black pepper characters. A smooth, velvet like tannin structure frames these characters
I actually agree, more or less, with the winemaker's comments. I especially agreed with the raspberry cheesecake descriptor, although it was certainly a particularly sweet rendition of that venerable recipe.
At the same time I found the bottle horrifying and repulsive. A Frankenstonian wine.
Does this say something about the limitation of the tasting note as descriptive medium?
This is a very popular wine that sells in vast quantities.
But is it wine?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Which Wine Will You Be Drinking During the Super Bowl?
I find it a barbaric sport and won't be watching.
The last football game I watched was the one where the Jets won the Super Bowl. The Mets won the world series that year, the Knicks won the NBA and man walked on the moon. With the exception of the guys walking on the moon, they were all New York teams. The so-called New York Giants have abandoned the Bronx for New Jersey. The Baltimore Ravens are in fact the Browns that abandoned Cleveland. There are no football teams in New York and the real Baltimore team is in Indiana, of all places.
This Super Bowl is a celebration of anti-terroir!
Maybe I'll watch and drink a Château St-Jean Cinq Cépages.
Someone poured one for me in Chicago. The one that was the Wine Spectator's wine of the year. It was like a tobasco sauce with some wine overtones. I can understand a wine with some tobasco overtones, but this was a new experience for me.
Speaking of the Giants, are Del Shofner and Y.A. Tittle still alive? Where are they?
I used to like Joe Namath. As a young man growing up in bucolic Queens, New York (one of New York City's famed outer boroughs), I used to sell hot dogs at Jet games. Broadway Joe and Howard Cosell would always give a little pre-game speech to all the hot-dog/soda vendors before Namath suited-up. In each speech, Namath would tell the assembled, pimpled teenagers how he had been up to 5 am with a stewardess he had picked-up at an East-Side Bar and doubted he would be able to play well.
posted on Friday, January 26, 2001
Muscadet Scandal Rocks Chicago
I've spent the past week in Detroit and Chicago. While Detroit has a normal wine market where retailers and civilians enjoy the delights of Melon de Bourgogne, there is no Muscadet to be found in Chicago! Frankly, I have no idea how to explain this situation, but there you are....
The only restaurant that seems to carry Muscadet is Shaws, which is renowned for its shellfish. This restaurant has two Muscadet, one cheap industrial one and a more expensive industrial one. Even if they want an average to decent Muscadet, there is really none to be found.
This bewildering situation is something I cannot explain. Please let me know by e-mail if you have any explanation.
On the other hand, the town is paradise for a Gruner Veltiner lover. One of the nation's top importers of Austrian wine, Vins Divino, is based in this town and is a full-scale distributor here. They have recently signed-on as the Chicago distributor for Therry Thiese, the excellent agent for German and Austrian wines. This should make Chicago the premier market for American lovers of the Wachau.
Chicago is also a great town for lovers of Marcel Lapierre's Morgon. While Kermit Lynch imports Lapierre's Morgons for the rest of the country, Lapierre is imported here by Barrique Wines. Lapierre has a close friend in Chicago, a French guy from the Maconnais who owns the admirable Le Bouchon and Sardine restaurants. These two bistros have always featured Marcel's Morgon and have created a word of mouth for the wine. They are everywhere and why not? The 1999 was delicious and the wine is much cheaper than it is in New York as it does not pass through Kermit Lynch.
In an odd development, Barrique Wines was bought last year by Vins Divino. This makes Vins Divino, undoubtedly, Chicago's biggest distributor of Gruner Veltiner and Unsulphured Beaujolais. Although rumor has it that Marcel Lapierre now lightly sulfurs his wines when they are sold on the export market. There were past stories of instability that gave the wine a checkered reputation. But when the wines are on, they have always been fabulous.
Even stranger, I was in a wine store named Shaffer's on Wednesday, a wine store in an unlikely place known as Skokie, and there in front of me was Marcel Lapierre himself, selling his Morgon to American merchants in the far-flung strip malls of American's heartland. Wow! I thought to myself. What's the likelihood of running into Marcel Lapierre, known throughout France as Le Marcel, along with one of his nephews who is starting a negociant business in the Maconnais/Beaujolais. Skokie is a lovely town, but it is not Macon.
I spent Thursday looking for FX Pichler at other Chicago retailers but did not see him. In all honestly, I'm not sure what Pichler looks like.
posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2001
Selling wine....
Is an exhausting and dangerous occupation. I'm back in the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Roseville, Michigan, having tasted 4 retailers on a dozen wines and after hosting a convival consumer dinner with the wine enthusiasts of Detroit. They are a very nice group.
Although my hotel television has HBO, I'm calling it a night.
By the way, the dinner was at a restaurant called Forté in Royal Oak. Avoid it like the plague if you're ever in these parts.
As usual, I'm selling enormous quantity of wines here. Thank goodness, our accountant says we need cash flow. She made a convincing argument, I thought.
posted on January 22, 2001
Count your blessings
Unlike you, dear reader, I am currently residing in a Holiday Inn located in Roseville, Michigan. I'm ostensibly here to sell wine, but some of my loved ones suspect foul play.
I dined last night with an area retailer who tried to impress me with a deeply flawed bottle of 98 Jaboulet La Chapelle. I matched the wine with a 93 Overnoy Poulsard, a wine which astonished everyone at the table. The retailer wants a state-wide exclusive.
I ask you, dear readers, what should I do?
Have to run. The Holiday Inn is about to run out of defrosted muffins. A complementary continental breakfast is part of the deal here. You also get free copy of USA Today!
posted on January 17, 2001
Alternatively, the successful wine importer finds some dimwit of a millionaire who has made so much money on the web or elsewhere that he/she cannot imagine anything more interesting, charming and sophisticated then getting into the wine racket. Tell the dimwit that he can come along with you to France or Italy or Spain and help you choose your special barrels and you have an open checkbook. We're taking applications from dimwits with big checkbooks looking to get into the wine racket. I'm sick of our financial controller limiting us to 300 bottles a month. Any dimwit who wants to get into the wine business should e-mail me ASAP. My e-mail address is listed somewhere on this site. The wine is an experimental wild yeast fermentation which took five months longer to finish fermenting than the regular bottling. We also asked Peillot to leave some naturally occurring CO2. This wine is sort of available in New York City. Only 300 bottles have arrived as we lack major investors and internet venture capital guys to pay our bills. We are now limiting ourself to 300 bottles a month. I drank this wine two weeks ago at the producer's home so do let me know out there what you think. Instead, he recently surprised me with the a special bottling of 1997 Domaine de la Pépière that came only from the old vines sites in the hamlet of Pépières. How old? Honestly, why do you want to know? The wine is sensational. We'll be selling the 2000 vintage at the same time (in increments of 300 bottles) but do buy some of this wine and put it aside somewhere in your cellar. How long should you keep this wine? As long as you like. - to vinify as burgundians do, with respect for each vineyard’s specificity (emulating Michel Lafarge in Volnay and the Ramonet family in Chassagne-Montrachet) - to turn his back on the heavy, nondescript style of traditional CDRs, which often lack fruit, and let the vineyards express their character (as the great Piedmont winemakers, like Elio Altare, do) - not to be restricted by old-fashioned principles and consider that boldness doesn’t contradict tradition, and work in a new style while respecting what the previous generations have achieved (like the winemakers in Oregon and Washington state David Adelsheim or Joan Wolverton). In 1992, he went back to school, studying viticulture and oenology, then worked with Jean-Marie Guffens at Verget. Guffens taught him to respect the grapes and how to use the lees, and Texier went on to emulate his buying of grapes from owners who had respected strict viticultural fashions. When he left, he had adopted the following ideas: no clones, shy-bearing root stocks, plowing the soil instead of using weed-killers, moderate yields paid as if the grower had cropped for the legal maximum (for example, asking for 35 hectoliters per hectare in Côtes-du-Rhône Villages but paying for 42 h/h), green harvests, lutte raisonnée (viticultural methods used in organic agriculture), no anti-rot sprays and hand picking. His winemaking techniques for white wines include sorting at the vineyard and at the winery, whole clusters pressed in a vertical press (that's the old fashioned wood kind), no added yeast, barrel fermentation (less than 10% new wood), elevage on the fine lees, 100% malo for the dry wines, minimal usage of SO2, fining and filtration only when necessary, no pumping, elevage in a naturally cool cellar (all wines are brought to the Beaujolais when fermentation is complete, to take advantage of an excellent cellar there, since those are rare in the south). For red wines, he proceeds with sorting at the vineyard and at the winery, 100% destemming (most of the time), bringing grapes to the press by conveyer belt rather than pumps or screws, cold maceration under a CO2 blanket for aromatic extraction (5 - 8 days), no added yeasts, pigeage and remontage twice a day (breaking up of the cap by pushing it down, then pumping the juice over; this is done vat by vat with slow pumps) during both maceration and fermentation, temperatures controlled not to exceed 34 degrees C, elevage in 2 -5 year old barrels and larger capacity barrels (450 l), with as much as 10% of these new. No filtration; egg white fining if necessary before bottling. Texier’s white wines include Mâcon-Bussières, Viognier, and, in vintage 2000, a rare Brézème white (all Roussanne) and Cassis (Marsanne and Clairette). The reds include Brézème (a 100% Syrah CDR), Côte-Rôtie and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and in vintage 2000 Séguret, St-Gervais and Chusclan. Take a look at