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We Import Numbers 42 and 98 of The Wine Spectator Top 100 List!
Congratulations are due to the producers for these fine efforts.
Don't Miss Michael Kane from Rosenthal Wine Merchants at Francos Wine Shop Today!
That's right, Michael Kane will be tasting a range of delicious wines from Neal Rosenthal's portfolio today at New Canaan.
Mr. Kane is the Eastern Regional manager for Mr. Rosenthal. He's a charming, articulate and knowledgeable wine professional who will be highlighting several artisan selections from Mr. Rosenthal's excellent choices throughout Europe.
The tasting is from 1 to 5 pm.
This looks to be an even more exciting tasting than last week's Port tasting with Mr. Arnold Trabb, the Eastern Manager of Premium Port Wines.
Don't miss this event!
What's With All the Tarragon?
I hate the taste of tarragon and can smell it if I am in a five block city radius from someone cooking a dish seasoned with this horrible herb.
Lately, I've had a succession of meals with tarragon. This herb used to be the rage in the late 1970s and 1980s but mercifully disappeared. It seems to be poised for a comeback. Has the CIA (the Culinary Institute of America) started a new craze? Are trendies sick of cilantro?
I just had a salad today in a Greek diner on 86th Street and 2nd Avenue. The salad stunk to high heavens of Tarragon.
I had Halibut in Montreal on Saturday which had been bathed in the stuff.
What's going on? Is it all these graduate students who want to interview me? Are they poisoning my food because I won't discuss the intricacies of the American Wine Distribution system to them?
Help!
Attention Graduate Students!
Nine graduate students have contacted me in the past two weeks to enlist my aid in their important research into the exciting wine distribution racket.
Please don't send inquiries.
I'm too busy and my health is too poor to help out.
Just today, I had a tooth extraction, for instance.
I want to thank you in advance for leaving me alone.
Beaujolais Nouveau!
Has anyone tasted it yet?
I wait for tomorrow.
I'm a law-abiding citizen.
Québec!
I'm off to Québec for a small vacation and to police my children.
I'm taking up a case of Mollydooker with me, the new taste sensation from Australian, and am looking forward to the whole experience!
See you soon!
Les Grands Crews
That's right, not crus, but crews.
I had never heard about this wine category until last night's wine dinner in Fort Lauderdale.
Turns out there are lots of luxury yachts here and they account for almost 35% of the fine wine market. The problem is that the yachts want to buy all their provisions from one wine retailer. The yacht owners might be drinking Romanée-Conti or Château Margaux, but they are not serving those wines to their ever-thirsty yacht crews. Apparently, yacht crews are big fans of Kendall-Jackson and no respectable retailer can expect to move boxes of Romanée-Conti if they cannot also supply far larger quantities of Kendall-Jackson for the dockhands. Surprisingly enough, the yacht crews are also big fans of Freixenet.
Who would have guessed?
This is why I love getting out and about in America. Every wine market is particular and we are now putting together a Louis/Dressner Yacht Crew Promotional Package to tap into this dynamic market.
We're considering a commerative Captain Steubing bottling of Ménu Pineau Pur.
I Packed the Wrong Sports Coat!
I'm in Fort Lauderdale and have a busy day ahead of me trying to convince Florida wine buyers to purchase our wines.
I didn't realize until I unpacked last night but I brought a ratty, old sports coat with me. One I've owned for dozens of years and which has permanent stains, rips and an inner lining falling out all over the place.
Florida is a very chic spot and I fear all is lost. I thought I had bought my natty, newer sports coat (I bought it about five years ago) but now I'm sunk.
I also stupidly packed short sleeve shirts, assuming that it is hot here. In reality, it is cold here as everything is air conditioned to death. At least the shirts are in relatively good shape.
Unfortunately, the pants I brought along with me all have grease marks on the right leg. I ride a bike everyday when I'm in New York and the grease from the chain gets all over my pants legs.
What are the Florida buyers going to think of that!
Frankly, I'm one of the worst dressed men I know. I pride myself on making idiosyncratic and personalized choices in everything I do, but dress like a lowlife. Of course, being a large fellow who needs special sizes (I wear a size 15 shoe, XXL shirts, 37 sleeves and no glove ever fits me during the winter) does not help. Nevertheless, I view this as a regretable lack of panache and style. I have some money in the bank and perhaps should start making custom shirts and pants, but I wouldn't even know where to have such work done.
