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Cult Wine of the Month
In March, it was the Domaine de Bellivière Calligramme.
This month, it is the Domaine de Bellivière Rouge Gorge 2002. This is such a fabulous expression of Pineau d'Aunis, a wine so beautiful you just want to stand around and be surrounded by its strange, exotic and beautiful bouquet.
Luxuriate.
It is so pretty, I'm almost hesitant to drink this wine!
The wine is available at all the usual suspects.
We were considering a push into New Zealand, but why bother if we can continue to find beauties like this in France.
Another Day, Another Marvin
April must be National Marvin Month!
Today, I will be out in New Jersey with a crack salesman selling wine. On Thursday I will be in the Hamptons with another crack salesman selling wine. Last week, I was in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Newport, Rhode Island. The week before I Marvined in Virginia and Washington, DC.
I'm tired.
Yesterday, I tasted a full range of Russell Briggs New Zealand Selections for the first time.
A Selector is born!
See my full tasting notes at: www.joedressner.com/russellbriggs
Another Wine Geek Born!
Welcome to Ian Davis Murdock
Congratulations to Kathleen and Blake Murdock. Two fabulously skinny members of the Wine Industry whose first child weighed in at 9 lbs, 8 ounzes.
Yikes!
Latest Mark Hanes Newsletter is Out!
Hanes is back from Bordeaux, where he tasted through the 2003 vintage, and his current issue is featuring a range of French wines. Here are the hot reviews:
Closel, Domaine du
Savennières Clos du Papillon, Loire
Chenin Blanc
2002, $23.99
Slightly dull, thick-necked golden straw color, trim rims. Broad and flat in the nose, very chalky, smoked lemon peel, bit of dried honey, the white smoke notes give it lift, offers peach, apricot, melon scents, turns lightly grassy on the dissolve. Full-bodied, odd touch of caramel peeks through on the entry. Not impassive but a bit taciturn at the moment, spicy with some prickle, even if the acidity remains more blunt than sharp. The lemon/lime citrus punctures the surface during the mid-palate, although overall maintains a semi-creamy texture. Chewy, hard to break through the skin of the peach, pear, melon fruit. The spice becomes heightened on the back end although it clamps down firmly as it finishes, due to relax and release in 12-15 years. 92
Closel, Domaine du
Savennières Les Caillardières, Loire
Chenin Blanc
2002, $21.99
Glassy gold color, full to the rim, shimmers with layers. Strong mint, lemon oil on the nose, lesser degrees of minerals and violet-driven florality, lovely ripeness to the pineapple, mango, peach fruit scents, generously layers itself in your nostrils. Medium to full-bodied, nicely bracing acidity keeps it firm throughout. Vibrant tang to the tangerine, orange, pink grapefruit citrus. The honey tones sweeten things but not for long with that acidity around. Loaded with peach, apricot, nectarine, pineapple fruit, sparkles well. Light saline quality to the chalk and minerals. Wiry grip, you can feel its fingers’ tendons tighten. 91
Pépière, Domaine de la
Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Cuvée Eden Cuvée Vieilles Vignes, Loire
Muscadet
2002, $11.99
Clean, semi-transparent green-gold color, light rims. Spicy nose, strong lemon peel and white smoke scents, minerals and bitter straw, peach and pear fruit, remarkable determination. In the mouth shows a great deal of density and borderline stolidity but the ripeness of the apricot, pear, apple fruit excites it some. The lemon and grapefruit citrus has tang but also enough sweetness to take the edge off. Acidity really dries it out during the mid-palate, pushing it almost too far. Has all the chalk, minerals, straw flavors you’d need and then some. Really grinds through the finish, busting gaskets left and right. Right now, even has too much raw power for Iggy. 90
Maréchal, Catherine et Claude
Bourgogne Cuvée Gravel, Burgundy
Pinot Noir
2001, $18.99
Light, clear ruby color, stable to the rim. Lemony and minerally nose, the leather and earth scents insouciantly defiant, tart and direct cherry, raspberry fruit, very erect nostril presence. Medium-bodied with a killer grip, strangles you with love. Gets in your face with olive, grass, leather, earth smacks and sour cherry, blackberry fruit. Very acidic, long and sinewy, refuses to relinquish your attention. Yeah, it’s tough love but it’s good love. 90
Whole Foods New York
That's right, they now have a wine store in New York, New York!
