Send an e-mail to Joe Dressner, The Wine Importer
Click to Read An Exciting Exposé of The Three Tier Schnook System!
Click Here to Speed to the Non-Fictional Louis/Dressner Selections Website
My Friend André Iché, An Appreciation
View current page...more recent posts
Taste the Banned Beaujolais of Jean-Paul Brun on June 7th at Chambers Street Wines!
For those of you who have read Eric Asimov's report on the banning of Jean-Paul Brun, please note that you can taste these banned wines for free on June 7th at Chambers Street Wines.
You can also buy these wines, which were released and imported before the ban, and hold on to them as they gain enormous value on the resale market. I have heard rumors that the 2007 Brun Beaujolais has already quadrupled in value, only six weeks after it was released! These wines are certain to be collector items.
Denyse Louis of Louis/Dressner, the banned Jean-Paul Brun and myself tasting during the 2003 harvest
At Chambers Street, we are also going to be showing our favorite Beaujolais from some of our fellow importers. We'll have our wines from Alain Coudert, Michel Tete, Louis-Claude Desvignes, Jean-Paul Brun and Georges Descombes. From our colleagues, we will have Marcel Lapierre, Pierre-Marie Chermette and Jean Foillard.
Chambers Street Wines is located somewhere in downtown Manhattan and the event will begin at 4 pm sharp.
For more information on Jean-Paul Brun, you will have to scroll down this blog. It isn't that far. Have some patience. You'll get there.
There is a lot of great wine being made in the Beaujolais and we hope to see you at the tasting. Although I expect to be under stress and fatigued and might be impolite.
Book Review: Alice Feiring's The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization
I've been looking forward to reading this book for some time now and I was both delighted and greatly surprised.
As much as I enjoyed the book, I had been totally mislead about the narrative line of Ms. Feiring's excellent manifesto and personal memoir. My understanding was that the book was about Ms. Feiring's long experience as a wine merchant.
I had heard that Ms. Feiring believes that wine should be first understood as an expression of soil through fermented grape juice and would begin her memoir of a tradesperson's life with a short manifesto on that expressive quality called terroir. Then, Feiring would takes us on an autobiography of her life as a wine merchant, starting with the opening of her Manhattan shop in 1978, from early misadventures and small-scale successes to the ferreting of significant discoveries far off the paths habitually beaten through France and Italy in particular.
Alice and her lover, Owl-Head, had a knack for finding the hitherto unknown, and she would narrate these discoveries with physical and social details that bring moments to vivid, sensory life. The period she chronicles was one of enormous developments in wine, from California through globalization, and she would write intelligently of the problems that came with progress. Yet neither the trade nor this title is romantic: Feiring would make clear in this book the hard, often unpleasant work of winemaking and its trade and the setbacks that are part of the process.
Turns out, I got it all wrong! The book I thought she was writing was actually written by importer Neal Rosenthal and is now available from Amazon. That book has a much different title and is called Reflections of a Wine Merchant. I ordered that book today from Amazon and am greatly looking forward to reading Mr. Rosenthal's book.
Alice Feiring's book, on the other hand, recounts her personal voyage through the wine world in the search for natural wines. This voyage often involves Owl-Head and other wacky characters. I found it a page-turner and compelling read and perhaps the most compelling work of literature since I read the Brothers Karamazov. You know, if Alice Feiring didn't exist, humanity would have invented her!
Unfortunately, I turn out to be a major character in this book and I feel a bit uncomfortable talking about the book and giving it the rave recommendations it so richly deserves. I can only hope that I am also featured in Neal Rosenthal's book -- wouldn't that be something?
The Best Steak in New York Can be Found in Brooklyn!
Its just a few blocks down from Peter Luger.
You have to reserve in advance but Diner Restaurant, in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood, is serving the tastiest Porterhouse steak I have ever eaten. There are cuts I love in France that you can't get in America, but this Porterhouse is the next best thing. Why waste your time at that horrible steak house down the block when you can get the real thing here!
From what I understand, they are sourcing cows and doing their own butchering and aging. This is taking natural food to the source!
