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Huh? Nuttiness on the Internet.
I used to be active on Robin Garr's Wine Lover's Discussion Group. Robin is a very patient fellow who has been actively hosting wine discussions on the internet for as long as these sort of activities have been around. I stopped being active on Robin's board as I found my presence there disruptive to Robin, the participants of that board and to my work in the wine trade. On the whole, I was one giant pain in the ass to Mr. Garr who did his best to keep me active there as a responsible contributor. I, certainly, would never have had as much patience as he did with myself.
Anyhow, I do look in there fondly from time to time to see what is brewing. Tonight, I notice that one fellow is talking about me in ways that seem inexplicable. Does anyone understand what's going on there? Maybe it is just some more internet nuttiness.
Below, is the transcript of their discussion:
| There's a subject for a wine book... Hoke, 21-May-2001 23:07 With the prevalence for family feuds and various incarnations of the Battling Bickersons, I bet someone could write a good book for wine geeks. Just off the top of my fairly flat head, there's the Mondavi schism, the justly famed Gallos, the Sebastianis, the Cotat you mentioned (not up on that one), Mastro, and countless others. Then you've got the always interesting subset of marital spats and wineries. Legions of those that would be juicy in a National Enquirer kinda way. The Kendall-less Kendall-Jackson, for instance. And I've heard stories about stuff that went on up at Spring Mountain that were never verified. And that's just family stuff. If we expanded "Wine Family Feud" to include various partners, we could have a series on installment pieces that would run longer than a Dickens serialization back in the 1800s! Dirty Laundry indeed. |
| Ah yes, the great wine feuds! Thor Iverson (Boston, MA), 22-May-2001 01:33 Cotat vs. Cotat. Mastroberadino vs. Mastroberadino. Mondavi vs. Mondavi. Kendall vs. Jackson. Gina vs. Matt. Kimberly vs. Carmen. Allen-Coad vs. Allen-Reddel. Dressner vs. Dressner. Like sands through the hourglass... |
| Ah yes, the great wine feuds! Robin Garr, 22-May-2001 02:05 Sebastiani vs Sebastiani vs Sebastiani? |
| Could just as easily have been... Thor Iverson (Boston, MA), 22-May-2001 02:18 ...Dressner vs. Dressner vs. Dressner vs. Dressner vs. Dressner vs. Dressner vs. Dressner vs. Dressner. (Or did I forget one?) Me, I always liked to imagine Suckling vs. Coates in a jello-covered sumo ring. Well, OK, not imagine it, exactly... |
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Thank God for Jean-Paul Brun
I got to taste the Domaine des Terres Dorées L'Ancien Vieilles Vignes 2000 for the first time in bottle today. What a beauty! Just 11 degrees of alcohol, just pure gamay, no spoofulation. If any wine sums up what we aim for then it is this wine. The quintessence of purity.
This used to be called Cuvée a l'Ancienne but is no longer allowed by the French authorities to have this name. The Repression des Fraudes (a French governmental agency that Represses Frauds) did a spot raid of Jean-Paul Brun's cellar and ruled that Cuvée a l'Ancienne was a fraudulent title. So now, Brun has to call this L'Ancien. Go figure!
What isn't fraudulent is all the juice made with the 71-B yeasts, thermo-vinification (the lastest Duboeuf craze), enzymes and all sorts of spoofilication. This stuff has no problem with the Fraud Squad.
But a Beaujolais with no chaptalization, no yeasting and so pretty that it aches is grounds for investigation and prosecution.
None of this is actually available right now for the consumer. Shipments are first being ordered here at Louis/Dressner Central and they should start appearing on shelves by the beginning of July. This delay would normally panic me, but everything is fine since I entered my strategic alliance with The Game Show Network (see my blog entry below this one).
I have accumulated $13.11 since this alliance began earlier this week. One reader of my site clicked on the Game Show Network banner and bought a Regis Philbin Tee Shirt for $13.29. This item is on sale from its normally reasonable price of $18.99. I received $1.33 for this transaction as part of my 10% commission on all sales at the Game Show Network Store that originate from someone clicking on their ad banner at my site.
I also earned $2.38 from an two separate $11.89 purchases of The Best of TV Quiz & Game Show Themes CD. This exciting album features:
original versions of the theme songs you know and love, you'll be spinning the wheel, making a deal, and boogie-ing up the pyramid. Contains 20 songs, including The Price Is Right, Wheel of Fortune (Big Wheels), The Gong Show, and more!
Additionally, I received $9.40 from the 188 different IP addresses that The Game Show Network recorded as going onto their site from the ad banner at The Wine Importer. The Network pays me a nickel for every different web surfer who goes from this site to their site.
Frankly, I have mixed feelings about what's going on at the Game Show Network Shop. They are currently having a 30% off sale and I fear that I am losing valuable commission money. One could argue that the 30% sale encourages a higher volume of purchases, but I'm not convinced that the purchasers of the CD and the Philbin T-Shirt would not have bought the goods at the regular price. All I know is that my commissions are being cut by 30%.
By the way, I want to thank Mike Wheeler for the phrase spoofulated. In case Mike or any of the other readers out there have forgotten the link to The Game Show Network, just click right below:
Lucrative Wine Importer/Game Show Network Corporate Tie-In
Please remember that every garment, game, book or CD you buy from The Game Show Network strikes a blow at industrial, spoofulated wine!