The newest Whole Foods outfit is in the new TIme-Warner building on Columbus Circle. Many New York wine geeks do not know about this store yet, but I believe it will eventually be a major wine destination for New York wine lovers. Already, it is one of the major outlets in town for David Bowler Selections.
Speaking of new Selectors, New Zealand cult figure Russell Briggs will be at the Whole Foods Store on Sunday, April 25th, offering a range of his fabulous New Zealand wines. Not that I have ever tasted one of them.
I will be joining him that day, serving a range of wines from Louis/Dressner Selections, one of the older names in the Selector racket. The tasting will be from 2 pm to 6 pm and might include lots of eating treats from New Zealand. Russell is supposed to import a great line of bacon!
Congratulations to Whole Food's Melanie Mann and the whole crazy staff for putting together a very civilized store with a lovely selection of wines.
The April Marvins that Come Your Way....
I'll be out and about this coming week.
Lucky accounts in Northern Virginia might be Marvinning with me on Tuesday. Then, I'm off to Marvin with our good customer Doug Rosen in Arlington, Virginia.
Wednesday afternoon, members of the Washington Wine Trade are invited to a Wine Partners tasting (our distributor) where I will be serving some good wines. The tasting is by invite only and will be held at some country's embassy. This tasting is a group Marvin, as all of the illustrious Wine Partners' suppliers will be peddling their wares.
There are even rumors that Yellowtail will be available at this tasting. I haven't tasted the latest vintage and am looking forward to sampling more of these delicious, crowd-pleasing wines.
Call me on my cell phone at 646 831 4138 if you need more info.
Help Me Choose an E-Mail Signature
Once again, I'm out of the loop.
All of the e-mails I get from powerful members of the wine industry now have signature quotes about wine. These quotes are usually from famous political or literary figures and evoke the poetry and beauty of wine.
Please help me get an e-mail signature line.
I have decided to use a quote from Kahlil Gilbran, my favorite author. Here are the final nominees.
Please let me know which entry I should use in the future for my e-mail signature.
Let me know your choice in the comment section below, or call me on my cell phone at 646 838 2312
Congratulations to Scott Kraft!
Yes, Scott Kraft has won the Save the English Language Contest.
From now on, the phrase work-with will no longer be used. I will no longer have to use a dangling preposition to describe the urgent task of selling wine with salespeople from our distributors.
Instead, we will Marvin.
Marvin can be used as both a noun and verb.
I have contacted the WSWA, which is the official organization of America's Wine Wholesaler's and they have agreed to this change.
Scott needs to e-mail me with his address, I actually know how to get to his home (having graciously been invited there twice for dinner), but I forget the exact address.
My next Marvins will be in Northern Virginia, then on to the New York area, New Orleans, Portland and Seattle.
Thanks Scott!
Anti-Cult Cult Wine Article in City Magazine
The lastest issue of City, a magazine based on New York dealing with hipster trends and the hipsters behind them, has an article on Anti-Cult Cult Wines by Pameladevi Govinda.
The article speaks of a backlash movement against the Turley's and Opus', a movement lead by "tireless bon vivants" who look for wines from "miniscule productions bearing hush-hush labels you'll rarely spot on the pages of well-known wine periodicals."
Importer Joe Dressner is quoted as saying: "The audience is sort of a downtown bunch and, like any cult movement, a lot of it is fueled by the internet."
The article mentions how a Gamay from the Clos Roche Blanche became an internet phenomena. "There are a number of wine blogs and talk forums where people will record everything they drink -- every day," Dressner said. "One of the regular characters who pops up is a guy who calls himself Florida Jim. He recently posted that Chambers Street Wines and Astor Wines & Spirits were carrying the Clos Roche Blance Gamay. Both stores sold out immediately."