Robert's excellent wine forum: Wine therapy I visited Derain with two van loads of American visitors. The first van was entirely from the American South, including representatives from Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. The second van had Louis/Dressner customers from the Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Cleveland and Oklahoma City. All told, 29 glasses were passed around for us all to taste his Mercurey. Given he made only 35 hectolitres/hectare, sampling our group significantly reduced the overall availability of 2000 Mercurey for the 11 American markets represented in his cellar. Anyhow, in the process of passing around his pipette 29 times, Derain told us about the quality of his first Mercurey crop and the comments of Mercurey's well-known Vigneron Michel Juillot. Michel Juillot, who has made many great wines in his day, is one of the rare Burgundians who continues to roll his r's. Everyone used to, but it is now looked down upon as an ignorant peasant's pronunciation. Juillot is probably the last of the rolling r vignerons and one can only fear that when Michel leaves the earth, so does this particular patois. Derain's imitation is both brilliant and hilarious. I heartily recommend that you stop next time you are in St-Aubin, try out some of Derain's biodynamique wines, and request Dominique's fabulous Michel Juillot imitation. This is a must for all Burgundy lovers. I speak French with a New York patois and have all the classic problems of Anglophones in pronouncing the r correctly in French. This always made interaction with Michel Juillot difficult when my firm represented his wines. It also creates problems in my summer home of Poil Rouge in the Maconnais. My neighbor, Monsieur Riguet, is originally from the Charollais. He rolls his r's Derain's estate appears to be Reverdy/Yaniger free. Derain is in biodynamie and Stuart is on public record as finding biodynamie to be just so much hogwash. The other problem is that Derain likes to put wax seals on his bottles and there seems to be a problem with using wav seals and sythetic corks. Derain recently attended a Foucault jeebus. Derain feels that what is exception there is the cellar itself. Move the vinification elsewhere, out of that cellar that has seen generations of Saumur-Champigny, and you would no doubt not have the same wine. Even if it had massive distribution on the west coast. Highlights of the past few days include: 1. The Annual Clos Rougeard Jeebus -- Peter Weygandt, noted wine importer, informed one of our group that the prices at the Clos Rougeard are so high as they need to finance the daily jeebus feeding. That's one perspective. Highlights of the Thursday morning Jeebus included the 1990 Bourg, a wine that made me thankful that I quit smoking and that my heart now receives a dose of oxygen. There was also the incredibly radiant, if not radioactive 1997 Moelleux Coteaux du Saumur. I resolved this would be the last Chenin Blanc I would ever drink....what would another glass add to the experience? Louis/Dressner Selections now shares this estate with Stuart Yaniger, who will be importing industrial quantities for wine stockists in Northern California. One of the Foucault brothers (I forget which) told me that Yaniger guaranteed at least 800 cases in the bat of an eye wink. Or something like that. One of the things that makes the wine so good here is the barrels from Dussieux. This is a local tonnellier who ages barrels the old way: three years outside. Unfortunately, other barrel makers are using intense industrial treatments to rush wood to market. The Foucault barrels are always incredibly harmonious and add something to the wine rather than detract. One of many Foucault brother told me while we were tasting the 1995 Poyeux that the reason Osier Cote Rotie is so expensive is that enormous quantities are sent for free to Northern California to entertain important internet wine personalities at tasting events. I've never attended these events so I had nothing to say on this matter. We then drove the two vans on to Saumur to let off one of our members at the train station. From there we were off to Chinon for jeebus number two. 2. This Jeebus featured endless bottled of Chinon from Domaine Bernard Baudry. " Gosh," I said to my assembled customers as they got back into the vans, "Chinon doesn't get much better than this." I have started saying Gosh because I understand that competitor wine importers use this term to pressure customers to buy their wines. Gosh! I'm not certain what Bernard Baudry's relationship is with Stuart Yaniger, but I did notice a bag of sample synthetic corks in his cellar and a bumper sticker with the international 'Don't Drink Poulsard' symbol attached to Baudry's Peugeot. Mysteriously, I have lost 800 cases of my annual allocation at Baudry and I fear they are destined for bat winked Northern Californians. There is even talk of a Yaniger Six-Pack at one of the local wine outlets. We then got back into the vans and drove about four hours to Sancerre. We had hoped to eat at the Pomme d'Or but arrived too late to be served. All the tables were taken up by people on the Peter Weygandt Tour, sampling Sancerre from one of Sancerre's prestigious Reverdy. The tour members were deciding whether this Reverdy should cold stabilize and filter his 2000 Sancerre or not. I have always been an admirer of participatory democracy (I have a signed photo of Tom Reverdy Hayden above my desk in New York City) and found this an overwhelming experience. As I was fearful of losing customers or producers to Reverdy-Weygandt, especially given our recent losses to Reverdy-Yaniger, I hustled the two van loads out of the restaurant and made them eat at the only place that would take us. I had a Pizza au Crotin du Chavignol, which consisted of a frozen pizza with some goat cheese microwaved on top of the pie. I ordered a bottle of 1999 Sancerre from Hippolyte Reverdy, a distant cousin of Peter Weygandt-Reverdy, but no relation to Stuart Yaniger-Reverdy. Frankly, I think people go too far with these hyphenated last names. I also agree that it is sexist that the child always bears the name of the father. But what would happen if Stuart Yaniger-Reverdy had a daughter named Ginger. And Peter Weygandt-Reverdy had a son named Frank. If Ginger married Frank would her name then be Ginger Yaniger-Reverdy-Weygandt-Reverdy? And what would their children be named. Enough is enough! I had assumed that Yaniger-Reverdy was not importing Sancerre into California and was limiting their efforts to Brezeme, Pineau d'Aunis, Menu Pineau and Saumur-Champigny (800 cases from each appellation for stockists in Northern California and prestigious restaurant placements) until we visited the cellar of Jean-Paul Labaille the following morning. 3. Labaille-Thomas Cuvee Buster Sancerre Jeebus. We are now onto the forth (or maybe third) Cuvee Buster at this estate. There are 300 bottles ready to ship of the 1999 and we also got to taste the 2000 edition in barrel. This wine comes from 75-year-old vineyards next to the Grand Cote. The 2000 had been harvested at 14.5 degrees and the 1999 at over 13.5. Gosh, that is very ripe for a Sancerre, I told my van loads of customers. We may have trouble getting the wine. A Swedish importer has offered to buy it for 75 francs a bottle. If we match or beat the price than it will cost between $25.00 and $30.00 in retail outlets. Labaille also informed me that another American company had offered to buy the wine at 77 Francs a bottle and that they would fill the pipeline in a part of America where Louis/Dressner distribution is reputed to be weak. While no names were dropped, dear reader, the conclusion is obvious. I'm in Beaune tonight and have tasted already at Sylvie Esmonin and Francois Legros. I have to get up early tomorrow to taste at Amiot-Servelle with a busload of customers with Southern drawls. Goodnight. Congratulations are due! Jeff is considering a move to Emeryville upon his return to America. More to come.... Details to come.. This is a grape variety that is either acidic/austere or full/rich/complex. There's nothing in-between. It is not syrah, never has too much color and will never smell or taste like raspberry cheese cake. French oenologists have tried numerous enzyme/hormone treatments to get the much vaunted raspberry cheese cake effect (see my tasting notes below regarding Lindemans Bin 50 Shiraz) but alas, as the Angevins say, to no avail. Pineau d'Aunis is simply immune. Vintage 2000 was a truly great year for this variety. Pineau d'Aunis easily hit 12 degrees or 13 degrees and the new century begins with a true treat for all Auniseans out there. I'm blogging here in my beautiful hotel room at the 5 Star B&B Hotel outside of Angers. Yesterday, I attended a marvelous tasting in Bourgueil which grouped together Pineau d'Aunis producers from all over the Loire Valley. Some tasting note highlights: Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Touraine 2000 -- lively and nervous, but rich stuff with floral overtones. Lightly colored, this superb wine can be drunk now or held for 18 months. It is best to wait two months to drink as the wine is still in cuve and the Clos Roche bottling team projects a late March bottling. So, push my projected drinking timetable back two months to allow sufficient time for the wine to be bottled. Emile Heredia Coteaux du Vendemois 2000 -- There will be two bottlings of Pineau from this exciting new producer. Not only is 2000 a fabulous vintage for the Coteau du Vendemois it also marks a major turning point for the region -- they have been upgraded from VDQS to AOC. I am predicting that prices will rise dramatically here, so stock up now. Heredia is a former photographer who has bought land in the area that consists entirely of 80 year old vines. There will be two different bottlings of 2000 Aunis here: one approximates the Clos Roche bottling and is meant as a light quaffer, but the other went through a 10 day fermentation, is almost darkly colored (please remember, dear reader, that darkly colored is a relative term and we are talking about Pineau d'Aunis here). I found this wine exotic and lovely. Drink now or hold 28 months. As with the example from the Clos Roche Blanche, I strongly advise waiting two months for the wine to be bottled before consuming it. This will be difficult to do, as the wine is so delicious now that you will be constantly tempted to open the tap on your old foudres and pour a glass for yourself. Domaine de Belliviere - Eric Nicolas -- Coteaux du Loir I am also looking forward to meeting, once again, Nicolas' fabulous international commercial agent. This fellow, the agent, lives in Holland and has an international exclusive for numerous famous French producers. No one understands how he has achieved this position but there are rumors that one