My apologies in advance to the Florida market. I am going to look like a broken down liquor salesman. The sort of guy sent out to pasture by Peerless a decade ago.
In other news, I highly recommend the new T-Mobile Dash telephone and I also highly recommend Eric Texier's 2004 Cote Rôtie. Eric's wine is a model of restraint, tightness and focus, what Syrah ought to be in the Northern Rhône. I even bought myself a case, spending money which might have been better invested in a new wardrobe. The T-Mobile Dash is a model of what s lightweight Smartphone ought to be.
You'd never catch me walking around with a Blackberry or Treo. I'm the sort of guy who has to make a statement by having a phone that no one else in the market is using. Can't I bring this daring and reckless style into my wardrobe choices?
October 24th Tasting a Nice Event
We bloggers are supposed to traffic in superlatives. Instead, I decided to go for a modest evaluation.
Unfortunately, many invited guests like Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page did not attend. And where was Melissa Clark?
Nathan Vandergrift won the blind tasting award, Lucien Walsh won a DVD of La Grand Illusion, Robert Callahan was in attendence, and Alice Feiring did an excellent seminar before the tasting on the history of natural wine.
There is a nice article about the tasting on Eric Asimov's blog: Eric Asimov Article on Tasting and Other Stuff
Texier Flight is Off and Running!
Eric had to rebook his flight earlier this morning because of delayed TGV train from Lyon, but was able to rebook on American Airlines. The plane is now over the Atlantic and Eric is comfortably seated in 15E.
Eric is currently watching the film The Devil Wears Prada starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci.
Anna Hathaway, Stanley's daughtder, plays a young woman from the Midwest freshly out of college who gets more than she bargained for when she moves to New York City. She becomes a writer and ends up as the new assistant to the tyrannical, larger-than-life, editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine played by Meryl Streep, who recently triumphed in the film adaptaton of William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice.
Monique and Pierre Luneau Closing in to Newark Airport!
Their plane is far past Chicoutimi and the flight attendants have collected all the garbage in preparaton for landing.
Pierre just called our offices in New York for directions on how to fill out the customs declaration for foreigners. It's true, those forms can be very confusing.
Monique and Pierre Luneau Flight On Runway in Roissy
Unfortunately, Eric Texier did not make it on this flight!
The Luneau's are seated in Aisle 24, Seats B and C.
Films being showed today include: Hoot, The Neverending Story, Poseidon and Click. There is also a Comedy Programming Network which includes such hit shows as: Will and Grace, Four Kinds, Malcom in the Middle, Living with Fran, Everybody Hates Chris, and Out of Practice. Will and Grace, which is no longer on America television, is still being showed in France and is traditionally a high scorer in the Nantais television market.
Later in the flight, passengers on board will be treated to a sumptous meal including a choice of beef or chicken entrée.
Eric Texier has Missed His Flight!
Eric's high-speed train was delayed in Lyon on his way to Roissy and he missed his Continental flight. Unfortunately, he will have to book at considerable more expense on a later flight on a competing airline!
The unfortunately complication is that Monique and Pierre Luneau are on the same plane and do not speak English. They were counting on sharing a cab with Eric from Newark to my apartment in New York, where they will all be sleeping.
Eric, Monique and Pierre do not know each other, so they were all going to have little signs with their names printed on them when they get their luggage at Newark. I fear Monique and Pierre are going to be standing around for a long time waiting for Eric to show up.
Excitement Mounts!
I was up until 2 in the morning last night working on the comprehensive tasting notes for Tuesday's Louis/Dressner Tasting Extravaganza.
Highlights include a major profile of Ruth Fertel, the founding genius of the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse Chain.
Definitive Book Review:
WHAT to DRINK with WHAT you EAT
I was approached by the authors of this book, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, to write a book review. I had no idea when I accepted, but the book's cover proudly proclaims that it is The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine.
I'm always cautious when reading, eating, drinking, watching ,smoking, medicating, physically interacting with, brushing, scratching or assessing anything which self-proclaims that it is the Definitive something or other. Unfortunately, I didn't know before I accepted this assignment that this book was just such a project.
Why did they approach me? Ask any savvy marketeer: its the bloggers who create the buzz leading to mass sales and commercial success. So, Mr. Dornenburg and Ms. Page, two people I had never heard of, offered to put links of this blog on their blog and send e-mail to their 20,000 loyal readers mentioning this blog if I reviewed their definitive book. They approached a series of bloggers with the same proposition and each one gets a day of links and mentions on the Dornenburg/Page web site along with being named and linked in the 20,000 person e-mail blasts that Dornenberg/Page regularly send out to their readers.