Ms Govinda goes on to say: "Most of these anti-cult winemakers don't promote their wares as specialized exports. In fact, it's the lack of media exposure that preserves the aura of secrecy that draws cult followers. At the end of the day they are small village-dwelling artisans who grow grapes and produce wines in order to make a modest living. Having some hipster gush when he finds their name on the wine list at WD50 isn't their intention."
This is an excellent article and there is no link to the text on the internet. You actually have to go out and buy the magazine.
Of course, I have no idea where the magazine is actually available.
For a Defense of the English Language!
Say No to Work-Withs!
Here in the wine industry, we wine suppliers are often scheduled to work with salespeople from our distributors. We go out in their cars with lots of samples, visit restaurant owners and retailers, and sell huge quantities of wine.
We wine professionals call these appointments work-withs.
In reality, there is no such term in the English language.
In fact, a work-with is a dangling preposition.
Please, can we come up with a new term? A kinder, gentler, grammatical way of describing the beautiful, bonding experience of forcing clients into buying wine.
Then again, as much as I am against the dangling prepopsition, lets keep sentence fragments alive and well.
I love them.
The winning entry will receive a complimentary bottle of Caligrame Janières, our latest cult wine, if it is legal to ship from New York City to the State where the winner resides.
Employees of LDM Wines and their immediate family members are not eligible to win this prize.
An Open Letter of Apology
I've degenerated into a lazy and inactive blogger.
My apologies.
I've been very busy:
- Nearly a month in France and Italy
- 35 French vignerons coming to America
- Undergoing extreme dental surgery with a liberal dentist shocked by all his right-wing customers
- Going to Chicago
- Celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary
- Losing suppliers (as we in the wine industry call vignerons)
- Gaining suppliers
- Soliciting orders
- Processing new orders
- Undergoing accupuncture treatment
- Dieting
- Taking Chinese herbs which might have god-only-knows what in them
- Cycling
I promise to write more soon.
Congratulations to Helen Turley!
Noted winemaker Helen Turley and her husband, John Wetlaufer, just won $255,000 in back pay from Don Bryant of the Bryant Family for breach of contract.
This was way below the $556,958 that the couple had asked. The jury decided that Ms. Turley had not looked for work elsewhere or something like that.
This translates into a lot of Muscadet. Ms. Turley and Mr. Wetlaufer can now buy about 106,250 bottles of good-quality Muscadet, ex-cellar France. This is way below the 232,065 bottles they would have bought if they had won the amount they demanded. Either way, this makes for a lot of Muscadet.
As a consolation, we will be sending Don Bryant a bottle of the 2002 Clos des Briords Muscadet, a wine that was highly praised in the Wine Spectator, but which has never received as many points as the Bryant Family wines made during Helen Bryant's tenure.
It goes great with oysters.
Don't Miss the Fabulous Domaine du Closel Dinner on Monday Night at Morrell's Restaurant
Hosted by Isaure de Pontbriand-Cribiore of the Domaine du Closel!
There will be lots to drink and eat. Like:
Reception
hors d’oeuvres (and lot's of them!)
2002 "Jalousie"
Dinner
Roast Quail with Citrus-Infused Couscous
2002 "Caillardières"
Seared Monkfish, Bok Choy and Cardamom Jus
2002 "Clos du Papillon"
Valençay, Pain d’epice
1989 Moëlleux, “Cuvee Isa”
Mignardises (don't miss this course, it's the best!)
Coffee (both caffeinated and non-caffeinated, with cream, without, with sugar, without)
The Cost is $75, exclusive of tax and gratuity. Reservations are required by noon on Friday, March 5th. Inquiries can be made by calling Morrells Restaurant at 212.253.0900.
It's going to be a great time! And don't forget to keep some space for the Mignardises!
Believe it or Not!
Famous vignerons Jean-Paul Brun and André Iché are in my office as I writing this!
Believe it or not!
Don't Miss Today's Polaner Selections Tasting
Yesterday's tasting in Boston was a smashing success.