has to wear a bow tie and no socks if you expect to succeed in the international wine agent business. Of course, Angers is filled with American importers clamoring to grab up as much Pineau d'Aunis 2000 as possible. I feel that our firm, Louis/Dressner Selections, is in a good position, but the competition is fierce, intense and often bitter. In a sense the competition is unfortunate. The American wine trade is projecting enormous American market demand for Pineau d'Aunis 2000 and already some of my competitors have offered to pay in advance and to pay more just to get quantities of the best Aunisian cuvee. This is particularly true for the wines that have received 95 points and more in the press. These wines have yet to be bottled, but are already being offered in grey market channels, often from Switzerland. We at Louis/Dressner are not here in the Loire just to cherry pick a good vintage. We buy and sell Pineau d'Aunis year-in and year-out. I hope the best names in Aunis understand that the current American obsession with Pineau is temporary and that Pineau producers make commercial arrangements that are in their long-term interests. Unfortunately, the frenzy has begun and it is difficult to know how it will all end. Someone will probably translate this soon, but until then, for those of you who read French, here it is: Un petit CV Je suis né à bordeaux en 19961. Je vis à Lyon depuis 1979. J'ai 3 enfants : 11,8 et 4 ans. J'ai une formation d'ingénieur en matériaux (une année à l'Illinois Institute of Technologie en 1983). J'ai travaillé 15 ans dans l'industrie du loisir puis du nucléaire : Clairement pas ma voie. A partir de 1990, je décide de me reconvertir pour faire du vin, pour lequel je nourris une passion dupuis que j'ai 23 ans. Au début je pense à acheter un vignoble. Je fais beaucoup de recherches bibliographiques sur le vignoble français au 18ème et au 19ème siècles, pour trouver un vignoble inconnu oul abandonné afin de le faire revivre. En 1991, j'en trouve 2 dans ma région favorite (les Côtes du Rhône septentrionales) : l'un d'eux est Brézème. L'autre sera ma prochaine surprise. Je commence alors des démarches pour aquérir et replanter. En parralèle, je visite les vignobles du monde entier pour découvrir les différentes approches de la viticulture et de la vinification. Quelques voyages me marquent beaucoup : la bourgogne pour la vinification et le respect du terroir, le Piémont pour le changement de La synthèse des trois constituera le point de départ d'une "philosophie" - Vinifier à la bourguignonne dans le respect du terroir comme Michel - S'eloigner du style lourd et pateux, de l'absence de fruit des CdR - Ne pas rester prisonnier de préjugés passéistes et partir du principe que l'audace n'est pas l'ennemi de la tradition. On peut faire du neuf sur la base du travail des anciens comme l'ont fait les vignerons de l'Orégon ou le Washington comme David Adelsheim ou Joan Wolverton En 92, je commence des études de viticulture en d'oenologie à Bordeaux. Pour ma part j'ai retenu les suivantes : Pas de clones, porte-greffes Guffens m'a appris le respect de la matière première et l'utilisation Ce qui m'a conduit à adopter les dispositions suivantes : POUR LES BLANCS Tri à la vigne et au cuvage, resurrage vertical en grappe entière, POUR LES ROUGES Tri à la vigne et au cuvage, égrappage total en général, mis en cuve par tapis, macération à froid sous CO2 solide pour l'extraction aromatique (5 à 8 jours), pas de levurage, Pigeage et remontage 2 fois par jour en macération et en fermentation, contrôle des températures au delà de Je mets en oeuvre cette philosophie depuis 1995 sur Brézème, Bussières Depuis 2000 et pour les années à venir sur les villages de Cotes du Voilà. Prenez ce qui vous intéresse et laissez le reste... I forgot the power adaptor for me Casio Pocket PC and have not been able to blog (in fear of losing my battery charge) since I arrived in France on Wednesday morning. Highlights of my trip so far: 1. A 1979 Brezeme Blanc that was one of the most memorable white wines I have ever enjoyed. Honied Rousanne from a great site. Drink now, or hold 15-18 years. 2. 1959 Romorantin Demi-Sec from Clos Roche Blanche -- what a cepage, what a vintage, what a wine! Drink now, or hold 15-18 years. 3. 1961 Morgon Cote du Pay -- like evolved and exquisite old Burgundy. Drink now, or hold 15-17 years. 4. 1985 Brezeme Rouge -- all syrah and with beautiful secondary aromas of apricot rinds. Drink now, hold, or cellar 8-12 years. Keep tuned for more highlights. Anyhow, I have been drinking the little-known, but thirst-quenching Vignes de la Bergerie, a wine that was given to me by me Delta Flight Attendant. This wine comes from a negociant I have never heard of named Les Domaine Paul Mas and is a Cabernet Sauvignon Vin de Pays d' Oc. It comes in an attractive 187.5 ML bottle with a screw cap. Is it great wine? No. It is crappy industrial wine with no pretense to be anything other than crappy industrial wine. God only knows what type of wine the coop where Paul Mas bought this wine produced before they used industrial winemaking techniques. Perhaps vinegar. Using industrial techniques, they can now produce a perfectly acceptable crappy industrial wine that goes well with the horrible airline food. The wine is thirst-quenching, has a little pepper and a little sweet fruit, and has no pretense to be anything other than a correct crappy industrial wine. It is truly non-grandiose in the best sense of the phrase. I liked it so much I had two bottles for a whopping total of 375 ml! To me, this wine is far superior to the Lindemans Bin 50. That wine is not only a crappy industrial wine, but also has pretenses to be a profound beverage. Someone in Australia has worked hard to find just the right combination of enzymes, yeasts and vinfication tricks to make it smell and taste like raspberry cheese cake. Paul Mas is happy just to produce a correct, drinkable crappy industrial wine and for that small service I have to salute his courage and decency. Of course, I have no idea if there is really someone named Paul Mas or if that is a made-up trade name. My suspicion is that this Mas guy is a fictional character, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, my hats off to Paul Mas. By the way, we've been experience a lot of turbulence and the flight is something short of pleasant. I get into Lyon at 7:35 AM, along with my partner Kevin McKenna, and we are then off to Domaine des Terres Dorees in the Beaujolais. We will taste all of Jean-Paul Brun's 2000 vintage and then go taste wine at two farmers where he has bought Brouilly and Morgon that he will bottle later this year. I am writing this on my fabulous Casio EM-500 PocketPC, using a GoType! keyboard. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the power supply with me and I have only about 7 hours of battery life on this unit. Kevin and I hope to find a power supply tomorrow morning in the outskirts of Lyon, where there are numerous stores selling everything a human being might desire. I actually know which chain sells my computer in France and we will be going there first thing to buy a new AC/DC adapter. I remembered my passport, airline ticket, drivers license, French electrical plugs, French telephone adapter, my modem, computer, and my underwear. I left my AC/DC adapter in my office. Merde. I have a busy day ahead of me and need to get some sleep. Bye. Merde. The managing director of the wine producer in question told us at a power luncheon yesterday that he was looking for a firm with a personal touch. He wanted contact with his clients and wanted a marketing firm that knew how to sell his personalized wines. Given, he told us, the rumors of our sale to a larger, cash-endowed firm, he was going with one of our competitors. Someone who is on a much smaller, more humane scale. Are these rumors true? Who is buying out Louis/Dressner Selections? Vivendi? Allied/Domenecq? Hublein? Kysela Père et Fils? Captain Morgan? More to follow.... I am asking you, dear readers, to send me suggestions of possible French bulk wine sources where we can sell huge quantities at high mark-ups and still give the impression of bringing affordable wine to the market. The wine has to be adequate but not particularly good. The pricing has to be low and the "packaging" has to be superb (by this I mean labeling, etc.). Please address all suggestions to me personally. My e-mail address is somewhere buried on the left of this screen. I would put a link here to my e-mail, but am not sure what the html code is for an e-mail link. Can someone help me out? The winner of the contest will receive an exciting Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror. I bought this marvelous contraption yesterday at Bed, Bath and Beyond and took my first fogless shave in the shower this morning. I am very happy with this product and think it will revolutionize your shaving experience. Furthermore, there are numerous exciting uses for women (removing make-up, facial scrubs, beauty masks, etc.) and this is a gift that anyone out there will be proud and delighted to receive. For more information: Exciting Bulk Wine Contest! Several prominent internet wine personalities have accussed me of resorting to shaving stories on this site when I have nothing interesting to say. I categorically deny this charge. By the way, someone seems to have a contract out on my life. Please contact me at the e-mail address somewhere on the left side of this screen if you have any information that would lead to the apprehension of the culprits. Thank you. The most interesting experience I had was being levitated by Geobiology guru Georges Prat in a restaurant in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. By coincidence, the nationally prominent American wine importer Neal Rosenthal was dining at the same time with his 23 person national sales staff. So at least I have some witnesses. I'm off to an airport to get a plane to France and do not have the time to confirm this rumor. More to follow. What a relief! Every day brings another avalanche of mail, faxes and e-mail announcing another exciting set of products that we can sell to the unsuspecting American public. Today's faxes bring the following solictation from a producer of cider in Brittany: The managing director of the wine producer in question told us at a power luncheon yesterday that he was looking for a firm with a personal touch. He wanted contact with his clients and wanted a marketing firm that knew how to sell his personalized wines. Given, he told us, the rumors of our sale to a larger, cash-endowed firm, he was going with one of our competitors. Someone who is on a much smaller, more humane scale. Are these rumors true? Who is buying out Louis/Dressner Selections? Vivendi? Allied/Domenecq? Hublein? Kysela Père et Fils? Captain Morgan? More to follow....