Tom Mylan, their talented butcher, is running an amazing and delicious operation. You get grass-fed and pastured beef that is in-house butchered rather than quartered and packaged elsewhere. Plus it is more than an idea or an ideological statement -- the steak was great!
You can call Diner at (718) 486-3077. I think you have to be a group of several people to get the meal, but give them a call and make the arrangments on your own.
Tell them I sent you and you get a complimentary glass of Caymus Reserve, depending on availability.
Secret Louis/Dressner New York Trade Mini-Tasting on Wednesday, June 4th
Only 37 people will be admitted during the course of the tasting on Wednesday, June 4th, which will be held at an unnamed location.
Last October's National Louis/Dressner Tasting
We will have lots of new wines, the 2006 Philippe Pacalet Burgundies, amazing Italian wines, and new vintages of old wacky favorites.
The tasting will be held in a small room in midtown but you have to call our office and tell us why you should be invited. We don't have much room and we want people to taste in relaxed circumstances. Ventilation will be tip-top as will the stemware.
There will be 67 wines, two of which are rosé.
See you then!
Mellow
People have been telling me lately that I am far more mellow than I used to be.
This is sad and alarming talk.
I need some sort of radical life change. Something to get me back on track.
I fear turning into an older, respected wine importer.
Is the Food Network around the corner? Am I on the verge of Wine Ocean Cruises and gala events in Aspen, Las Vegas and elsewhere? Will I soon believe that it is is great that kids drink Yellowtail because it gets them involved in the whole wine culture thing? Will I soon be attending The Wine Spectator Wine Experience and smoking cigars with Marvin Shanken?
Years ago, in the Symbionese Liberation Army days, we prided ourselves on our defiance and contempt for society.
Where has all that anger gone?
Irena Sendler Dead at 98-Years-Old -- Saved 2,500 Jewish Children from the Warsaw Ghetto
I never write about politics in this space, but was moved reading Irena Sendler's story this morning. Irena Sendler was not a head of state or a major political figure, but an insanely heroic woman whose story is inspirational and unforgettable. What is remarkable is that what she did was entirely natural and without pretension -- she acted with humanity at a time when she was surrounded by horror and barbarism.
I never heard of her until I read her obituary today. My children are too young to remember the Berlin War, but who will be left to remember all the unsung heroes of the Second World War? I'm sorry about taking this break from writing about wine nonsense, but why wasn't Irena Sendler incredibly famous?
WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who helped save some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and giving them false identities, has died. She was 98.
For the rest of this story, please go to:
Irena Sendler Article from The New York Times
The Organic Tarragon Cooler: My Favorite Cocktail
Imbibe Magazine is one of my favorite magazines and the most recent issue has a fabulous recipe for a delicious cocktail.
Summer is near and I will soon be at my home in Poil Rouge, France, sipping away at The Tarragon Cooler.
Here's the recipe, with some adapations of my own:
6 fresh organic tarragon leaves
1" organic cucumber cut into perfectly symetrical cubes
3/4 oz. fresh organic lime juice from ripe limes
1/2 oz. simple organic syrup
2 oz. of Organic Vodka (preferably from North Dakota)
1 oz. double-brewed sustainable chamomile tea (chilled)
1/2 oz. Sparkling well water
Ice from a sparkling well
Tools: clean mixing glass, sterilized muddler, recently purchased strainer
Glass: cool tumbler with metric measurements
Garnish: sprig of organic tarragon
Place first two ingredients in a pint glass filled with ice. Muddle all three breaking up the cucumber and tarragon, and crushing the ice. Add simple syrup, lime juice and tea. Shake and fine strain (a tea strainer works well so long as it has previously been used with sustainable, not organic tea) into an ice-filled glass. Top with sparkling water and garnish.
Somone named Kelley Swenson, from Ten 01, Portland, Oregon, came up with this drink. All my thanks to Kelley and the publishers of Imbibe.
Don't Miss Chambers Street Beaujolais Tasting on June 7th! Taste the Banned Jean-Paul Brun Beaujolais!