Wine Importer Business Cycles
Things are slow at Louis/Dressner Selections. Since a shipment from France or Portugal takes about two months from door-to-door, we are currently in mid-July. There is not a lot of demand for wine in mid-July.
The major activity these days is selling Burgundies in September. We have just received samples from most of our Burgundy vignerons and will now try to sucker various distributors around the country to buy our Burgundies and sucker retailers to buy the Burgundies from them so that you the consumer can be solicited to fill your cellars with 1999 reds and 2000 whites. Actually, worse things could happen to you as there is much to admire from our growers in these vintages.
The Burgundy market has become confused since Robert Parker stopped visiting Burgundy. No one knows if they should believe Pierre Rovani, no one really believes Steve Tanzer other than crazy Burgundy geeks and me, who is Clive Coates anyhow(?), and the Wine Spectator will no doubt review the vintage either 3 months before they are available or 3 to 6 months after they are available.
This leaves everyone bewildered. Distributors and merchants will actually have to make decisions unaided by enthusiastic publicity. Unless, of course, they are buying wines that are 200% in new oak from Dominique Laurent. In that case, there is endless press enthusing before, during and after the wines are actually available.
Anyhow, all these problems mean that cash flow is somewhat slow these days at Louis/Dressner Selections. Since I have now taken to writing my own web site (blog) I have been learning lots of interesting things about HTML and the web. Most importantly, I have discovered that there are important sources of revenue available to webmasters such as myself by plugging into financially lucrative banner ad co-sponsorships.
So let me announce our first corporate co-sponsorship, which is between The Wine Importer and The Game Show Network.
The Game Show Network is the only network devoted entirely to fun and games. Featuring game show favorites such as The Price is Right, Tattletales, Card Sharks, I've Got A Secret, What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth, Tic Tac Dough, Family Feud and The Gong Show; current favorites such as Wheel of Fortune and JEOPARDY! and innovative original programming that lets viewers at home become part of the action. Game Show Network really is All Play, All Day!
Every time you click on the ad banner below this text you will not only get to read more interesting material about the GSN, you will also help me to earn money as a co-sponsor of the GSN. It also enables the GSN to place cookies on your computer that will track everything you do on the web, allowing them to 'profile' your consumer habits.
Visit the GSN often, but be certain to visit by clicking the ad banner on my web site. Additionally, I will be receiving a 10% commission for every purchase you make at the Game Show Network Shop! Thank you very much for your support.
Revisiting Old Friends
An important wine critic/novelist visited the office yesterday. This was the perfect occassion to bring out a bottle of Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet 1995. This wine seems to get fuller as the years go by. People often think I'm nuts for keeping old vintages of Muscadet but what a pleasure these wines, when they come from good producers, can be. My cellar might be weak in old Bordeaux, but along with Canadian Vintner Jeff Connell, I no doubt have one of the largest private collections of Muscadet outside the Loire Valley. Furthermore, after 34 years of experience in the wine business, I am convinced that the wine geek world is divided into those that love old Muscadet and those that don't (the latter category includes the indifferent).
Last Saturday night I was invited for dinner at Doug Polaner and Tina Fischer's home. They, along with Mike Wheeler, run a distributorship in New York that carries most of our wine. Doug had salvaged a 1996 Pierre Breton Chinon Picasses, a 1996 Thomas-Labaille Sancerre Vieilles Vignes and a 1995 Bernard Baudry Signature (which now goes by the name of Croix Boisée). The Baudry still needed time, but the 96 Breton was absolutely radioactive. A great vintage done in micro-yields that was as great a bottle of Cabernet Franc as I've ever consumed. The Sancerre Vieilles Vignes (which now goes by the name of Cuvée Buster) was just incredibly rich and toned.
I'm convinced that my company has to start putting aside a case from every vintage of every decent wine we import. Doug was lucky to be able to scrounge up these wines, but as the importers, we are obligated to make sure that we keep some stock of the wine. Of course this is expensive, but we can amortize keeping old stock by raising the prices for our wholesale customers. We need more living reminders of how our wines evolve.
Most importantly, Tina Fischer will be checking into a hospital this morning and giving birth to a baby. As the father of two children, Chipster and Malmolleux, I wish her all the best. There is wine and there are the real things that make life important.
Next Wave of Eric Texier Wines to Leave France this Month
Many of you have already enjoyed the Brézème and Côte Rotie from Texier. Texier's Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1999 is now available in several states and is showing beautifully. This bottle can use decanting but already has a beautiful nose of lavender and garrique. The wine is elegant and concentrated and I'm blatantly pushing my own products! But with conviction.
The wine comes from two vineyards: 83-year-old Grenache vines planted in 1917 in the La Craux vineyard and a 50/50 blend of Grenache (with a little bit of syrah and field blends) and Mourvedre from 40-to-50-year-old vines in the Grand Coulet. La Craux is situated near Rayas and the Grand Coulet is near La Nerthe. I should mention that I have put in a reservation with Eric for 6 magnums from La Craux every year as my father was born in 1917 and to commerate the Russian Revolution.
The wines that are going to be picked-up by French trucking firms in Charnay this week include a range of wines from Provençe. They include:
1. A Côtes-du-Provençe Rosé 2000 that is 100% Tiburon. That's right, Tiburon. The wine comes from tiny yields of 20 to 25 hecto/hectare. Delicious Rosé that is not a bleeding of an overproduction but a wine vinified on its own.