Monday, March 19, 2001
I am asking you, dear readers, to send me suggestions of possible French bulk wine sources where we can sell huge quantities at high mark-ups and still give the impression of bringing affordable wine to the market. The wine has to be adequate but not particularly good. The pricing has to be low and the "packaging" has to be superb (by this I mean labeling, etc.). Please address all suggestions to me personally. My e-mail address is somewhere buried on the left of this screen. I would put a link here to my e-mail, but am not sure what the html code is for an e-mail link. Can someone help me out? The winner of the contest will receive an exciting Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror. I bought this marvelous contraption yesterday at Bed, Bath and Beyond and took my first fogless shave in the shower this morning. I am very happy with this product and think it will revolutionize your shaving experience. Furthermore, there are numerous exciting uses for women (removing make-up, facial scrubs, beauty masks, etc.) and this is a gift that anyone out there will be proud and delighted to receive. For more information: Exciting Bulk Wine Contest! Several prominent internet wine personalities have accussed me of resorting to shaving stories on this site when I have nothing interesting to say. I categorically deny this charge. By the way, someone seems to have a contract out on my life. Please contact me at the e-mail address somewhere on the left side of this screen if you have any information that would lead to the apprehension of the culprits. Thank you.
Sunday, March 18, 2001
The most interesting experience I had was being levitated by Geobiology guru Georges Prat in a restaurant in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. By coincidence, the nationally prominent American wine importer Neal Rosenthal was dining at the same time with his 23 person national sales staff. So at least I have some witnesses.
Tuesday, March 06, 2001
I'm off to an airport to get a plane to France and do not have the time to confirm this rumor. More to follow.
Thursday, March 01, 2001
What a relief!
Posted Monday, April 23rd 2001 8. Introducing Unknown Wines to an Unsuspecting Public -- When we first started, Minervois and Corbières were oddities. Alain Jungenet had a couple of estates and perhaps a few others were around. Now, they seem almost commonplace. What has been extremely gratifying for myself, Denyse and Kevin is to see wines from obscure appellations being drunk by wine lovers around the country. Bourgueil, Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny, wines from the Bugey, great Muscadets, high-priced Mâcons, Beaume-de-Venise Reds, Gaillac, Touraine whites 9. Popularizing Wines Without the Wine Press -- I don't have the popular wine palate that gets the big scores in the wine press. Sometimes it depresses me that we are not Bobby Kacher. But more often than not I am delighted to be buying and selling wines that have a purity and authenticity. Rather than finding wines for Parker, or wines for the Wine Spectator, or wines for the "American palate," we have found wines we love and found the people in the wine trade who can get them to a public that will appreciate them. With or without a shelf talker that has a 93 point score from a Parker review. 10. Meeting Like-Minded Geeks in the Wine Trade-- most importantly, there is Kevin McKenna, my partner along with Denyse Louis. Kevin was one of our first buyers, when he was the buyer at Astor Place in New York City. For six years now he has been an integral part of our firm, bringing a wide range of wine and business knowledge that Denyse and I have always lacked. There is David Lillie at Garnet Wines, the King of the Loire Valley, who helped us so much to get going and to keep moving in the Loire. JR Battipaglia at Garnet, whose commitments to our Burgundies was so essential to our stability and expansion. Steve Mosher at the Wine and Cheese Cask in Boston who has flooded the Boston market with too many obscurities from our book. Tom and Carol Piscatelli in San Francisco and all the work they has done for our wines. Eugene Kaplan in Dallas, Robert Yellin in DC, Frank Lichtenberg in Atlanta, Paul Roberts in Chicago.... Then there are all the sommeliers and retailers out there who have invested in maybe one or two of our wines, but without whom we would never have had wide distribution. There are also the great distributors like Roanoke Wines, Domaine Selections, Triage, Silenus, Slocum, Douglas Polaner and so many more who can sell wine as wine and not simply as commodity. 11. Meeting Like-Minded Geeks Not in the Trade -- there's a whole group I've met around Robert Callahan that coalesced around various internet wine forums and who can now be found at Robert Callahan's Wine therapy. Callahan is kind of in but not of the Wine Trade, so I best put him in this category. It has been not only gratifying to meet all these people but I've learned about Gruner Veltiner and so many other wines by spending time with many of these maniacal characters. I will never forget all the support I received from these friends during my heart surgery a year ago and I will never forget their generousity and kindness. 12. Brad Kane. 13. Discovering Chenin Blanc -- I do have a home in the Mâconnais and I suppose could have been happy just drinking Goyard and Jean Thevenet. But there is such a beautiful range of Chenin -- from dry Savenniéres to Vouvray and Montlouis Demi-Secs through Moëlleux onto the special bottlings of great vintages -- wines that uniquely express their terroir and that age superbly. Wines that are delicious young or at 80-years-old. Wines that go so well with so many different foods and have yet to be corrupted by gobs of new oak and over-extraction. 14. Discovering Cabernet Franc -- I do have a home in Southern Burgundy and I suppose I could have been happy just drinking Pinot Noir.... More to come.... Originally Posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2001 Yesterday was another glamorous day in the life of The Wine Importer. 6:00 AM -- Wake up, make oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal is very good for heart disease. I had four bypasses last May and have to take endless medications and eat lots of oatmeal to remain alive and to evangelize Pierre Overnoy's wines. Who else will do this if I falter? 8:00 AM -- Spoke with a French Lawyer who guaranteed, for a modest fee, that he would bring the Citibank and Crédit Agricole to their knees. Both banks will soon be rewarding my firm vast sums of money. 8:30 AM -- Called Long Island Carpet Cleaning to arrange to have the ugly wall-to-wall carpeting in my apartment cleaned. I would like to strip the carpets off the floor and just have wood floors, but legally I'm obligated to cover 80% of the apartment's surface. Given we have a dog who scurries around the apartment and my son Jules has taken to riding his skateboard and doing elaborate tricks in our flat....I suspect we need to maintain some level of sound insulation. But the carpets get so dirty and so ugly. Every few months we have those miracle workers at Long Island Carpet Cleaning come to our apartment and totally clean the carpets, leaving them almost as clean and shiny as the first day they were installed. The carpet cleaners are coming on Friday, but cannot guarantee what time. It will be somewhere between 9 am and 5 pm, they assure me. 8:45 AM -- Get on my fabulous Swiftfolder bike and ride to work. I'm in an energetic mood and purposely take a 55-minute trip over the Queensboro Bridge (immortalized in the 60's by Simon and Garfunkel) through industrial Queens and industrial Brooklyn and then return to Manhattan over the Williamsburg Bridge to our office somewhere in Soho. Of course, I cannot play my usual mental game of counting the number of Duane Reade Drug Stores I pass and using my chronometer to time how long it takes to go from one Duane Reade to another Duane Reade. Industrial Queens and industrial Brooklyn are official Duane Reade Free Zones (New York Mayor Rudolph Guliani calls them DRF Zones). Instead, I count how many trucks from 1800-MATTRESS pass by me. Only three of them this morning. Unfortunately, I cannot get the jingle from the 1800-MATTRESS commercial out of my head and hum it to myself for the entire duration of my bike ride. 9:45 AM -- Arrive at my office and check my e-mail, foreign currency rates, faxes from angry French vignerons, and faxes demanding we pay for services we performed for free or at our expense for our customers. This last ‘charge’ is part of the wine racket -- if we travel to another town, we pay for the air fare, the hotels, take out the customers and salespeople from the distributor, organize a luncheon and pay for it, and get nary a thanks. It is a norm of the wine racket. A few weeks later we receive a bill for every last bottle of Muscadet or Gris du Toul that was open during our stay. We throw out this bill immediately. One month later we get a threatening letter from the distributor. Then their collection department calls. Then they start deducting money from payments. Distributors call these sort of trips "work-withs." They call me personally a "rep." What do I "rep?" A "supplier" named Louis/Dressner Selections. What are my wines called? "Brands," "Product," or “Products." 