I just read on the Chambers Street web site:
GREAT WINEMAKERS OF THE BEAUJOLAIS FROM LOUIS-DRESSNER SELECTIONS AND OTHER GROWERS THEY HAPPEN TO LIKE - 4pm TO 7pm
Cru Beaujolais from the best natural producers are some of the world's most delicious and food-friendly wines. To prove it, Joe Dressner will lead us on a tasting of artisanal Beaujolais from producers he represents - Alain Coudert, Michel Tete, Louis-Claude Desvignes, Jean-Paul Brun and Georges Descombes - and producers he doesn't represent, like Marcel Lapierre, Pierre-Marie Chermette and Jean Foillard. This will be a fabulous tasting so plan to stay in town, and why not have dinner at Cerle Rouge afterward?
Along with our growers, we will be tasting Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard and Jean-Marie Chermette. These are growers we do not import (Lapierre & Foillard are imported by Kermit Lynch, Chermette by Peter Weygandt), but whose wines we love. You can buy our wines or those wines -- either way you will be very happy.
This is a free event and your other option is to buy no wines at all.
Kermit Lynch, Fresno State University
Peter Weygandt JD in 1975, Washington University in St. Louis
Joe Dressner MA in Journalism 1984, New York University
This is your opportunity to taste the 2007 Jean-Paul Brun Beaujolais that will not be able to continue to be called 2007 Beaujolais because of the recent INAO ruling.
The tasting starts at 4 pm and I promise to insult at least three consumers attending the event. The lucky consumers will be picked at random and will never buy a single bottle of wine at Chambers Street Wines for the rest of their lives.
Salespeople from competing wholesalers will be brutally expelled from the store.
Ownership or usage of an I-Phone is strictly banned.
Update on the Brun Beaujolais Ban....
Here's what's going on....
The INAO regulations in Beaujolais are that you have to give five bottle samples for each batch of wine you want to be judged for the AOC. Each batch is limited to 300 hectolitres. So, if you want to get the AOC for 900 hectolitres, for example, you have to give at least 15 bottles and mark each one as coming from a different lot. But....if you have one 900 hectolitres batch of wine which is all the same, you still have to make believe that there are three different lots of 300 hectolitres because the INAO regulations mandate AOC status can only be given to a batch that is 300 hectolitres or less.
So, Jean-Paul Brun divided up the same wine into multiple samples. Nameless people at the INAO, who are all producers of Beaujolais, then taste the wine and decide if the wine is as good as Duboeuf or any of the other junk that gets the appellation.
Brun has had problems over the years. After you are rejected, you are allowed to appeal three times. Often, he has to go the third appeal because his peers find the wine flawed because it doesn't taste like the wines 98% of the AOC are making.
This year, his first batch was approved and we have been proudly buying and selling that wine. But subsequent batches were refused through all three appeals. So, the same wine was approved and refused and Jean-Paul Brun has lost the Beaujolais AOC for over 5,000 cases.
The refusal on the third appeal of the rejected wine reads:
After the controls done according to the rules of the rural code concerning the analytic and organoleptic tests of wines of Appellation Contrôlée, and the laws of 8/20/2004 governing sparkling wines, and of 11/19/2004 governing other wines, this is the decision taken on the above-mentioned wine:
Rubber
Mushrooms
Volatile Acidity
None of these flaws were found with the first batch, which is now available in wine stores around America, even though it blood brother suffer from rubber, mushrooms and volatile acidity.
Sounds Orwellian? Impossible to understand? Don't blame me....
And these geniuses wonder why they are losing marketing share? Someone makes great Beaujolais and is arbitrarily penalized, someone who makes industrial plonk is rewarded!
Jean-Paul Brun's Beautiful 2007 Beaujolais l'Ancienne Denied the AOC Beaujolais!
Can you imagine the stupidity!
Jean-Paul Brun just learned that 5,222 cases of Beaujolais l' Ancienne 2007 have been deemed as being atypical by the French wine police.
I've enjoyed a bunch of these bottles. They are fruity and elegant and a true pleasure to drink. So what's wrong?
