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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.
posted on Sunday, December 17, 2000
Numbers 7 through 11 of My Top 10 List of This Year's Louis/Dressner Selections' Imports
7. Chinon Croix Boissée 1998 from Bernard Baudry
Not a particularly good year, just a great wine. This is Baudry’s best site, although in young vines. Whenever I taste in the cellar it always interesting to see how the pedigree of the vineyard makes it stand out against other parcels that are in old vines.There is just beautiful concentration and balance to this bottle. I’ve been drinking this over the past several months and only wish I had more. Kermit Lynch also gets this wine as does Neal Rosenthal. We're sold out, but they might have some.
8. Montlouis Clos Habert 1998 Demi-Sec from François Chidaine
Also a lousy year and a great wine. So many of the Layons are difficult to taste in 98, so many Vouvray make you think longingly for 1997, but this Montlouis is perfectly sculptured Chenin. I don’t know if it because he is in biodynamie, but Chidaine has made a grand vin here that could be mistaken for a great vintage. It's also time to talk more about the secs and demi-secs and less about the sweet wines. There is some shipping to Chicago and some to Connecticut. Otherwise, there is nothing around.9. Bois du Boursan Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1997
Jean-Paul Versino is a charming character who has 40 some odd parcels in Châteauneuf, with the average age being 60-years-old. The yields are tiny, the élavage is in foudres and the wines have concentration and beautiful mouth-feel. The 1998 will be coming in soon (it was only recently bottled) but the 1997 drank beautifully throughout the year. We only started working recently with Versino – Paul Pernot in Puligny-Montrachet knows him and gave us his phone number about 18 months ago. There is none left.10. Anything from Mittnacht-Klack --
We don't import this wine, but I love the name. Mittnacht-Klack. Mittnacht is Jean Mittnacht and Klack is Annie Klack, making them Mittnacht-Klack. Robert Parker has the following to say about them in French: Les grands crus du domaine Mittnacht-Klack ont une pureté aromatique et une richesse de sève qui les placent au premier rang de la production alsacienne. I'm not sure if Mr. Parker said the same thing about them in English.My wife, Denyse Louis, grew up in Alsace. The first time we looked for a grower in Alsace we drove all over and tasted all over. We had an appointment in Pfaffenheim, parked the car in the town square and the local village drunk eyed us over. Finally, he said: "Vous avez les narrines des amoreuses." In English, this means: "You have the nostrils of lovers." We continue to be happily married.
11. Château St-Anne Bandol 1998 --
I like Mourvedre a great deal and Bandol is the purest expression of the grape. There is so much good wine being made in the AOC that I am happy we have one of the best estates. There are others.St-Anne has hit a stride, after a few years of disorganization, and Françoise Dutheil de la Rochère, has now taken charge of the vinification. Her husband François had died right after the 1995 vintage and it took a while to get back on track. This estate is one France's forerunner's in organic production and was one of the first estates to decide to stop using sulphur.
I was once in Detroit seeing retailers and some retailer tasted this wine and asked what the grape varieties were. I told him it was Mourvedre and he told me he also loved Mourvedre. When I asked him which one was his favorite Mourvedre, he told me "Cline Cellars." At my next appointment, the retailer asked me what grape varieties went into the wine. I told him Bandol. He admitted that he didn't know that Bandol was a grape variety and I assured him that it was in fact one of the great grape varieties of the world. He should look it up in Jancis Robinson's book.
That's it. Happy New Year to everyone and happy blogging!
posted on Monday, January 1, 2001
Going to Detroit to Sell Wine
I'll be off to Detroit soon to sell some of our horrible wine. I love that town and always read the excellent Detroit Free Press web site before arriving. This puts me in the know and helps me prepare for the often difficult negotiations I have with savvy Detroit's wholesalers, retailers and consumers.What I find particularly useful is the Free Press' obituary column -- there is nothing more embarrassing for a salesman like myself to call an account only to discover that they are dead. This is not not only embarrassing, but often alienates the surviving family members, many of whom are responsible for major wine purchasing decisions.