2. A Côtes-du-Provençe Rosé 2000 that is from 40-year-old Grenache plantings. Again, a rosé that is vinified on its own, not a saignée.
3. A Cassis 2000 that is 100% Marsanne. This is not the Cassis that you mix into white wine but is an appellation in Provençe from a town close to Bandol. This wine, as with the two above, was raised in barrel, with no sulphur and finished the malolactic fermentation. Usually, the malos are blocked in Cassis, but given the small yields of 35 hectolitres/hectare, Texier was able to finish the malo. My firm chose a special bottling of Marsanne which we happened to like a lot. Traditionally, Cassis is a mix of Clairette, Ugni Blanc and Marsanne, but we happened to like the two barrels in Marsanne. So 50 cases will be available. The wine is honied, floral, long and round.
There is a lot more coming in the next few months. Texier is working feverishly to get all his labels, to bottle and to prepare shipments. This is a young firm and the logistics are somewhat overwhelming.
In the month that follows, we plan to have French truckers return to Charnay to pick-up the following wines:
1. A Brézème Mise Tardive 1999 -- this is a special bottling of Brézème that went through another six months of elévage and which is predominantly from old vines. More meat, more concentration than the first bottling of 1999 Brézème that has taken geekdom by storm.
2. Châteauneuf Blanc 2000 -- This is a special blend of older barrels (5-year-old and the oldest in this cuvée) that is being done for us. All Grenache Blanc from the Nothern part of Old Châteauneuf, from a vineyard called La Ferme Baban. These are 45-year-old vines that make the first Châteauneuf Blanc I am actually delighted to be selling. Texier was able to finish the Malos here and no one believe him. Prominent vignerons almost demanded to see the lab analysis. Again, as with the Casis, working at small yields has allowed Eric to finish the Malo and to avoid blocking the Malo to maintain acidity.
3. Brezemes Blanc 2000 -- 100% Rousanne. From the La Rollières vineyard. These vines are cuttings from Hermitage and were harvested at 18 hectolitres/hectare. Fabulous stuff.
There's also a bunch of reds. Old VInes from Vaison-la-Romaine, Seguret, Chusclan and St-Gervais. One of the great things about a blog is I can write about these tomorrow.
Have Wine Critics Ruined the Quality of Today's Wines?
There always seems to be a lot of heated discussion on this topic by wine geeks. A new web site presents the pros and cons of this issue in a powerful way. Make sure not to miss Are Wines Being Made for Critics Rather than Consumers?
Excellent Wine Sites on Industrial Winemaking
I happened upon two excellent sites today that help explain why there is so much horrible wine out there. Using Industrial Yeasts to Make Horrible Industrial Wines is a comprehensive guide to Lalvin's Yeasting Powders and along with the complementary Using Industrial Enzymes to Make Horrible Industrial Wines helps today's winelovers understand why so much of today's wines are so enjoyable.
Thinking About Beaujolais Nouveau on the Day After Thanksgiving
I was unduly pessimistic and had a lovely time. Great Neck is cultured, civilized and they make delicious overly-elaborate-mishmash-dishes.
It was a good idea to bring wine. They had a Linden Chardonnay from the State of Virginia, "aged in new barrels" according to the wine's back label, that they were very enthused about. The back label also told us that the wine has lots of exotic fruits and was delicious. I view these type of back labels on American wines as a great service to the consumer, cautionary notes that are far more important than the useless Government Warning (I rarely drive and will never be pregnant) and am always pleased that the winery is considerate enough to warn that the wine is going to be over-oaked and over-yeasted and generally horrible. So, I drank the Domaine des Terres Dorées Nouveau instead. My mother liked the Nouveau a great deal but she is inclined to like our wines and in no sense can be considered a barometer of popular public taste. I agreed with her though.
My view of wine has very much been shaped by working with Jean-Paul Brun of the Domaine des Terres Dorées in the Beaujolais. Denyse and I have worked with Jean-Paul for 10 vintages and our notion of non-interventionist winemaking and the importance of natural yeasts dates to our initial tastings with Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul was receiving press in France for his beautiful production of non-yeasted and non-chaptalized Beaujolais, something that seemed almost revolutionary when compared to the the bottlings from Georges Duboeuf which still dominate the Beaujolais scene.
Until recently, Duboeuf was using an industrial yeast called the 71B, which was added to his wines during fermentation and which gave aromas of bananas and tasted like candies. Duboeuf has now moved on to other industrial yeasts and a system called thermo-vinification but Jean-Paul remains part of the tiny minority of Beaujolais vignerons who still produce something authentic. We loved Jean-Paul's wines when we first tasted them and realized that his notion of winemaking was central to making wine rather than beverages. Jean-Paul remains a maverick, constantly hounded by the local authorities in the Beaujolais for bucking modern trends, but over the years we have been able to find growers like him from all over France. But the vigernons working naturally are truly rare today and the industrial beverage-making segment of the wine business dominates both the new world and the old.
Take the Linden Chardonnay I could have consumed in Great Neck yesterday. What is this thing I didn't drink? I consulted their web site today for more information. Particularly intriguing is their use of both Burgundian and Australian yeasts! What could they possibly be talking about?