They were not made with the miserable thermo vinification technique that Georges Duboeuf and the Beaujolais Establishment has decided is typical. The wine was not made with enzymes and cultured years but comes only from what the earth and the vine brought into the bottle. It was not made at high yields or high chaptalization, but is a real and natural wine.
This year, we at Louis/Dressner are importing more and more Vins de Table and wines without the AOC agreement. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the small minority of natural winemakers to continue to work in the context of the AOC because the AOCs want to enforce a uniform and medicore style with no tolerance for originality and authenticity.
The entirety of the Southern Beaujolais is suffering and only a few estates working authentically are still selling well. While their neighbors pull out vines to make way for housing developments for Lyonais looking to live in the country, the Bruns and Chermettes continue to prosper.
To persecute the Jean-Paul Bruns of the Beaujolais (already Marcel Lapierre, Jean-Paul Thévenent and Georges Descombes have had problems) will only hasten the decline of the Beaujolais region.
Are the wines of Jean-Paul Brun and Marcel Lapierre plunging the Beaujolais into economic ruin? Just the opposite, those are the growers who have prospered because their wines have stepped out of the industrial cookie cutter pushed by Duboeuf and the Beaujolais authorities.
People buy Terres Dorées and all the best producers of the Beaujolais because they know that those growers are the true defenders of the Beaujolais' terroir. The overwhelming mediocracy of the region has become so depressing that the official authorities see no choice but to strike back at the few successful growers who continue to make distinctive and grand vin.
At this point, I am not certain if the wine will be released as Vin de Pay or Vin de Table. All I know is that it will continue to be an immensely enjoyable wine.
The problem is will the market continue to buy the wines because it no longer has a Beaujolais label?
Let's hope people will reject this bullyish and ridiculous measure on the part of the AOC.
March Harvesting
My father-in-law, Pierre Louis, died on Saturday. He was 84 and in ailing health.
He was a retired engineer who was born in Lyon, but who ran a foundry in Mulhouse for most of his adult life. He had four children with his first wife Alyce, who died in an auto accident in 1963. Their four children were in the the back seat of the car and everyone survived except their mother, who was in the "death seat." The third child is my wife and business partner Denyse Louis.
I'm leaving for France today to attend Pierre Louis' funeral. I'm then off to Italy on April 2nd to attend a series of natural wine tastings in Italy and will be back in New York on April 10th. I will be tasting a lot of great wine but thinking of Pierre Louis, who was born in 1924, who was a young man when Barbie was running Lyon, who raised two families and who was the father of my wife and grandfather of my children. He also had a great toy train collection, was an avid reader, an amateur film maker and loved all industrial engineering feats.
He remarried after his car accident with Alyce and was very happy with his second wife. They had a child together who by sheer coincidence became a close friend of Marcel Richaud in Cairanne. Both Richaud and Lilli, my sister-in-law, love hang gliding.
My father died two Novembers ago and it still is difficult to accept he is gone. He didn't speak French and Pierre Louis didn't speak English. They met several times and respected each other but the language and cultural gap made it difficult to go any further.
Several months ago, my friend André Iché left us and it is so difficult to explain how someone so full of life and so full of energy is no longer in his vineyards.
My father and Pierre Louis left their children and their grandchildren. My two children, two unique and crazy individuals, come from a very unlikely combination and I can only wonder what will become of them. It is great fun having children who speak multiple languages and who grew up internalizing varied cultures. The norm for them was always the exotic for others and they continue to delight, surprise and amaze me. Sam and Pierre can be proud.
At Oupia, there will be a 2008 crop without André. The vines were there before us and will continue after we're gone. Every harvest brings another renewal.
Over the past few years, we have been meeting a new generation of vignerons in France and Italy who are working naturally and trying to bring new focus, new energy and more pleasure to their wines than the generations before them. They are building on the knowledge of les anciennes but going somewhat further. I traveled through the vineyards for over a month in January and February and was excited by the new vignerons we met and have started working with. There is a movement of renewal and innovation that is not going to be stopped.