I am always amazed, when I read these death notices, at the longevity of the average Detroit resident and the beautiful and literary names so many of them seemed to have. One can only hope that future generations of Detroitonians have names to match Joseph 'Jack'' Duda, Kathleen Joan Armbruster, Lillian K. Fishtahler and Reginald Napolean Forcade.
I also noted with sadness that Stanley Kowalski passed away on January 6th. I had always assumed that Mr. Kowalski was a fictional character, but in fact he had 10 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren! Some of the other recently deceased had over 30 great-grandchildren, all with fabulous names!
posted Monday, January 8, 2001
Famous Wine Critic Describes a Louis/Dressner Wine as "Nearly Mind-Boggling!" And in the Best Sense of "Nearly Mind-Boggling!"
Wow!
I've not only been in a rut about keeping this blog up-to-date, I have also been lax in following the exciting wine press.I was shocked to read that our firm actually imports and markets a 'mind-boggling' wine. We are not cited as the importer by the Famous Wine Critic, as we share this wine with another importer in the Midwest. But, finally, I could look my children Jules and Alyce straight in the eye, and say:
Listen up children, stand tall and be proud. Your mother and father import a "hedonistically-styled" wine that nearly boggled the mind of The Famous Wine Critic. Not only did he say it was nearly mind-boggling but he also wrote "Wow!" in describing the wine.
Jules was not impressed. "Big deal," Jules said and pointed out that 'nearly mind-boggling' seemed to be a qualified endorsement, falling considerably short of both mind-boggling and absolutely mind-boggling.
Of course not, I answered, the critic said the wine "is an amazing creation that pushed the sensory circuits into overdrive." You can't get much getter than an amazing creation and overdrived sensory circuits, I answered my son.
Jules and Alyce asked me what the wine's color was like, and I responded: the famous wine critic said it was "impressively saturated ruby/purble."'
Alyce then asked me what the wine smelled like and I said, according to the same critic, "the nose offers up sumptuous aromas of wood, spice, schored earth, and blackberry and cherry liquor."
Jules then asked if there was a long finish. Of course, I said, according to the wine critic it "possesses a 45-second-finish."
Both children wanted to know if we were now wealthy. They were disappointed to learn that this wine is made in small quantities and that the wine would never make us wealthy. Alyce suggested that we charge a fortune for the wine. We had considered doing that, but the wine seems to be available through numerous grey market channels at a reasonable price. We're out-of-luck.
posted on Monday, January 08, 2001
Off on Exciting French Buying Trip
Last year I bought a container of Overnoy. I also tried to buy two Loire Valley estates specializing in Overnoy/Plagolles style wines from Chenin. Happily, both went out of business before they could ship us the wine.Who knows what I'll find this year?
Stay posted here. I am armed with my Casio PocketPC, a modem, and plan to blog like crazy.
posted Sunday, January 28, 2001
Notitis
I'm sick of tasting notes. I get accused of wasting time and bandwidth by blogging. But I cannot imagine anything more useless than tasting notes.It colors like cassis.
It smells like cassis.
It attacks the frontal with cassis.
It mids the palate with cassis.
It lingers with cassis.
Wow!
Change cassis to whatever you like and you have the reductive, all-purpose tasting note. How to reduce a year of work in a vineyard to a trite text that tells nothing about nothing. And with hedonistic gobs of nothingness, lingering on and on.
If the New York Giants can play in New Jersey and the Cleveland Browns can play in Baltimore and call themselves the Ravens, then certainly we can come up something more imaginative and engaging.
posted Sunday, January 28, 2001
Cross-Posting Australian Shiraz
Speaking of industrial wines. I had to give a seminar in Chicago on Friday and ran to a supermarket to buy what I imagined would be an industrial wine to serve blind.Wow! My first Lindemans Bin 50 Shiraz!
The Lindemans' winemaker wrote of this wine:
Colour: Deep plum with a crimson rim.
Nose: The bouquet shows an assortment of aromas including black pepper, nutmeg, ginger and raspberry cheesecake.
Palate: The attractive and enticing nature of the bouquet is duplicated on the palate, which is succulent, soft and mouth-watering. The wine features fruit flavours of blueberries and mulberries with spicy, slight black pepper characters. A smooth, velvet like tannin structure frames these characters
I actually agree, more or less, with the winemaker's comments. I especially agreed with the raspberry cheesecake descriptor, although it was certainly a particularly sweet rendition of that venerable recipe.