9:55 AM -- Make reservations on Amtrak to take a Metroliner to Baltimore on Monday morning at 7 AM. This is altogether too early for me to be traveling, especially considering my heart problems, but my mother is having a Passover Seder on Sunday evening and I want and have to be in attendance. I am of the Jewish persuasion. One of the joys of this Seder will be having my sister-in-law say that she actually prefers the Manischevitz Heavy Malaga to the other wines available at the dinner. Since no one is religious I don’t bother to bring horrible Kosher wine, but my folks always have one bottle of the Heavy Malaga. 10:00 AM -- Organize documents for the meeting later today at our lawyer. Why am I going to Washington? A shipload of Louis/Dressner product just arrived there and I have four days of work-withs scheduled with our distributor there to move boxes and promote the brands. 10:15 AM -- Retailer in New York calls and orders some Corbières. He wants to know exactly what grape varieties are in the wine and in what percentage. I make up something that satisfies the guy. Why he, or his customers would like to know this sort of information is a mystery to me. The wine is a blend dominated by Carignan and there are many more interesting things to say about this wine then to describe what grape varieties are in the bottle. So, it is just easier to make something up. Later in the day another retailer calls and gets my wife on the line -- I'm already at my Cardiologist. The retailer wants to know what grape varieties go into Franck Peillot's Modeuse from Bugey, which the retailer has on his shelves and likes very much. My wife says Mondeuse, which is the actual answer and all is well. We are considering reducing the Louis/Dressner catalog to mono-cépage wines to avoid all this bothersome talk with customers and consumers about varietal composition. 10:30 AM -- A guy named Peter from San Juan calls and wants to know how he can get three cases of Cerdon du Bugey for a marriage in two weekends in Puerto Rico. As importers, we cannot sell to consumers, but apparently retailers in New York City can ship to Puerto Rico. I tell him that I do not condone or condemn the shipment of wine to Puerto Rico (in case he is actually an agent of the New York State Liquor Authority) and suggest he call a store I know that carries the Cerdon. Five minutes later a retailer from the Hudson Valley calls to get prices on the Cerdon du Bugey. Turns out a friend of the guy in San Juan has already called this retailer who is desperate to bag the three-case sale of Cerdon. I inform him that the wine is distributed by Douglas Polaner Selections and that I had unfortunately sent his potential customer to another store. The best and most satisfying part of this whole exchange was that no one asked me what grape varieties go into the Cerdon du Bugey. Later in the day a woman calls and asks if we sell to the public. I ask her if she is a member of the public and when she informs me that she is I tell her that we Federal and State laws prohibit us from selling wine to her. Assuming yet another call for a wine from the Bugey I ask her what wine she wants. She is looking for Sutter Home. 10:42 AM -- A phone company calls offering us a national rate of 1.2 cents a minute and 3.4 cents a minute to France. I say "no thank you" and hang up the phone. 11:00 AM – I feverishly print out, annotate and collate the information for our law firm, Klein, Foster and Steinfesse. Someone from a distributor calls to complain that Garnet Wines is lowballing the price on the Clos Roche Blanche Cabernet in Garnet's New York Times ad on Wednesday. We sort of agree, but what can you do? The caller then wants to know what grape varieties go into the Clos Roche Blanche Cabernet -- is it Cabernet Franc or Cabernet Sauvignon or a mix of the two. It is actually only Cabernet Franc. I hang up the phone and am relieved that I had an entire 45 minute interlude without talking about the dreaded "What Grape Varietal" question. I am assuming that my lawyer and cardiologist will not be discussing grape 'varietals' when I see them later today. But who knows? Spring is here and Grape Varietals are in the air! 11:43 AM -- Take cab to 14th Street to the corporate offices of Klein, Foster and Steinfesse. The entire Board of Directors of our firm converges on their offices where we discuss the latest legal challenge to our wine work. Peter Steinfesse, our attorney, assures me that we will not only collect $30,000.00 in debt, but will also make $50,000.00 in damages! Wow! I wasn't certain if this was a new episode or a repeat. Steinfesse looks remarkably like many of the character actors who appear on NBC's long-running Law and Order television series. Apparently, if we pre-emptively sue on one issue, it short-circuits our opponent's attempt to sue us over inflicted business damages. Or something like that. We were fearful that our antagonist would resort to physical reprisals. Happily, they have only used theft, slander, racism and sexism. We can deal with that. There is talk of dragging long-time Louis/Dressner confidant Eddie Wrinkerman into the legal arrangements as some kind of designated hitter. Wrinkerman has the same relationship to Louis/Dressner Selections that Bebe Rebozo had to President Nixon. But frankly, I lost Steinfesse Esq.'s logic on this matter. 1:13 PM -- After this exhausting meeting, the entire board adjourns to a restaurant called Republic in the Union Square neighborhood. Since the Board has 14 members, we purposely pick this restaurant as they have large tables that can accommodate such a large group at short notice. Noodles are healthy, nutritious, and inexpensive. For $6.00 to $8.00 you can enjoy a bowl of noodles which includes a healthy broth, starch, fresh vegetables, and a variety of meats and fish, depending upon the dish you select. The decor is minimalist, with a "sit-where-you-will" seating arrangement in a strikingly smart and modern space. Service is provided by a chic, hip staff. I wanted to order a wine and then grill the chic and hip waiter over what grape varietals were in the wine but the restaurant only serves beer. 2:42 PM -- Return to our office. There are almost 15 messages for us, the vast majority dealing with the varietal composition of wines we sell. It takes over an hour to clear up all the confusion. 3:42 PM -- A representative from Verizon telephones calls to propose sending me a free cell phone. I give him my address and tell him to send it as quickly as possible. The representative then wants to know which service plan I want. I tell him I do not want a service plan but only want the phone, which he had graciously offered me for free. He insists I have to have a service plan. I tell him that if I have to have a service plan then the phones are not for free and that I will report Verizon to the Better Business Bureau for false advertising. The representative wants to know what I will do with a cellular phone that is not connecting to any wireless provider. I tell him that it is none of his business. I find the entire discussion a relief, having gone through a day of varietal discussion and legal argumentation. The Verizon representative eventually hangs up on me. 4:02 PM -- We receive a fax with a lot of orders from some hapless distributor who thinks they can make money with our product. We then have to spend 40 minutes doing the necessary paperwork to facilitate the movement of the brands from suppliers in France to the hapless distributor's warehouse somewhere in America. We have a mix of distributors -- some are hapless and some are dynamic. But to stay in business we need both of them. Some of the distributors who are hapless about wine are great personalities. Some of the distributors who are wine geeks are insufferably humorless. As Georges Prat has taught me, I look for a Geobalance. One thing is for certain -- as soon as the container arrives with out product one of us will obligated to go to the hapless distributors' city and do work-withs and have our firm receive bill-backs. 4:32 PM -- A New York retailer calls to ask if there is any more 1999 Morgon Javérnieres left in town. I tell him that there is no more Savennières. He says, no, not Savennières but Javérnières. I tell him that no, the Jasniéres has not arrived. I offer to send him a free cellular phone and hang up the telephone. 5:00 PM -- My daughter calls to speak to my wife and complain bitterly about her life. 5:12 PM -- My son calls to find out what we will be eating for dinner. 5:18 PM -- Someone calls to sell insurance. 5:30 PM-- Prepare to see my new Cardiologist. I just fired my old one, but regret that my new Heartman is not in a building where I can leave my bicycle as was my old guy. So, bikeless, I go down to Lafayette street to hail a taxi. After 12 minutes a taxi comes and a woman and I almost come to blows over who will get possession of the free cab. I ask her where she is going and it is on my way, so I offer to let her off for free. She seems hesitant but finally agrees. She's a very nice chain-smoking woman who is picking up her 4-year-old son at a day-care center. I go on to New York University Hospital and arrive at my Heartguy's office on time at 6:00 PM. 6:42 PM -- after sitting around for 42 minutes the guy finally sees me. At least he has the decency to apologize about the delay, the last Cardiologist never cared. Anyhow, the new one doesn't want to take any lab tests and pronounces me as fit as a beaver after poking at me some and taking an EKG. Fit as a beaver or some other medical term I did not understand. The only problem is that my homocysteine level is too high and he wants me to take a higher level of folic acid every day, along with a megadose of B12 and B16. Already I'm taking Baby Aspirins and Lipitor to lower my cholesterol. The Heart Guy makes this judgment based on old lab reports that my former doctor has forwarded him. Nevertheless, despite my insistence, he doesn't want me to take new lab tests but wants me to wait six weeks and take the new medication regimen and then take a lab test. He will then review the results and call me. I mention that we should make an appointment as I will be going to France around June 10th for the summer. He says it is unnecessary, that he'll look at the lab results in six weeks and then decide if I need to see him. Otherwise, I should call him in September when I return. Assuming, I'm still alive. So, finally, I have changed Cardiologists and get another indifferent guy. What's the point? At least the last guy, who I just fired, allowed me to bring my bike into his office. Of course, the last guy let me have a low level of homocysteine without any preventive measures. The guy was so busy with his busy practice and his hot tub in Great Neck (in which he was reported to study the Talmud!) to ever look at my chart or test results. The worst thing about being ill is having to see doctors. The only thing I could imagine that would be worse than this is being dependent on oenologues. 