The world has gone mad and the people at Linden Chardonnay couldn't be happier! Of course Linden Chardonnay itself is of little importance. I had to travel to my cousin's Thanksgiving celebration in Great Neck to see a bottle of the stuff for the first time and I still haven't drank a drop. What is more important is what Linden Chardonnay says about the current wine zeitgeist. Perhaps I'm nuts, but doesn't the following description sound like a repulsive, concoted wine with little relationship to nature, vines, wine or enjoyment?
Flavors: Apple, toasty oak, and vanilla with a creamy, citrus finish. Food Pairings: Rich fish like salmon, or earthy foods like risotto with mushrooms and roast chicken with polenta. Vineyards: Estate Vineyard (79%), Fauqier Co., on top of the Blue Ridge at an elevation of 1,350 feet on a south and east slope. Deep, well drained, volcanic origin, greenstone based soils. Vine age is between 9 and 14 years. Contributes pear aromas and a crisp, citrus finish. Flint Hill Vineyard (21%), Rappahannock Co., elevation of 900 feet, rolling terrain with several soil types. Vine age is between 16 and 18 years. Contributes melon flavors and a rich middle. Vintage: Cool summer and a cooler fall. Harvest dates were Oct. 3 & 4, 1996. Winemaking: 100% barrel fermented in 95% French oak and 5% American oak using Burgundian and Australian yeasts. Aged on the lees in the barrel for 10 months. Bottle aged for 18 months before release. This wine ages wonderfully for many years. 1,065 cases produced.
1996 Chardonnay
Aromas: Pear, melon, almond and hazelnut.
posted on Thursday, November 23, 2000
Charles McCabe, My Favorite Critic
I get so sick of Parker, The Wine Spectator and all the various other wine journalists that I often think of Charles McCabe, my favorite critic.I should note here that I do like Steve Tanzer, who I know personally, for being somewhat more tentative then the rest of the bunch. And of course, Steve is a helluva-a-guy!
McCabe was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle along with Herb Caen -- a powerful one-two morning punch for City residents. I lived in San Francisco from 1975 to 1980 and greatly enjoyed both columnists, McCabe was perhaps best know for his motto Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art, but I always remember him for his muckraking columns against America's razor blade manufacturers.
McCabe's theory was that America's razor manufacturers were intentionally making blades that required weekly replacement. Periodically, they would develop new shaving technologies that were seemingly superior -- the twin-edged and then triple-edged blade come to mind, although McCabe did not live to see the triple-edged. At product launch, these new blades would be extremely-sharp and last weeks. But as months and years went by, the razor companies would purposely lower the level of razor quality, ensuring that once again the shaver had to replace the blade on a weekly basis. This would create a perceived market need for an even newer technology and a new product would be introduced yet again that would work fine for several months and then once again degrade in quality. Ad infinitim.
I was very happy with Gilette's entry into the triple-edged market and was perhaps one of the first consumers to buy the Mach III when it was introduced. In fact, I was so overwhelmed with the performance of this machine, I was enthusiastically converted to Gillette's contention that this was the most important shaving innovation since the 1960s (although I was too young to shave until about 1968). But two years have gone by and I note that the blade cartridge, which seemed almost immortal at product introduction, now requires constant replacement. And those hard to get smooth spots are becoming the impossible to get smooth spots.
Happily, Alyce Dressner, my 12 1/2 year old daughter, constantly peruses the Drugstore.com site and I learned that the Schick company has now come up with its own triple-bladed system, the XTreme III (Schick XTreme III Site). Of course I immediately seized the opportunity to order these new razors and found the overall experience to be qualitatively superior to the Mach III. But still, it lacked the excitement that was there when the Mach III first came into the market. The XTreme III is incrementally better than the Mach III, but nothing more than that.
During this time of disappointment, I accidentally tried out another Schick blade. I am currently going to a physical therapist three times a week to remobilize my chest. My chest, which was once mobile, was recently cracked open to make way for four heart bypasses. Or quadruples bypasses, as they say in the medical trade.My physical therapist turns out to be organized like a luxury gym and oddly my insurance pays for the whole shebang, including the luxury showers outfitted with luxury cosmetics and razor blades. Just this week, they changed blades from an uninteresting Gillette disposable to a fascinating ergonomic Schick twin blade that I had never seen and that I decided to try out. What a shave!
It is not principally the ergonomic design of the razor that makes it so interesting as it is the inclusion of the One-Push Cleaning System. The shaver pushes this button during the shave and a clever mechanism pushes a small plastic strip between the twin blades, quickly dislodging any dirt or whiskers that might lead to clogging and eventual blade dulling. Again, I cannot recommend this blade highly enough and hope all interested readers will take the time to look at Schick's inspired web site dealing with this new technology: The Schick ST Disposable. Not only is this the best blade in the marketplace but it is also one of cheapest -- I bought a 15-pack today at Rite-Aid Drugs for only $5.99! Of course, there is always the possibility that the razor will go dull in several months or in a year. But until then I'm convinced.
There is a lesson here for wine lovers. They've been making twin-blades and disposables for some time now. Finally, it is an incremental improvement to an old and tested design that qualitatively advances the shaving experience. Not fancy new shavers or elaborate blades. The market always come back to the tried and true and demonstrably effective. Novelty, for the sake of novelty, eventually fatigues.