I have always been a great admirer of Michiko Kakutani and jumped at the opportunity of having my own book review, to be read by the over 50,000 people who read this site and the 20,000 people who read the Dornenburg/Page site and their e-mail blasts. Today is my day, October 18th, and here's my review!
I'm also reading the Philip Roth Zuckerman novels and watching François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel movies when I'm not reading the Dornenburg/Page book. I'm hoping to negotiate a deal with Tom Wark over at Fermentations, America's leading and definitive wine blog, for us to cross highlight each other's blogs using photos of Jean-Pierre Léaud playing Antoine Doinel. For instance, you'll click on Doinel's picture on my site and you'll speed over to Tom Wark's site. Mr. Wark would make a similar accomodation to promote this blog. Doinel and Zuckerman seem like such kindred spirits and I’m sure Mr. Wark will be in agreement with me on the obvious similarities and the possibilities of mutual self-promotion.
Not surprisingly, Tom Wark is also part of the Dornenburg/Page promotion of the definitive book. In fact, he loves the book. His day was October 6th. Mr. Wark writes that the book is: the most comprehensive, illuminating and useful book of its type I've yet to come across. While that leaves open the possibility that there might be another book more definitive than the Dornenburg/Page book that has yet to catch Mr. Wark's attention, Mr. Wark does seem truly enthusiastic and just stops short of hailing the book as being definitive.
About 20 or so bloggers have enthusiastically reviewed the book since this coordinated blog promotion started and they all love the book. Even Peter Boyle, the star of Mel Brook's recent Young Frankenstein movie, seemed to love the book. Mr. Boyle wrote: You can't do better than to follow Karen and Andrew's advice! All these people get a free book and they immediately become great fans. I hope it isn’t that easy to get a good review out of Michiko Kakutani!
In fact, I found the book overwhelming in general detail and without useful concrete advise. In the guise of making things simpler for neophytes, the authors talk about the wine world in such broad strokes that their advise becomes unhelpful, if not downright confusing. The real problem in the wine world is not that newbies are intimidated, but that wine is no longer being made to enhance food. Wine has become a beverage to wow reviewers and wine buyers, a spoofulated concoction based on fermented grapes.
A more appropriate project would be an exposé of why today's wines don't go with foods then to pretend we're all living in a nifty world of food and wine matches we can all enjoy. The authors organize wines by region of production or AOC as if there was a uniformity of style, quality and ambition for every wine coming out of that area. This simply is not the case and Dornenburg/Page, speaking in the name of newbie, have written a public relations tome for themselves and people in the wine and food trade that finally does more harm than good for the lover of fine wine, or even the newbie trying to find something interesting to drink with their evening meal. They are writing about a fantasy construct of groovy wines and groovy food which simply does not exist!
I've always been wary of people who speak in the name of the great unwashed masses. Surely, Dorenburg and Page have a point of view. They seem talented, capable marketers and capable of writing something of greater interest and use. I hope they do so in the future.
I'll even pay for that book.
I've never met either of the authors but did speak with Karen Page recently. I was shocked to find out that she has never viewed Jean Renoir's film La Grand Illusion.
October 24th Tasting to Include Louis/Dressner Souvenir Shop
We will be selling T-Shirts, bumper stickers, ancient price sheets in French Francs, signed copies of Joe Dressner's first blog in 1983 and other memorabilia.
Proceeds from these sales will go to the Platypus Pete Foundation.
Official Invitations Delivered for October 24th Louis/Dressner Tasting!
Over 3500 postcards were delivered all over the country this past week for our exciting tasting next week.
Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime event!
Not to be repeated until October 2007!
Join Alice Feiring and Joe Dressner for a Walking/Subway Tour of Brooklyn's Hottest Wine Stores!
Alice Feiring, the wine journalist, and I will be teaming up again for an exciting encounter with wine lovers.
Join us on Tuesday, October 17th at 1 pm at Grand Army Plaza for a walking/subway tour of Brooklyn's greatest wine stores.
Bring your curiousity, walking shoes and Metro Card!
Alice, a native of Park Slope, will also point out many architectural gems.
This event will take place, rain or shine!