7:35 PM -- Arrive at the Duane Reade Drug Store to buy megadoses of B12, B6 and Folic Acid. 7:42 PM -- Take a cab crosstown to meet various wacky internet wine personalities at a famous Indonesian restaurant for dinner. I suspect that every detail of this evening will soon be appearing somewhere on the internet so I will leave it to others to chronicle the evening. All I will say was that the Rijsttafel was sumptious. 11:15 PM -- Arrive home. My wife informs me that Neocork, a leading manufacturer of synthetic corks, has initiated a multi-million dollar lawsuit against our firm. Something about libel, slander, Pineau d'Aunis and my having blabbed confidential material that led to the firing of one Stuart Yaniger. Steinfesse received the papers while I was being poked by my Cardiologist and sent a summary to our home fax. 11:47 PM – Fall asleep. I decided to call it a night as I had forgotten to get home to watch re-runs of Seinfeld that are now on at 11 PM, rather than 7:30 PM – having switched from the WB to Fox. Dream that George Castanza has been transformed into Steve Plotnicki. Or was it Stuart Yaniger? I'm writing this on the Metroliner returning from Baltimore to New York City. I have been in DC/Maryland/Virginia since Monday morning in an effort to promote Louis/Dressner Selections wines in this region. In the process, I have not only met a lot of Schnooks in the wine trade but have turned into a Schnook myself. My Thursday’s salesmanship highlight, was trying to convince two dead men who buy wine for an important retailer in Maryland to buy the Clos Roche Blanche Sauvignon Blanc. Despite the numerous amusing anecdotes I told the dead men about the vignerons, they rejected the wine on the grounds it was too acidic. But they greatly enjoyed the Corbieres Chateau la Baronne Rouge 1999 and immediately ordered a large quantity that will be case stacked at their important store. The dead is a market segment I want to learn more about in the future, as I see my firm has enormous growth possibilities with this important group. On the other hand, we are not doing well amongst the far more numerous Schnooks. The two dead men did not qualify as being Schnooks as Schnooks are genuinely among the living. Addtionally, the two dead men tasted with glassware, whereas Schnooks always taste using plastic cups that they either have stolen from their Dentists or that they have bought in massive quantities from dental supply companies. That's right. You, the average wine geek out there, are bombarded with endless literature about Riedel stemware and fret over which stemware is more appropriate for Burgundy and which stemware is more appropriate for your Flowers Chardonnay. Curiously, the DC/Maryland/Virginia market is flooded with Flowers Chardonnay, a winery that I always assumed is an internet invention. Kind of like Kay Bixler. Anyhow, in reality the Schnooks who are deciding which wines you will be able to buy at your local retailer are making buying decisions by tasting wines in plastic cups. Here is how it works: (1) The Schnook Salespeople from Schnook Distributors arrive at stores all across America with samples of wines from Schnook Importers (such as myself) or Schnook Domestic Wineries. (2) The Schnook Retailer then humiliates the Schnook Distributor Salesperson over some late delivery or billing error for the first 15 minutes of the encounter. Since the Schnook Retailer is secure in the knowledge that the Schnook Distributor Salesperson needs his business (as the salespeople are working on commission) they take particular sadistic delight in making the salesperson feel sullied, stupid and humiliated. The veteran Schnook Distributor Salesperson learns to ignore this tirade and not take it personally. If the salesperson is a man and the retailer is a man, the skilled Schnook Salesperson allows the tirade to come to a halt and then tells a particularly salty dirty joke, usually involving oral sex, to make the Schnook Retailer laugh and feel a sense of camraderie with the Schnook Distributor Salesperson. They then proceed directly to important business deals. (3) There are two variants to this stage. In the simpler variant the Schnook Retailer takes out his plastic cup and tastes all the wine samples the Schnook Salesperson has brought with him. The Schnook Salesperson tries desperately to bombard the Schnook Retailer with all the scores the wine in the plastic cup has received in The Wine Advocate, The Wine Spectator, The Wine Enthusiast, The Paul Roberts Wine Monthly, or any other periodical that has mentioned the wine and that can be turned into a shop talker. This is a very important point: the wine needs a good score somewhere, anywhere, because the Schnool Retailer does not have the time to do "hand-sells." The Schnook Retailer has a difficult job during this phase of the ritual, having to smell, taste and spit (already made more difficult by the wine being in a Dentist’s plastic cup) while listening to the Schnook Salesperson's passioned narrative of 89 points, 90 points and 87 points for each wine. A subvariant of this process in the Schnook Retailer having a Designated Taster, a kind of sub-Schnook, who tastes all the wines in a designated plastic cup and decides which wines merit being tasted by The Main Schnook. This is something I have never seen outside of the Washington, DC area. Regardless of whether it is the Designated Schnook or the Main Schnook there are now two fascinating rituals to observe. Some Retailers use one plastic cup for whites and another plastic cup for reds. Some use different plastic cups for each wine. I suppose this is often a function of the tasting budget alloted by each store. Because often the Retail Schnook Buyer is but an employee working within the budgetary limitations of a Boss who doesn’t even bother coming into the store. I did observe during this trip that our wines were much better received by the Schnooks who change cups with each wine. They tend to be much serious wine tasters. After evaluating the wines through any of the above methods, the Retail Schnook then tells you which wines they will order. This is prefaced by an interrogation where the Retail Schnook demands to know the name of every retail store in the immediate area who carries the wine and what they are charging per bottle. The Retail Schnooks especially like wines that are not carried by their competitors: normally they mark-up the wine 50%, but if no competing Schnooks carry the wine they can add another $1.00 to the bottle price. In general, the Distributor Salesperson Schnook blatantly lies at this point and assures the retailer that non one else in the continental United States will carry the wine if they take 5 cases and make a floor stacking. I am always shocked by the sheer squeals of delight by Retail Schnooks when they find out their 5 case purchase will be an American exclusivity. Since I work for a fringe company, the Retail Schnooks assume that no one carries my wine anyhow and sometimes mark it up $2.00 for a an additional $120.00 profit on their 5 case purchase! If I am present, working with the Schnook Salesperson, the Schnook Retailer then tells me how he loves working with insignificant companies like Louis/Dressner Selections because our wines are so badly distributed and obscure that he can make enormous and objectionable profits from carrying our “product.” What do we call this system? We in the wine and liquor trade call it “The Three-Tier System.” Of course, the entire market is not like this. There are fabulous retailers out there and great distributors with great salespeople. They truly do exist and eventually wine geeks figure out who they are and patronize them. Despite being a schnook myself I have met many of these people. But even these people are obligated to carry Schnook wines along with the often excellent selections they sell. It’s a schnook world out there and everyone needs a schnook cash flow to stay in business. And don’t forget that without the Three-Tier Schnook System there would be nobody to warehouse, truck and get out wine to retailers and restaurants outside of a handful of major wine markets. Yes, the Schnooks perform many useful functions. Thanks
Here I am, on a ATA flight to Chicago, packed into the plane like a sardine, adjacent to a passenger reading a book on successful, inspired salesmanship. To the casual onlooker there is nothing that really seperates me from my neighbor. Both of us are peddling product.