There is a lesson here for wine lovers.....
posted on Friday, November 24, 2000
Additional Thoughts about Charles McCabe, My Favorite Critic
I shaved about 30 minutes ago and realize that I left out an important element of my shaving philosophy.
I have to do a great deal of travelling as a wine importer. I spend the summer months in France, where we have a home in the Mâconnais, but use our home to travel around viticultural France to see our vignerons. In February I go to France for between three and four weeks to taste the new vintage, talk business with our growers, and usually to take some gullible American customers of ours on a tour of our producers. Lastly, I have to travel in America, visiting various cities where I try to convince gullible distributors, retailers and restaurant owners to buy our wines. All this travelling is extremely wearing and I have spent years trying to figure out how to pack for these various trips.
Bear in mind that I am large fellow and my clothes take lots of space in my luggage. For several years I would pack for my winter trip with enough clothes to last for two weeks, which usually required two suitcases that were tiresome and draining to drag around with me. I would time my trip so that I would wind-up in the Beaujolais after about two weeks and quickly get my clothing to a dry cleaner/blanchisserie in Anse (near Villefranche). By sheer coincidence the two brothers who own the dry cleaner are childhood friends of our former supplier of Rully and Givry and they would quickly do my clothing, although they would not give me a discount. Commercial clothing cleaning is extremely expensive in France -- the whole deal would cost me about $40 to $50, depending on the currency -- and is more of a luxury service than in New York City, where I reside for most of the year. New York City seems to have thousands of dry cleaners, even more dry cleaners than Duane Reade Drug Stores, and all of these dry cleaners bill themselves as authentic French Dry Cleaners. Of course, there is no such thing as a French Dry Cleaner and I have always wondered what the origin of this term might be. When I first started going to France I tried to figure out if there was a truly a native dry cleaner culture, distinct from the American dry cleaner culture, that has inspired our dry cleaner industry. This is the case for French cuisine, for instance, but does not turn out to be the case for dry cleaning.
My neighborhood in Manhattan has one French Dry Cleaner per 12.3 residents, according to the latest Census Bureau figures. There is even a cleaner named Madame Paulette. There is no Madame Paulette at Madame Paulette and the whole story makes no sense. I understand why California WIneries call their wineries Château Something-or-Other, as this recalls the prestigous wine estates of France and is a clever marketing ploy. But why French Dry Cleaners?
Anyhow, I had no choice but to end this packing/travelling regiment because we stopped buying wine from our Givry/Rully producer who was overcropping and raising prices in direct proportion to his annual yield increases, leading to a dilute wine of little interest to anyone. Our Givry/Rully producer was a good friend and I always regretted that we stopped working with him, but we had little choice as the wine was becoming dilute and bad. Simultaneously, his wine was selling like crazy in France at high prices and he had no incentive to do any better. Of course, this ruined our friendship with the grower and I was quite depressed by the whole turn of affairs. Given that I was no longer going to see the grower, I could not in good conscience take my dirty laundry to his dry cleaning childhood friends in Anse!
Around the same time, I stumbled upon Doug Dyment's excellent web site on travelling with one carry-on bag: The Compleat Carry-On Traveller. Having studied this site, I now travel with but one carry-on bag filled with polyester clothing (all of which have several secret pockets to carry money and sensitive documents) that signal Europeans that I am an American rube. I also have various gadgets that are meant to lighten my travel load.
This brings me back to the problem of shaving. I've never liked an electric razor, even when it was dual voltage, and have always preferred the manual jobs. The problem is which shaving cream to travel with? For years I liked Noxzema and would buy their smaller can for travel, even though it was still quite large and consumed a large spot in my luggage. But Noxzema stopped producing the small can (although maybe they still produce them but New York City's Duane Reade Drug Stores have discontinued carrying the small cans) and I would have no choice but to carry the enormous regular Noxzema regular size can. I suppose what I always liked about Noxzema was that it was 'medicated' and seemed truly bracing first thing in the morning. But when I thought about it, it made no sense to cover your face with a white cream that made it impossible to see the very skin you were shaving. Some years ago I tried Edge Gel, which is transparent and comes in convenient travel sizes, but I found it gave a horrible shave. It turned out that Edge's protective shielding gel not only made it impossible to cut or nick your skin, it also made it impossible to shave your beard.
Finally, through the advise of Doug Dyment, I have discovered Somerset Shaving Oil. As Mr. Somerset says:
At first, it seems totally impractical: requiring only two or three drops of this lightly fragranced liquid to be rubbed into the beard. What follows has to be experienced to be believed.
A liberal splash of water activates its extraordinary lubricating powers, allowing the blade to simply glide through the toughest bristle.
It's 100% natural, made from only pure essential oils and menthol giving an almost perfect shave, free from nicks and razor burn. It contains no alcohol or astrigants and won't irritate even the most sensitive skin. Used over a period of time, the oil actually conditions, leaving the face moisturised and supple.
It's also incredibly economical, each little 1/4 oz bottle delivering up to 90 perfect shaves. And being small,it's also very portable - perfect for travelling!