At the same time I found the bottle horrifying and repulsive. A Frankenstonian wine.
Does this say something about the limitation of the tasting note as descriptive medium?
This is a very popular wine that sells in vast quantities.
But is it wine?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Which Wine Will You Be Drinking During the Super Bowl?
I find it a barbaric sport and won't be watching.The last football game I watched was the one where the Jets won the Super Bowl. The Mets won the world series that year, the Knicks won the NBA and man walked on the moon. With the exception of the guys walking on the moon, they were all New York teams. The so-called New York Giants have abandoned the Bronx for New Jersey. The Baltimore Ravens are in fact the Browns that abandoned Cleveland. There are no football teams in New York and the real Baltimore team is in Indiana, of all places.
This Super Bowl is a celebration of anti-terroir!
Maybe I'll watch and drink a Château St-Jean Cinq Cépages.
Someone poured one for me in Chicago. The one that was the Wine Spectator's wine of the year. It was like a tobasco sauce with some wine overtones. I can understand a wine with some tobasco overtones, but this was a new experience for me.
Speaking of the Giants, are Del Shofner and Y.A. Tittle still alive? Where are they?
I used to like Joe Namath. As a young man growing up in bucolic Queens, New York (one of New York City's famed outer boroughs), I used to sell hot dogs at Jet games. Broadway Joe and Howard Cosell would always give a little pre-game speech to all the hot-dog/soda vendors before Namath suited-up. In each speech, Namath would tell the assembled, pimpled teenagers how he had been up to 5 am with a stewardess he had picked-up at an East-Side Bar and doubted he would be able to play well.
posted on Friday, January 26, 2001
Muscadet Scandal Rocks Chicago
I've spent the past week in Detroit and Chicago. While Detroit has a normal wine market where retailers and civilians enjoy the delights of Melon de Bourgogne, there is no Muscadet to be found in Chicago! Frankly, I have no idea how to explain this situation, but there you are....The only restaurant that seems to carry Muscadet is Shaws, which is renowned for its shellfish. This restaurant has two Muscadet, one cheap industrial one and a more expensive industrial one. Even if they want an average to decent Muscadet, there is really none to be found.
This bewildering situation is something I cannot explain. Please let me know by e-mail if you have any explanation.
On the other hand, the town is paradise for a Gruner Veltiner lover. One of the nation's top importers of Austrian wine, Vins Divino, is based in this town and is a full-scale distributor here. They have recently signed-on as the Chicago distributor for Therry Thiese, the excellent agent for German and Austrian wines. This should make Chicago the premier market for American lovers of the Wachau.
Chicago is also a great town for lovers of Marcel Lapierre's Morgon. While Kermit Lynch imports Lapierre's Morgons for the rest of the country, Lapierre is imported here by Barrique Wines. Lapierre has a close friend in Chicago, a French guy from the Maconnais who owns the admirable Le Bouchon and Sardine restaurants. These two bistros have always featured Marcel's Morgon and have created a word of mouth for the wine. They are everywhere and why not? The 1999 was delicious and the wine is much cheaper than it is in New York as it does not pass through Kermit Lynch.
In an odd development, Barrique Wines was bought last year by Vins Divino. This makes Vins Divino, undoubtedly, Chicago's biggest distributor of Gruner Veltiner and Unsulphured Beaujolais. Although rumor has it that Marcel Lapierre now lightly sulfurs his wines when they are sold on the export market. There were past stories of instability that gave the wine a checkered reputation. But when the wines are on, they have always been fabulous.
Even stranger, I was in a wine store named Shaffer's on Wednesday, a wine store in an unlikely place known as Skokie, and there in front of me was Marcel Lapierre himself, selling his Morgon to American merchants in the far-flung strip malls of American's heartland. Wow! I thought to myself. What's the likelihood of running into Marcel Lapierre, known throughout France as Le Marcel, along with one of his nephews who is starting a negociant business in the Maconnais/Beaujolais. Skokie is a lovely town, but it is not Macon.