Happily, we sell different products. It is nearly a year since I had four heart bypasses and I am feeling sentimental. Here are 17 reasons I am sometimes delighted to be The Wine Importer. They are in random order, except for number one:
1. Working with my wife - It is not always easy to separate the business from the private but I love my wife and am delighted that by working together I get to see her more often. Twenty years ago I learned that the student next to me in Graduate Journalism school had vineyards in some town called St -Gengoux-de-Scissé in the Maconnais. I was off on both a personal adventure that would lead to two children and a new profession where I would get to meet some of the most impassioned artisans in the world. I have to thank Denyse, the love of my life, for all that. I forgive her the schnooks (see blog entry last week).
2. Tasting in the Clos Rougeard Cellar - Dominique Derain, our grower in St. Aubin, recently visited the Foucault. Derain is certain the cellar itself, where wine has been made for centuries, adds an unquantifiable something to the wine. In a sense, there is a biological environment here that is every bit as much of the 'terroir' of the Foucault's Saumur-Champigny as the limestone that the cellar is carved into. A beautiful cellar that is laced with bacteria throughout.
3. Tasting Henri Goyard's Macons in February -- Goyard's wines often have noble rot and are usually at a fairly elevated level of sugar when I first taste the wines in mid-February. Jean Thevenet has done considerable research on the history of Vire and Clesse and the wines here were often sold raw, in plain fermentation, to Lyon bistros (known as Bouchons). The wines would still have sugar and gas and you can get the approximation of this delicacy if you taste at Thevenet or Goyard before the wines are finished. Thevenet and the late restaurant owner Alain Chapelle tried to revive this tradition before Chapelle died. Goyard has officially retired after the 2000 harvest and I will now have this pleasure at Florent Thevenet's cellar. Florent is Jean Thevenet's son and is the new proprietor of Domaine de Roally.
4. The Annual Domaine de la Pepiere Muscadet Jeebus -- Marc Ollivier throws this affair every year in February. Tons of oysters, pates, cheeses and vintages and vintages of Marc's Muscadets. Truly one of the great pleasures of being in the wine trade for me. Some of Marc's older treasures will soon be for sale at Virot Restaurant in New York. Don't miss them!
5. Any Visit to Clos Roche Blanche -- There is something magical about this vineyard. Catherine Roussel lives in a totally bizarre home, a cross between a haunted house and something out of Lewis Carroll, that overlooks one of the greatest parcel in the Touraine. Roussel and Didier Barouillet work this land with rare intelligence and charm - running an organic exploitation that always looks vigorous and healthy and almost joyful. Even the 104-year-old Cot vines. Being in the wine trade was worth it just to get to know these two vignerons and the Clos.
5. Tasting with Fernand and Alain Coudert - this is often a marathon affair that rivals a tasting at the Foucault. In February, before the bottling, there are numerous cuves and foudres to taste in an effort to approimate the final blend of the Clos de la Roilette Fleurie. It is always incredible to taste truly great wine coming from the much-maligned Gamay grape. We then get down to the serious business of tasting endless vintages to see how they have aged and for the pure pleasure of enjoyng the Coudert's work. Fernand, the father, is retired but has all the intensity of a wily vigneron bon-vivant who likes drinking his metier as much as he enjoyed the actual work. His son Alain is far more reflective and less gregarious, but if anything the quality of the wine has improved since Alain took over.
6. Learning About Wild Yeasts from Jean-Paul Brun at Domaine des Terres Dorées -- The first vintage we tasted here was the 1989 and it was all a revelation to us. We had already been in the wine business for a few years, but Jean-Paul was the first vigneron we met who talked with passion about how innoculated yeasts were being used all over France to create industrial monsters rather than wine. Tasting the 1991 in tank here during the winter of 1992, was one of the most thrilling experiences of my wine career. The wines were so fragant, so concentrated and yet so light there was something truly ethereal about that great vintage. Every year I hope to replicate that experience, but I have yet to drink a wine of such grandeur, such a perfect match of grape, terroir, vintage and winemaker.
7. I'm selling wine in Chicago and writing this on a tlny Casio PocketPC. No time. More to come.
I'm pleased to announce that Chicago's well-know establishment, The Matchbox, has added the Quinta do Mouro Estremoz 1997 and the Domaine du Traginer 1995 Banyuls to their Wine-Spectator Award Winning wine list. "These two wines are valuable additions to our cellar and we believe that the Chicago wine-loving community will be every bit as happy as we are with these marvellous wines," said MW Paul Roberts, Matchbox Beverage Director. There are currently 3 Cuvée Busters in commerce. 1. Domaine Franck Peillot Altesse de Montagnieu 1999 Cuvée Buster -- this is perhaps the best Cuvée Buster we've done. Stunning minerality, beautiful depth and fullness, what more can you ask from an Altesse from the Bugey? By the way, the 'g' is pronounced as a soft g. The region is not the Boogie. 50 cases were made. 2. Domaine Thomas-Labaille Sancerre Chavignol Cuvée Buster 1999 -- actually this is a one-barrel production from La Grande Côte, one of the best vineyard sites in Chavignol. 25 cases were made. 3. Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet Vieilles Vignes Cuvée Buster 1997 -- this is 50 cases that were set aside from the grand 1997 Muscadet vintage and that come only from the best vineyards in the hamlet of Pépière. Unfortunately, I would liked to have sold this in ten years, but the grower and I need money.
Gosh!
I've recently learned that what makes successful wine importers successful is that they say "Gosh" all the time. They do their best to say it to Robert Parker, but they also say it to their customers. It gives everyone a participatory sense of astonishment, a shared child-like fascination with the wines the successful wine importer is trying to unload on an unsuspecting public.
Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2001
New Cuvée Busters!
Don't miss Franck Peillot's Altesse de Montagnieu 1999 Cuvée Buster! Only 600 bottles of this wine were made.Another New Cuvée Buster -- Estimated Arrival Date April 1!
I had asked Marc Ollivier at the Domaine de la Pépière to put aside 100 cases of 1997 Muscadet Clos des Briords and to let them get lost in the cellar for 5 to 15 years. To me, it was one of the best wines we ever imported and we imported the wine in the days when our financial controller would allow us to import 600 bottles a month! Olliver did not keep this wine for us.
Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2001
Rhône Wines from Eric Texier
Eric Texier was born in Bordeaux in 1961 and has lived in Lyon (or thereabout) since 1979. By profession, he is an expert in building materials, and he spent a year studying that subject at the Illinois Institute of Technology. After years spent working in the leisure and the nuclear industries, he decided to make a career of his true passion, wine, in 1990.
He thought at first of buying vineyards, and did extensive research to find areas where vineyards were neglected or forgotten, and found two in his favorite spots, the Northern Côtes-du-Rhône. He also travelled around the world to discover vineyards and meet winemakers. Three regions made a lasting impression on him: Burgundy, for vinification methods and respect of terroir, Piedmont for the radical changes in style and fashions that occurred in the 80s, and Oregon for its winemakers’outlook, free and unencumbered by the weight of traditions.
Fusing his discoveries in these three regions, he defined his winemaking objectives and applied them to his chosen region of Côtes-du-Rhône:
Posted Thursday, February 22, 2001
Wine Importer is in Interactive Mood
I'm leaving a lot of messages this past week at Robert Callahan's Wine therapy board. I need some internet interaction -- it's lonely out here in my blog!