I give this product my strongest recommendation -- if I had a choice between a 1997 Saumur-Champigny Poyeux, an absolutely radioactive bottle of wine from the Frères Foucault and the Somerset Shaving Oil I would take the Poyeux, but would regret it the next morning when I woke up to shave. Click on the link above and you go the the Magellans web site, where you can order this wonderful product. Magellans specializes in travel gear and I have no commercial relationship with them. But, if you order Somerset Shaving Oil by December 15th and mention that Joe Dressner, A Wine Importer, sent you there, they will ship you a complementary bottle of California Cult Cabernet! Please note that the Magellans' on-line order screen has a spot for a special message to their customer service staff -- you should mention The Joe Dressner, A Wine Importer, Promotional California Cult Cab Offer in that spot. Alternatively, if you speak to them by phone, please mention promotional offer TJDAWIPCCCO. In fact, if you mention TJDAWIPCCCO on the on-line order form it should be sufficient to get you the free bottle.
A Useful E-Mail Received About a Thoughtful Web Site
I just received an e-mail from one of this site's readers suggesting that I take a look at The Definitive Guide to Shaving. This Totalshavingsolution commercial site plugs a product similar to the Somerset Shaving Oil that I discussed in my post below. But if the careful reader eliminates the commercial aspects of the site that are there solely for narrow promotional reasons, they will encounter a rather long, detailed and well-thought out analysis of optimal shaving techniques. The site covers many important issues such as:
- The eternal question of whether long or short shaving strokes are the best way to shave a beard.
- How to compensate for dreaded razor drag.
- How to avoid skin irritation.
- The problem of razor clog.
- Handling bleeding problems.
- Aftershave: Yes or No?
- Should shaving be done in the shower and can it be done using the revolutionary braille method?
- and many others....
While I do not agree with all the commercial conclusions made by this site, and one should bear in mind that they are trying to sell product, there is still much thought-provoking material that I think is of interest to everyone.
Originally Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000
Some Thoughts Before Leaving on Vacation
The wine business is exhausting. From planting the vines, to pruning and cultivating the fields, to treating the vineyards (of course, only with organic concotions), to our annual summer green harvest (although I think we are finally getting to the point where we will simply prune in an extreme fashion rather than wait for vine growth to get out of hand during the summer), then the harvest, vinification, élévage, bottling, label registrations with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, shipping the wines and having customs break up the container to be certain there is no contraband hidden in the boxes of wine and that the real labels correspond to the labels we registered with BATF (see above), finding customers for the wines, negotiating sample allocations, pricing structures, and marketing strategies with distributors in 20+ states, participating in distributor tastings around the country where I tell everyone that Helen Turley was the consulting oenologist for our Cour-Cheverny producer François Cazin.
Then we take out full-page advertisements in The Wine Spectator in the hopes that this will buy us favorable reviews only to discover that something named Cinq Cépages from a Château that isn’t even in France or a country that speaks French is the Wine of the Year, to hearing people call me Lou Dressner (even though there is no such person), to having people tell me how much they respected my late father Lou Dressner who I'm told was one of the great men of the wine trade (my father’s name is Sam, he is alive and he has never been in the wine business, although his profession has never been clear to his immediate family (by the way, the company is named Louis/Dressner because Denyse Louis was one of the two original partners (the other being myself) before we went public and I felt as a gentleman we should put her name first with a slash seperating our two names)), on to shipping fabulous wines from France that undergo secondary fermentations when they arrive in our warehouse.
Then there are in-store consumer tastings with plastic cups that dental hygenists would not use for mouthwash, to being ‘bill-backed’ by the stores that do the in-store consumer tastings for the cost of the plastic cups, to chasing our modest bills from customers making millions of dollars selling wines from California and enormous French négociants that taste well in plastic cups who insist that the "check is in the mail." Next I'm thrown off numerous wine internet boards on the grounds that I'm delusional and not writing enough about wine (i.e. smelled like raspberries, long finish of cassis that lingered forever), then having four heart by-passes done by a wonderful surgeon named Aubrey Claudius Gallaway who bears an uncanny resemblance to Pierre-Jacques Druet of Bourgeuil, to finally sitting back and drinking a fabulous Clos Habert 1998 Demi-Sec from François Chidaine in Mountlouis and plotting sales of thousands of cases across America to discover that Chidaine has only 20 cases of the cuvée left in France and did not make any in 1999....it is an exhausting profession.
I'm ready for a vacation. Denyse and I are off to a small sailboat in a non-viticultural ocean tomorrow where there is no phone, no wine reviews and no government warnings. I am bringing the collected works of Sidney Sheldon with me and plan on reading them in their entirety using techniques I learned years ago when taking an Evelyn Woods Speed Reading Course. Or maybe it was Stanley Kaplan, I forget. Regardless, I’ve never read any of Sheldon’s books but have always noted the rave reviews he gets from Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times. So, I will not be around for about a week and this new site of mine will not change for a few days.
The Clos Rougeard from Frères Foucault
Some parting thoughts: the firm I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, has a cult wine in a country where no one has ever heard of the producer. There are a few Loire geeks and some French sommeliers who know about the Clos Rougeard made by the Frères Foucault but not altogether that many. But in France, people don't say their names, they whisper it, almost in awe -- The Frères Foucault. Often it is in fear, although no one knows what there is to be afraid about. No one can get an appointment there, no one can find the wine outside of three star restaurants and a legend has built up around Nady and Charlie Foucault. France is also filled with thousands of people who are ‘super-copain’ (loosely translated this means big buddies) with Nady or Charlie or both, but one is never certain if this is true or not since it is rare to get an audience with the Foucault where one can verify who they do in fact know or not know..