I'll be in Italy soon to attend a series of natural wine tasting. Today, our company has nearly 20 growers in Italy and we are continuing to find distinctive wines that are crazy, marginal and delicious. The range of grape varieties, vinfications and diversity of the vineyards is so rich in Italy, but the forces of standardization are so strong, pervasive and dominant. But there is resistance being organized and it is with great pride that Louis/Dressner Selections has brought to America some of the best work of the growing Italian natural wine movement. Kevin, Denyse and I have done this in France and we are well on our way in Italy. Someone has to do it!
Nature is stronger than the plans of oenologists, critics and industrialists. There is a continuity and memory of what viticulture once was and what wine could be. Vintages change and in some small way we move forward with optimism, hope and resolve.
My father wanted me to be a lawyer or a politician and Pierre Louis wanted Denyse to be a teacher. We were not prepared, trained or expected to be wine importers. And here we are and sometimes I think how charmed a life it is to help bring those harvests into the hands of American wine lovers.
The 2007s are already beginning to arrive.
Joe Dressner
Real Wine Attack 2008 to Hit America in Mid-April!
That's right.
Nearly 25 Vignerons and Vignaoli will be in Chicago and New York. There will be a trade tasting in Chicago on Monday, April 14th, a trade tasting in New York on Tuesday, April 15th and a series of consumer events for the rest of the week in New York.
The growers will include:
- Matthieu Baudry from Domaine Bernard Baudry in Chinon
- Pierre Breton from Catherine & Pierre Breton in Bourgueil
- Jean-Paul Brun from Terres Dorées in the Beaujolais
- Nathalie & Christian Chaussard from Domaine le Briseau in Jasnières
- Evelyne de Jessey from Domaine du Closel in Savennières
- Georges Descombes from Morgon
- Claude-Emmanuelle & Louis-Benoit Desvignes from Domaine Louis-Claude Desvignes in Morgon
- Fredrik Filliatreau from Domaine Filliatreau in Saumur-Champigny
- Grégoire Hubau from Château Moulin Pey-Labrie in Canon-Fronsac
- Olivier & Cécile Lemasson from Les Vins Contés in the Touraine
- Jean Manciat from the Mâconnais
- Marc Ollivier from Domaine de la Pépière in Muscadet
- Franck Peillot from Montagnieu in the Bugey
- François & Suzanne Pinon from Vouvray
- Thierry Puzelat from Clos du Tue-Boeuf
- Suzana & Sasa Radikon from Friuli
- Elie Renardat from Domaine Renardat-Fâche in the Bugey
- Luca Roagna from Barbaresco
- Catherine Roussel & Didier Barrouillet from Clos Roche Blanche in the Touraine
- Pascal & Annick Quénard from Chignin in the Savoie
- Michel & Françoise Tête form Juliénas
- Laurence & Eric Texier from the Rhône
- Gautier Thévenet from the Domaine de Roally in Clessé
- Jean-Paul Versino from Domaine Bois de Boursan in Châteauneuf-du-Pape
We'll have more details soon. Stay posted!
The Reverend Al Sharpton is on our Plane to Montreal
Got to run.....
We are about to take off.
Alice Feirings Book Gets a Rave Review in Wine & Spirits Magazine!
That's right!
The book isn't out yet, but Wine & Spirits Editor Josh Greene just gave the book 93 points in the latest issue of his magazine. He must have received an advance copy.
Mr. Greene writes:
revealing a deep expression of wine writing. It feels foresty and cool, with plump black raspberry flavors and exotic spice held firm by dense tannin. The book's structure is what's most apparent now, although with reading those tannins begin to feel luxurious and strong, the plot finely focused and lifted.
Mr. Greene goes on to discuss Alice's frizzy red hair and her personal demons.
The book, whose title is something about Love and Saving the World from Robert Parker, is due out in early April.
Don't Miss the Real Wines Only! (No Spoofulation Please) Class at Astor Center!
Mark your calendar!
Thursday, March 27th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at New York's Astor Center! Call (212) 674-7501 to reserve your spot and ensure your attendance at this event!
I will be giving a class on Real Wines vs. Spoofulation at the new Astor Center conveniently located in the same building as my corporate office. That is, on Lafayette near 4th Street in Manhattan.