Posted Sunday, February 11, 2001
The Multi-Talented Dominique Derain
I tasted at Dominique Derain's cellar tonight and got to sample his new vineyards in Mercurey. He has .90 ares there (about 2 acres) and 2000 was his first harvest. The wine is very interesting and please consult Robin Garr's excellent Wine Lover's Discussion Group (WLDG) for extensive tasting notes.
posted on Saturday, February 10, 2001
In Response to Popular Demand
We have acquired a significant stock of Chateau Pierre Bise Gamay. We will soon be importing vintages 1995, 1996 and 2000. Please search Robin Garr's excellent wine board for extensive tasting notes.
posted on February 10, 2001
Serial Jeebus Attacks!
The van has moved on and everyone seems healed. We are down to two vans, with one group breaking off to go to Paris to view an Opera on Saturday night. They are planning to attend the opening of Die Reverdy, an opera that will be opening in San Francisco in May. More about that later.
posted on Thursday, February 08, 2001
Internet Wine Personality Jeff Connell Emerges from Hotel Room!
Jeff Connell emerged from his hotel room today, inspired by the news that Stuart Yaniger has found a distributor in Northern California who will import 800 cases of Menu Pineau 2000 and sell all 800 cases in the bat of an eyelash.
Where have all the blogs gone?
Disease and pesitlence have seized my group here in the Loire Valley. We hope to have new reports soon, but my entire group (38 people travelling in three rental vans) has been overtaken by fierce stomach infections. Noted internet wine personality Jeff Connell is barely alive.
Vintage 2000 Report: The Year of Pineau d'Aunis
That's right. Pineau d'Aunis.
Pineaux d'Aunis 1999 - this young producer in Jasnieres has produced a superb 1999 that exhibits unctuous layers of rose hip water and hawthorne. As good as this 1999 is, I am anxious to taste vat samples of his 2000 tomorrow at the annual Loire Valley wine show in Angers.
posted on Sunday, February 4, 2001
Eric Texier Winemaker
Eric Texier is a new winemaker who we think is making superb Rhones. We have to write some promotional material about him and I have received the following e-mail in French from him, detailing his background and ambitions.
style de vins dans les années 80 et l'Orégon pour l'état d'esprit sans
le poids du conservatisme.
à appliquer à ma région favorite : les Côtes du Rhône.
Lafarge ou les Ramonet.
traditionnels pour aller vers des vins plus représentatifs de leurs
terroirs respectifs, à l'instar de grands vignerons du Piémont comme
Elio Altare.
(Salishan Vineyards).
Dans ce cadre je travaille chez Verget avec JM Guffens dont je suis un
client et dont la nouvelle démarche au sein de Verget m'intéresse :
acheter des raisins à des priopriétaires de vielles vignes sur des sites rares ou prestigieux, sur la base de règles de viticulture strictes.
peu productifs,pas de désherbage mais du labour, Rendements modérés
payés sur la base du rendement maximal de l'appellation (par exemple 35 hl/ha payés 42 en CdR Villages), vendanges en vert, lutte raisonnée, pas d'antibotrytis, vendanges manuelles.
des lies.
débourbage naturel, pas de levurage, fermentation en fûts (moins de 10%
de neufs, je ne suis pas un inconditionnel du bois neuf), élevage sur lies fines, fermentation malolactique systématique sur les secs, utilisation minimale de SO2, collage et filtration uniquement si
obligatoire, pas de pompage sur les vins, élevage en cave naturelle à 10
12°C (nous remontons tous les vins finis dans le beaujolais pour y
bénéficier d'excellentes caves extrèmement rare dans le sud).
34°C, élevage en barriques agées 2 à 5 vins et en 450 l neuves par 0 à
10% suivants les vins. Pas de filtration et collage aux oeufs si nécessaire.
(par goût personnel pour le maconnais). Plus recemment sur Côte Rôtie et Chateauneuf.
Rhône et la Provence:
En 2000 : Séguret, St Gervais, Chusclan, Cassis et une rareté : un blanc du roussanne de Brézème).
Bientot : Crozes, St Joseph, St Peray, Cairanne, Sablet, Gigondas,
Bandol, Palette .
posted on Friday, February 02, 2001
Historic First Blog from Clos Roche Blanche
Imagine!
posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001
My Second Industrial Wine in Four Days!
Faithful readers will recall that I drank a Lindemans Bin 50 Shiraz 1999 on Friday. Tonight, I'm writing these comments on a plane going to Lyon. Actually, I will have to post this Blog from Charnay-en-Beaujolais on Wednesday morning, as there are no wireless connections here on Delta Flight 28.
posted on Wednesday January 31, 2001
Rumors
The importer I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, just lost a potential wine source because of the rumors of our imminent sale at a lucrative price to a faceless multi-national wine powerhouse.
Monday, March 19, 2001
Win a Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror!
The company I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, is in acquisition negotiations with several major American importers. We have received several lucrative offers to buy us out but the major stumbling block seems to be our lack of a bulk wine producer with enormous quantities of "boxes" as we say in the wine trade. Unfortunately, we are poorly connected in the "box" circuit and I fear we will have trouble selling the company at a lucrative profit.
< Sunday, March 18, 2001
Back from Horrible Tastings in the Rhône
I just got back from a series of horrible tastings in the Rhône Valley. My God! The things people can make out of fabulous vineyards! It's mind-boggling!
Tuesday, March 06, 2001
Has the Northwest Texier Market Been Cornered?
Rumor has it that Tom Siegal at Larry's Market in Kirkland, Washington, has cornered the Northwest Eric Texier market (see Eric Texier's badly translated autobiographical statement below).
Thursday, March 01, 2001
Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Survives Washington Earthquake!
You're all aware of the 6.8 earthquake that hit Seattle yesterday. Dozens of Seattle-area buildings and some schools were closed Thursday so engineers could assess damage from the most powerful earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest in more than a half a century. While officials provided an early estimate of $2 billion in losses, Washington Gov. Gary Locke described the state as “really, really lucky” the destruction wasn’t worse.
Happily, there was no damage to the 100 cases of Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis that was recently shipped to Larry's Market in nearby Kirkland, Washington. I spoke with Tom Siegel, the extraordinary manager of this store, and was assured that the remaining 99 cases had survived the quake and were in pristine condition in their temperature-controlled cellars.
Solicitations from Around the World
Rumors
The importer I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, just lost a potential wine source because of the rumors of our imminent sale at a lucrative price to a faceless multi-national wine powerhouse.
posted by Joe Dressner 9:13 AM
Win a Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror!
The company I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, is in acquisition negotiations with several major American importers. We have received several lucrative offers to buy us out but the major stumbling block seems to be our lack of a bulk wine producer with enormous quantities of "boxes" as we say in the wine trade. Unfortunately, we are poorly connected in the "box" circuit and I fear we will have trouble selling the company at a lucrative profit.
posted by Joe Dressner 7:52 AM
Back from Horrible Tastings in the Rhône
I just got back from a series of horrible tastings in the Rhône Valley. My God! The things people can make out of fabulous vineyards! It's mind-boggling!
posted by Joe Dressner 10:03 AM
Has the Northwest Texier Market Been Cornered?
Rumor has it that Tom Siegal at Larry's Market in Kirkland, Washington, has cornered the Northwest Eric Texier market (see Eric Texier's badly translated autobiographical statement below).
posted by Joe Dressner 1:19 PM
Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Survives Washington Earthquake!
You're all aware of the 6.8 earthquake that hit Seattle yesterday. Dozens of Seattle-area buildings and some schools were closed Thursday so engineers could assess damage from the most powerful earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest in more than a half a century. While officials provided an early estimate of $2 billion in losses, Washington Gov. Gary Locke described the state as “really, really lucky” the destruction wasn’t worse.
Happily, there was no damage to the 100 cases of Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis that was recently shipped to Larry's Market in nearby Kirkland, Washington. I spoke with Tom Siegel, the extraordinary manager of this store, and was assured that the remaining 99 cases had survived the quake and were in pristine condition in their temperature-controlled cellars.
posted by Joe Dressner 3:57 PM
Some More of the 17 Reasons The Wine Importer Likes Being a Wine Importer
Grape Varieties, Lawyers and Medications
The Three-Tier Schnook System
Originally posted on April 13, 2001.
I want to thank everyone at the Washington Winos for the great reception I had on Monday night. It was truly an enjoyable evening.
17 Reasons The Wine Importer Likes Being a Wine Importer
I've been altogether too negative lately about being a wine importer.
Prestigous Chicago Wine Placements
For more information, please consult Fine Wines and Great Dining in the Chicago Area. Having spent Tuesday evening at the Matchbox, I would also strongly recommend their award-winning Martini program.
Other Joys of Being a Wine Importer Include Naming Wines After My Dog Buster
The origins of the Cuvée Buster are explained on the excellent
Louis/Dressner Selections Website, so I won't go into the story here.