The wine is cabernet franc from great vineyards that have been in the family for generations. For generations, the Foucault family has worked the vineyards organically before people talked about 'organic' or had certifying authorities that require endless paperwork as part of the certification procedure. The Foucault have always limited yields to incredibly low quantities to get concentration, raised their wine in barrels (even the great-grandfather who was a tonnelier) and never deformed the wine with oakiness because the oak always helped the élévage of great raw materials. Their cellar is cold, damp and houses innumerable treasures.
Years ago, Charles Joguet was viewed in America as the signature producer of Cab Franc in the Loire. Joguet now has nothing to do with the estate that bears his name, having been bought out and thrown out by his accountant, and there is no doubt that the Foucault are making the highest expression of Cabernet Franc on this planet. The wines are just plain radioactive. Even better than Bruce Schneider!
We get three cuvées: the Clos, Clos Poyeux, Bourg. We just got in the 1997s and they are expensive and rare and grab some if you can find them. There are a few stores and restaurants in New York, some in Boston, maybe on the West Coast, perhaps someone in Detroit. There is no secondary, grey or auction market as the wines have not been reviewed by Robert Parker, The Wine Spectator or any of the usual suspects. So I doubt you will find any.
Guest Blogs?
I've been working hard to set-up a special spot for Guest Blogs. The clickable line above this post takes you to the exciting new 'guest blog' feature. Several leading wine experts are preparing their contributions for early publication. Stay tuned for exciting developments.
Numbers 1 and 2 of My Top 10 List of This Year's Louis/Dressner Selections Imports
OK, perhaps this is a crass thing to do but who cares? The following were my favorite wines that Louis/Dressner Selections imported this past year. To qualify, wines had to arrive after December 31, 1999 and before January 1, 2001 (Eric Texier's Côte Rotie won't be here until after January, so it does not qualify, for instance).This list is inherently subjective and self-serving -- I am a principal in Louis/Dressner Selections after all -- and is part of this web site's campaign of unabashed self-promotion.
- Domaine des Terres Dorées Beaujolais Rouge Mise Printemps 1999 -- actually the Mise Printemps does not appear on the label, but this was the first bottling of the young vines cuvée from Terres Dorées. I consumed about 24 bottles of this, with some help, during July in St-Gengoux-de-Scissé, where I have a home. I had gone there after undergoing 4 heart bypasses in late May in New York. Food and wine tasted terrible for several weeks after the operation and then white wines started to taste well. My cardiologist assured me this was a common reaction due to all the anesthethia that had been loaded into my system. I had tried to have natural bypasses, using techniques I learned as a Lamaze coach for the birth of my two children, but the surgeon would not go for my idea. But by late June though, I could taste and enjoy reds once again.
Jean-Paul Brun of Terres Dorées was nice enough to come visit me in St-Gengoux after we arrived and to bring two cases of the above wine. The flavors were intense for me -- beautiful red fruits, delicate cherries and spice, perfectly balanced with just the right amount of acidity. A finish that seemed to go on forever. The 24 bottles were among the most pleasurable wines of my life. This wine may not appear anywhere else as the Wine of the Year (The Wine Spectator has already published their list and I am waiting to see the other lists) but frankly I don't care.
- Clos Rougeaurd Saumur-Champigny Clos Poyeux 1997 -- I have commented about this wine somewhere below. It is radioactive. The Bourg might be the better wine in the future, but for perfect drinking, right now, this is just superb.
More to come....
Posted on Sunday, December 10, 2001
Corrected Mâcon-Vire
The entire senior management team at Louis/Dressner Selections thought that the special bottling we now have in this country was the Domaine de Roally Mâcon-Viré Cuvée 41-H. We were wrong and the wine is in fact called the Domaine de Roally Mâcon-Viré Cuvée 54-H. Our apologies to everyone out there who asked for a 41-H and could only find a 54-H. We have received angry phone calls from several retailers who were accused of fraudently peddling Cuvée 54-H in a marketplace that wants Cuvée 41-H. Please, please....there is no 41-H, it was an error on our part.The 54-H was the wine that took nearly two years to bubble to completed fermentation. It is good. It was in one small steel vat, which I could have sworn was 41-H, but which turned out to be 54-H. I stopped using my Palm Pilot in people's cellars a couple of years ago. Its too bad, because I was able to keep on top of details like this when I was equipped with that machine. I then switched last year to a Vadem Clio, which is a clamshell Windows CE device, but I spilled wine from the Clos du Tue Boeuf (I believe it was the Menu Pineau) on the keyboard in the beginning of a one month trip to France. Since, I had a 30 days, no question asked guarantee with the unfortunate company that sold me the machine, I returned it for a full refund. I then bought another Vadem Clio from another unfortunate company and dropped it on the floor after two weeks of happy usage. American Express refunded that one. That Vadem Clio was a technological tour de force and they no longer make the machine. So, for the past year I have been without some sort of gadget.
I recently bought a Casio EM-500 PocketPC and hope that by using this sophisticated piece of machine I will be able to keep track of the different cuvée in Henri Goyard's cellar. Although Goyard has retired and his vintage 2000 will be his last harvest.
Again, my apologies.