Another six vigernons arrived from France last night and there will be 34 vignerons from Louis/Dressner at today's gala Polaner Selections event.
This marathon, all-day affair should be great fun and we hope to see you there. Consult the Polaner Selections site to find out more information about the tasting or call me on my cell phone at 646 833-2913.
To find the Polaner site, do an advanced Google search and search for all the following words:
Copain Brewer-Clifton Carlisle DuMol Pax Michael Wheeler
Don't Miss Todays Tasting in Boston
28 vignerons and I showed up in Boston yesterday.
We have rented an entire floor at the Parker House hotel, which is the birthplace of the Parker Roll and the Boston Cream Pie. Furthermore, the popular vigneron hero, Ho Chi Minh, worked here during his student days in Boston. Malcolm X also worked here.
We spent yesterday visiting ancient Puritan graveyards and inviting dead Puritans to today's trade only wine tasting.
You are invited too!
Ask your Carolina distributor representative for the location or call me on my cell phone: 648 872 6824
Who is Russell Briggs?
My dog Buster came into bed at 5 am this morning and starting licking my toes. He likes doing this.
So, I was up and decided to surf the web.
Most of my web surfing these days involves planning the educational future of my children. My son Jules is planning to go to school next year in Montréal and I am quickly becoming an expert on Montréal's lifestyle. I am totally obsessed with all the details and am micro-managing the transition to University life. At least it keeps me off the porn sites!
This morning, I learned that the University of Montréal is having a special week to encourage car pools. The headline on their web site is:
Semaine de covoiturage: un ami de plus, un char de moins!
My son has been accepted to this University, but doesn't want to go there. Perhaps he is against covoiturage. Who knows?
I also discovered this morning that students between ages 18 and 25 are eligible for a special transit pass, la Carte Privilège, which gives them unlimited monthly use of the excellent mass transit system for only $31.00 Canadian a month, as opposed to $59.00 Canadian. I then went to www.xe.com, which monitors currency rates, and learned that $31.00 Canadian is the equivalent of $23.31 American. Of course, these currency exchange rates are the inter-bank rates and are based on transactions of millions of dollars. Nevertheless, it is clear that Montréal's mass transit system is a bargain for students.
It being only 7 am, I surfed on to some web sites. The Garagiste, a great retailer with an active internet site, has an article about a New Zealand Wine Importer named Russell Briggs. The article states:
Forget your preconceptions of what New Zealand wine has to offer and start with a clean slate. These are wines of immense natural acidity and terroir rarely found anywhere in the world. If you are a fan of the searing, nervous energy of great un-oaked Chablis or the eccentric offerings of Joe Dressner you have found a new friend in Russell Briggs. This is certainly one of the most important new portfolios in the last several years.
One hour later I get an e-mail from Wine Personality of the Year Michael Wheeler asking me if he could bring some of the Russell Brigg's wines to our tasting party next week!
The internet is a fabulous place, despite its many detractors.
By the way, what an embarassment to have George Bush as President of the United State. What they ought to have is a consitutional amendment to keep the entire Bush family out of public office. What a repulsive and despicable individual.
Polls got you down? Play the anti-gay card.
34 French Vignerons land in Boston and New York. Australians panic!
by Kevin McKenna
NEW YORK. The news of the impending initiative of an elite viticultural team of independent grapegrower/winemakers from various regions of France into two occupied territories of the Eastern United States has gained enthusiastic support from resistance leaders in the two areas.
The axis of Chilean and Australian forces, heavily supported by government subsidies, tax initiatives and low-end Spanish Cooperatives getting big scores in The Wine Advocate, have been at a loss in dealing with the impending assault.
As allied jets loaded at Charles de Gaulle airport, the industry leaders convened at an undisclosed San Diego location and are expected to give a press release from the home of TwoBuck Chuck on Thursday.