I spent Thursday looking for FX Pichler at other Chicago retailers but did not see him. In all honestly, I'm not sure what Pichler looks like.
posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2001
Selling wine....
Is an exhausting and dangerous occupation. I'm back in the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Roseville, Michigan, having tasted 4 retailers on a dozen wines and after hosting a convival consumer dinner with the wine enthusiasts of Detroit. They are a very nice group.Although my hotel television has HBO, I'm calling it a night.
By the way, the dinner was at a restaurant called Forté in Royal Oak. Avoid it like the plague if you're ever in these parts.As usual, I'm selling enormous quantity of wines here. Thank goodness, our accountant says we need cash flow. She made a convincing argument, I thought.
posted on January 22, 2001
Count your blessings
Unlike you, dear reader, I am currently residing in a Holiday Inn located in Roseville, Michigan. I'm ostensibly here to sell wine, but some of my loved ones suspect foul play.
I dined last night with an area retailer who tried to impress me with a deeply flawed bottle of 98 Jaboulet La Chapelle. I matched the wine with a 93 Overnoy Poulsard, a wine which astonished everyone at the table. The retailer wants a state-wide exclusive.
I ask you, dear readers, what should I do?
Have to run. The Holiday Inn is about to run out of defrosted muffins. A complementary continental breakfast is part of the deal here. You also get free copy of USA Today!
posted on January 17, 2001
Gosh!
I've recently learned that what makes successful wine importers successful is that they say "Gosh" all the time. They do their best to say it to Robert Parker, but they also say it to their customers. It gives everyone a participatory sense of astonishment, a shared child-like fascination with the wines the successful wine importer is trying to unload on an unsuspecting public.Alternatively, the successful wine importer finds some dimwit of a millionaire who has made so much money on the web or elsewhere that he/she cannot imagine anything more interesting, charming and sophisticated then getting into the wine racket. Tell the dimwit that he can come along with you to France or Italy or Spain and help you choose your special barrels and you have an open checkbook.
We're taking applications from dimwits with big checkbooks looking to get into the wine racket. I'm sick of our financial controller limiting us to 300 bottles a month. Any dimwit who wants to get into the wine business should e-mail me ASAP. My e-mail address is listed somewhere on this site.
Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2001
New Cuvée Busters!
Don't miss Franck Peillot's Altesse de Montagnieu 1999 Cuvée Buster! Only 600 bottles of this wine were made.The wine is an experimental wild yeast fermentation which took five months longer to finish fermenting than the regular bottling. We also asked Peillot to leave some naturally occurring CO2. This wine is sort of available in New York City. Only 300 bottles have arrived as we lack major investors and internet venture capital guys to pay our bills. We are now limiting ourself to 300 bottles a month. I drank this wine two weeks ago at the producer's home so do let me know out there what you think.
Another New Cuvée Buster -- Estimated Arrival Date April 1!
I had asked Marc Ollivier at the Domaine de la Pépière to put aside 100 cases of 1997 Muscadet Clos des Briords and to let them get lost in the cellar for 5 to 15 years. To me, it was one of the best wines we ever imported and we imported the wine in the days when our financial controller would allow us to import 600 bottles a month! Olliver did not keep this wine for us.Instead, he recently surprised me with the a special bottling of 1997 Domaine de la Pépière that came only from the old vines sites in the hamlet of Pépières. How old?
Honestly, why do you want to know?
The wine is sensational. We'll be selling the 2000 vintage at the same time (in increments of 300 bottles) but do buy some of this wine and put it aside somewhere in your cellar.
How long should you keep this wine?
As long as you like.
Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2001
Rhône Wines from Eric Texier
Eric Texier was born in Bordeaux in 1961 and has lived in Lyon (or thereabout) since 1979. By profession, he is an expert in building materials, and he spent a year studying that subject at the Illinois Institute of Technology. After years spent working in the leisure and the nuclear industries, he decided to make a career of his true passion, wine, in 1990.
He thought at first of buying vineyards, and did extensive research to find areas where vineyards were neglected or forgotten, and found two in his favorite spots, the Northern Côtes-du-Rhône. He also travelled around the world to discover vineyards and meet winemakers. Three regions made a lasting impression on him: Burgundy, for vinification methods and respect of terroir, Piedmont for the radical changes in style and fashions that occurred in the 80s, and Oregon for its winemakers’outlook, free and unencumbered by the weight of traditions.