Stolen Chambolle-Musigny from François Legros
Speaking of theft and fraud...there have been a number of stories this past week about criminal rings being broken up in Burgundy.Late this afternoon, we received a phone call from an anonymous Long Island teenager who had stolen a bottle of François Legros' Chambolle-Musigny from his father's cellar and drank the bottle. Turns out, the father has not noticed the theft but has subsequently spoken of his affection for this wine. The teenager called our office asking where he could buy a substitute.
Of course, we are firmly against teenagers buying alcoholic beverages. Additionally, the wine is sold out.
The anonymous teenager told me that he in fact enjoyed the wine.
posted on Monday, December 11, 2000
My Apologies, I Was Too Busy to Write-Up Numbers 5 and 6 of My Top 10 List of This Year's Louis/Dressner Selections' Imports Today
Wow! We had over 11,000 unique hits yesterday! Who are all you people? Unfortunately they are all going to expect my numbers 5 and 6 tonight and I haven't had the time to write them up.I've had a busy day as a wine importer and then went home to my children and dog. No time for my Top 10.
My work activities today included:
- Rode my bicycle to work through 50 mph gusts. Almost lost my eyeglasses on the Williamsburg bridge. I'm blind without them.
- Received a fax from Bernard Baudry that he had only 1/2 the quantities of wine we had ordered the day before.
- A Boston retailer calls us to let us know that the fabulous Vacqueyras Cuvée Prestige 1998 has a cork saying 1999. What do we know about this and what does he tell his customers? It's all news to us. We fax the producer.
- Received a fax from the Clos du Caveau verifying that they had made a mistake and used a cork with 1999 written across the cork to bottle their 1998 Vacqueyras Cuvée Prestige (or maybe it was their Cuvée Spéciale). The wine is exceptional, so I'm not too upset. I have them fax us an explation of this error, Denyse translates, we fax retailers who have this wine in stock.
- One of our suppliers is doing a survey. They want me to answer by e-mail the following question: "What does our Domaine mean to you?"
- Responded to a fax from a producer in Mâconnais who wonders why he is not being paid. Oddly, he is being paid.
- Worked on the Louis/Dressner web site.
- A distributor in New York needs Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Registrations we have for Claude Maréchal's Chorey-les-Beaune, along with an authorization letter from us, addressed to Mr. To Whom This May Concern, to use our BATF registration. They had ordered one case of this wine and customs was threatening to hold up an entire container of wine if they did not have this all-important material. We dropped everything.
- Another distributor in another state calls to ask us to fax them immediately our BATF registrations for François Legros' Chambolle-Musigny and Amiot-Servelle's Bourgogne Rouge along with an authorization letter from us to use our registrations. Customs was threatening to hold up their container.
- A retailer calls asking why his 5 cases of Domaine de la Ferme St-Martin Côte-du-Rhône was not delivered. Inquiries are made. Retailer calls back 10 minutes later to say the trucker had just arrived.
- I call a distributor in the midwest to find out why they have not paid our bills. They say they did not receive invoices when the goods shipped three months ago. We fax them the invoices.
- I order a Casio EM-500 PDA. This will make my life fabulously organized and allow me to take copious notes in grower's cellars of future contestents for the Top 10 List of This Year's Louis/Dressner Selections' Imports. I bought the first model of the Palm Pilot when they came out years ago, but tired of using them. I now slavishly purchase and use anything that has anything to do with Bill Gates. Its unlike me, but I've become a syncophant of Microsoft.
- I field phone calls from three different telecommunications companies that want us to sign-up for their long-distance plan. I tell them we pay 3 cents a minute for France and they say they can't match that but offer other, innumerable benefits.
- A stockbroker calls and calls me Joe immediately, talking to me like we're long lost high-school buddies. I hang up the phone while he's talking.
- A consumer calls from Florida. He likes only one wine in the world, the Brouilly Vieilles Vignes from Jean-Paul Ruet. But it is not available in Florida. His son lives in Brooklyn and will be driving to Florida soon and he would like his son to buy two cases from a New Yorker retailer and transport the wine to him. Of course, all this is illegal and I want nothing to do with the whole affair.
- A vague social acquaintance is having a company party at a restaurant in Manhattan. She calls and wants to know how we can get the restaurant to buy our wines, in lots of three to six bottles, perhaps four different wines.
- I get called "Lou" for the first time in two weeks. A secretary from one of our distributor customers calls and asks for Kevin. I tell her that Kevin is not in and she says: "Oh, this must be Lou." I don't argue the point with her.
- Receive a fax from a producer who wants to know when we are going to finally ship the wine we reserved. We have no prospect of selling his wine, but I suppose we will ship it at the beginning of the year and lose money.
- Receive a fax from Franck Peillot telling us he is sold out of Mondeuse and has little Altesse left.
- I receive yet another e-mail from Brad Kane. He seems to have been embolded by the turn-around in George W. Bush's fortunes.
- I left a message on the voice mail of our best retail customer in the Detroit area. I have done this for months, since we shipped him a load of wine over the summer, and he doesn't call back. He will call back one of these days and order a lot of wine and we will ship it to him. He will then not call back for months.
- I sent faxes to various distributors around the country reminding them to pay some bills.
- Went to lunch.
- Returned to work and the day continued in much the same fashion as above.
posted on Tuesday, December 12, 2000
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.
older posts...
posted on Sunday, December 17, 2000
- Rode my bicycle to work through 50 mph gusts. Almost lost my eyeglasses on the Williamsburg bridge. I'm blind without them.