Meanwhile, resistance leaders are confident for a successful campaign despite the war-weakened dollar and see this moment as a new era in taste. "It is time to show these plonky thugs what elegance really means," said one anonymous retailer from his hideout not far from Harvard Yard, Cambridge. "We plan to feed them defeat at every table" said an irate restaurateur from an undisclosed seedy, but hip, area of Brooklyn
In the meantime, the Band of Vins has announced their battle plans. We hope that you will find the time to pick up a glass and join them in their struggle.
Saturday, February 28
Chambers Street Wines, 160 Chambers Street, NYC 5-7 PM (Open to all) 212.227.1434
- François Pinon, Domaine Pinon, Vouvray
The Colonnade Hotel - Boston, MA (Trade-only event) - 1-4 PM
- Catherine Breton from Bourgueil
- Bernard & Henriette Baudry from Domaine Bernard Baudry in Chinon
- Jean-Paul Brun from Domaine des Terres Dorées in Beaujolais
- Isaure de Pontbriand from Domaine du Closel in Savennières
- Francoise & Jean-Baptisite Dutheil from Château St-Anne in Bandol
- Jerome Guimberteau from Clos de Caveau in Vacqueyras
- André Iché from Château d’Oupia in Minervois
- Jean-Mary & Catherine Le Bihan from Mouthes le Bihan in Duras
- Thomas Morey from Domaine Bernard Morey in Chassagne-Montrachet
- Eric & Chrisitine Nicolas from Domaine de la Bellivière in Jasnières
- Marc Ollivier from Domaine de la Pépière in Muscadet
- François Pinon from Vouvray.
The Westside Loft - New York, NY (Trade-only event) 12-5 PM
Everyone at the Boston tasting plus:
- Philippe Beraud from Costières-de-Nimes
- Jean-Pierre & Chantal Frick from Alsace.
Thursday, March 4th
Burgundy Wine Company, 143 West 26th Street, NYC 6:30-9:30 PM (Open to all) 212.691.9092
- Thomas Morey, Domaine Bernard Morey & Fils, Chassagne-Montrachet
Chambers Street Wines, 160 Chambers Street, NYC 5-7 PM (Open to all) 212.227.1434
- Catherine & Claude Maréchal, Domaine Catherine & Claude Maréchal, Beaune
- Bernard & Henriette Baudry from Domaine Bernard Baudry in Chinon
- Eric & Chrisitine Nicolas from Domaine de la Bellivière in Jasnières
- Catherine Breton from SCEA Catherine & Pierre Breton, Bourgueil
- Marc Ollivier, Domaine de la Pépière, Muscadet
- Isaure de Pontbriand, Domaine du Closel, Savennières
- Jean-Paul Brun, Domaine des Terres Dorées, Beaujolais.
Friday, March 5th
Prospect Wine Shop, 322 Seventh Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215
- Marc Ollivier, Domaine de la Pépière, Muscadet
- Jean-Paul Brun, Domaine des Terres Dorées, Beaujolais
- Jean-Mary & Catherine Le Bihan, Les Mouthes de Bihan, Duras.
Whole Foods Wines, Colombus Circle, 59th & CPW, NYC 4-7 PM (Open to all) 212.823.9600
- Jerome Guimberteau, Clos de Caveau, Vacqueyras
- Eric & Chrisitine Nicolas, Domaine de Belliviere, Jasnières
- Jean-Pierre & Chantal Frick, Pierre Frick, Alsace.
Astor Wines & Spirits, 12 Astor Place, NYC 5-8 PM (Open to all) 212.674.7500
- Thomas Morey, Domaine Bernard Morey & Fils Chassagne-Montrachet
- Françoise & Jean-Baptiste Dutheil, Chateau Sainte-Anne, Bandol
- André Iché, Chateau d'Oupia, Minervois.
Chelsea Wine Vault, 75 Ninth Avenue, NYC 4-7PM (Open to all) 212.462.4244
- Isaure de Pontbriand, Domaine du Closel, Savennières
- Bernard & Henriette Baudry, Domaine Bernard Baudry, Chinon.
Chambers Street Wines, 160 Chambers Street, NYC 5-7 PM (Open to all) 212.227.1434
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