Fusing his discoveries in these three regions, he defined his winemaking objectives and applied them to his chosen region of Côtes-du-Rhône:- to vinify as burgundians do, with respect for each vineyard’s specificity (emulating Michel Lafarge in Volnay and the Ramonet family in Chassagne-Montrachet)
- to turn his back on the heavy, nondescript style of traditional CDRs, which often lack fruit, and let the vineyards express their character (as the great Piedmont winemakers, like Elio Altare, do)
- not to be restricted by old-fashioned principles and consider that boldness doesn’t contradict tradition, and work in a new style while respecting what the previous generations have achieved (like the winemakers in Oregon and Washington state David Adelsheim or Joan Wolverton).
In 1992, he went back to school, studying viticulture and oenology, then worked with Jean-Marie Guffens at Verget. Guffens taught him to respect the grapes and how to use the lees, and Texier went on to emulate his buying of grapes from owners who had respected strict viticultural fashions. When he left, he had adopted the following ideas: no clones, shy-bearing root stocks, plowing the soil instead of using weed-killers, moderate yields paid as if the grower had cropped for the legal maximum (for example, asking for 35 hectoliters per hectare in Côtes-du-Rhône Villages but paying for 42 h/h), green harvests, lutte raisonnée (viticultural methods used in organic agriculture), no anti-rot sprays and hand picking.
His winemaking techniques for white wines include sorting at the vineyard and at the winery, whole clusters pressed in a vertical press (that's the old fashioned wood kind), no added yeast, barrel fermentation (less than 10% new wood), elevage on the fine lees, 100% malo for the dry wines, minimal usage of SO2, fining and filtration only when necessary, no pumping, elevage in a naturally cool cellar (all wines are brought to the Beaujolais when fermentation is complete, to take advantage of an excellent cellar there, since those are rare in the south).
For red wines, he proceeds with sorting at the vineyard and at the winery, 100% destemming (most of the time), bringing grapes to the press by conveyer belt rather than pumps or screws, cold maceration under a CO2 blanket for aromatic extraction (5 - 8 days), no added yeasts, pigeage and remontage twice a day (breaking up of the cap by pushing it down, then pumping the juice over; this is done vat by vat with slow pumps) during both maceration and fermentation, temperatures controlled not to exceed 34 degrees C, elevage in 2 -5 year old barrels and larger capacity barrels (450 l), with as much as 10% of these new. No filtration; egg white fining if necessary before bottling.
Texier’s white wines include Mâcon-Bussières, Viognier, and, in vintage 2000, a rare Brézème white (all Roussanne) and Cassis (Marsanne and Clairette). The reds include Brézème (a 100% Syrah CDR), Côte-Rôtie and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and in vintage 2000 Séguret, St-Gervais and Chusclan.
Posted Thursday, February 22, 2001
Wine Importer is in Interactive Mood
I'm leaving a lot of messages this past week at Robert Callahan's Wine therapy board. I need some internet interaction -- it's lonely out here in my blog!Take a look at Robert's excellent wine forum:
Wine therapy
Posted Sunday, February 11, 2001
The Multi-Talented Dominique Derain
I tasted at Dominique Derain's cellar tonight and got to sample his new vineyards in Mercurey. He has .90 ares there (about 2 acres) and 2000 was his first harvest. The wine is very interesting and please consult Robin Garr's excellent Wine Lover's Discussion Group (WLDG) for extensive tasting notes.I visited Derain with two van loads of American visitors. The first van was entirely from the American South, including representatives from Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. The second van had Louis/Dressner customers from the Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Cleveland and Oklahoma City. All told, 29 glasses were passed around for us all to taste his Mercurey. Given he made only 35 hectolitres/hectare, sampling our group significantly reduced the overall availability of 2000 Mercurey for the 11 American markets represented in his cellar.
Anyhow, in the process of passing around his pipette 29 times, Derain told us about the quality of his first Mercurey crop and the comments of Mercurey's well-known Vigneron Michel Juillot.