I will present a series of real wines and contrast them with horrible fake wines. I will explain what makes real wines real and what makes horrible fake wines horrible. Or something like that.
You will enjoy drinking real wines and find drinking them a profound and pleasurable experience. You will also drink crappy industrial wines and be physically repulsed by their aromatics and taste.
There will be an informative lecture, tasting, questions and answers, and signed copies of Alice Feiring's new book.
Dress is formal, although not black tie. Bloggers are prohibited from attendance as are copyright lawyers.
Don't miss this major event -- it costs less than 5% of the current cost of the 2005 Screaming Eagle!
The informative Astor Center website, Step Right Up to the Astor Center, has a definitive biography of myself:
Joe has a dog Buster, a daughter Alyce and a son Jules. He enjoys bicycling and has an entertaining blog: www.joedressner.com. He is 6' 2" and overweight and lives in the East 50s and St-Gengoux-de-Scissé in Southern Burgundy.
Other parts of the site also mention I have a wife Denyse Louis who is a partner in our company.
The Astor Center website has a description of the class:
Joe Dressner, founder and partner of Louis/Dressner Selections, will lead this emotionally charged class centered on the difference between "real wines" and those of modern industrial production. Joe will show how great work in the vineyards allows the vigneron to rely on nature, rather than "spoofulation."
What is spoofulation, you ask? To Dressner, spoofulation is a form of manipulation which takes wine away from nature and into the technological world of fake extraction, fake aromatics, fake flavors, fake density, fake acidity, fake tannin levels, fake color and fake sugar levels. Basically, spoofulation, for Dressner, is the process that yields fake wines.
Joe presents the argument that the popular notion of what wine tastes like is being ruined by the flood of horrifying industrial products which dominates the market today. Over the course of the class, you will taste through a total of eight wines, two wines each from four different regions: Beaujolais, Muscadet, the Rhône, and the Mâconnais. One of each pair will be from a producer who spoofulates, the other from someone who works naturally. Joe will argue that the natural wine is not only more "politcally correct" but is finally tastier and more satisfying for the consumer. You may not agree with every point in his argument....Dressner not only thinks that spoofulated wines are repulsive, he also thinks they are morally reprehensible! But this is a great opportunity to hear the viewpoint and taste the wines of one of America's leading specialty importers.
The whole evening sounds great and I am planning to bring numerous unannounced wines, including my wine of the year in 2007.
Don't miss this exciting event. I'm planning to attend myself!
My Last Meal in France
I had a bagel with Pastrami on the TGV from Lyon to CDG airport.
Our plane is about to leave. We are flying into a snow storm and they have already warned us about turbulence.
Marathon Tasting Tour of France is Almost Over!
After three weeks of marathon tastings, I am returning to New York tomorrow!
We've found some new and interesting stuff, much of which surprised and delighted me.
More later.....
Maybe.
Louis/Dressner Touring France!
Our three week tour starts in Loire on Saturday.
Kevin McKenna, Denyse Louis and Joe Dressner will be touring viticultural France during much of February.
Our tour starts in the Loire Valley, where we will be joined by about 20 customers and friends of our company. Highlights include the annual Marc Ollivier Muscadethon, this year's new Paulée de la Loire festival, and the 2nd Annual Viti-Valaire International Wine Exposition at L'Herbe Rouge Restaurant in the major town of Valaire. Many people call Valaire: "The Crossroads of Europe."
Valaire Viewed from Chitenay
We then go on to Deauville for the 8th annual Dive Bouteille. Next is the Beaujolais and Mâconnais and then a tour of the Rhône and the Languedoc.
We will be visiting our existing network of growers but are also looking to find next exciting vignerons to add to our portfolio.
During our absence, the organization will be directed by Sheila Doherty, with Eddie Wrinkerman and John Schlesinger working under her command.
Of course, if anything important comes up, feel free to call me on my French cell phone at 06 28 32 41 18. But please remember it is 6 hours later in France than on the East Coast and 9 hours later than in Fresno, California.
More to come....