Michel Juillot, who has made many great wines in his day, is one of the rare Burgundians who continues to roll his r's. Everyone used to, but it is now looked down upon as an ignorant peasant's pronunciation. Juillot is probably the last of the rolling r vignerons and one can only fear that when Michel leaves the earth, so does this particular patois.
Derain's imitation is both brilliant and hilarious. I heartily recommend that you stop next time you are in St-Aubin, try out some of Derain's biodynamique wines, and request Dominique's fabulous Michel Juillot imitation. This is a must for all Burgundy lovers.
I speak French with a New York patois and have all the classic problems of Anglophones in pronouncing the r correctly in French. This always made interaction with Michel Juillot difficult when my firm represented his wines. It also creates problems in my summer home of Poil Rouge in the Maconnais. My neighbor, Monsieur Riguet, is originally from the Charollais. He rolls his r's
Derain's estate appears to be Reverdy/Yaniger free. Derain is in biodynamie and Stuart is on public record as finding biodynamie to be just so much hogwash. The other problem is that Derain likes to put wax seals on his bottles and there seems to be a problem with using wav seals and sythetic corks.
Derain recently attended a Foucault jeebus. Derain feels that what is exception there is the cellar itself. Move the vinification elsewhere, out of that cellar that has seen generations of Saumur-Champigny, and you would no doubt not have the same wine. Even if it had massive distribution on the west coast.
posted on Saturday, February 10, 2001
In Response to Popular Demand
We have acquired a significant stock of Chateau Pierre Bise Gamay. We will soon be importing vintages 1995, 1996 and 2000. Please search Robin Garr's excellent wine board for extensive tasting notes.
posted on February 10, 2001
Serial Jeebus Attacks!
The van has moved on and everyone seems healed. We are down to two vans, with one group breaking off to go to Paris to view an Opera on Saturday night. They are planning to attend the opening of Die Reverdy, an opera that will be opening in San Francisco in May. More about that later.Highlights of the past few days include:
1. The Annual Clos Rougeard Jeebus -- Peter Weygandt, noted wine importer, informed one of our group that the prices at the Clos Rougeard are so high as they need to finance the daily jeebus feeding. That's one perspective.
Highlights of the Thursday morning Jeebus included the 1990 Bourg, a wine that made me thankful that I quit smoking and that my heart now receives a dose of oxygen. There was also the incredibly radiant, if not radioactive 1997 Moelleux Coteaux du Saumur. I resolved this would be the last Chenin Blanc I would ever drink....what would another glass add to the experience?
Louis/Dressner Selections now shares this estate with Stuart Yaniger, who will be importing industrial quantities for wine stockists in Northern California. One of the Foucault brothers (I forget which) told me that Yaniger guaranteed at least 800 cases in the bat of an eye wink. Or something like that.
One of the things that makes the wine so good here is the barrels from Dussieux. This is a local tonnellier who ages barrels the old way: three years outside. Unfortunately, other barrel makers are using intense industrial treatments to rush wood to market. The Foucault barrels are always incredibly harmonious and add something to the wine rather than detract.
One of many Foucault brother told me while we were tasting the 1995 Poyeux that the reason Osier Cote Rotie is so expensive is that enormous quantities are sent for free to Northern California to entertain important internet wine personalities at tasting events. I've never attended these events so I had nothing to say on this matter.
We then drove the two vans on to Saumur to let off one of our members at the train station. From there we were off to Chinon for jeebus number two.
2. This Jeebus featured endless bottled of Chinon from Domaine Bernard Baudry. " Gosh," I said to my assembled customers as they got back into the vans, "Chinon doesn't get much better than this." I have started saying Gosh because I understand that competitor wine importers use this term to pressure customers to buy their wines. Gosh!
I'm not certain what Bernard Baudry's relationship is with Stuart Yaniger, but I did notice a bag of sample synthetic corks in his cellar and a bumper sticker with the international 'Don't Drink Poulsard' symbol attached to Baudry's Peugeot. Mysteriously, I have lost 800 cases of my annual allocation at Baudry and I fear they are destined for bat winked Northern Californians. There is even talk of a Yaniger Six-Pack at one of the local wine outlets.
We then got back into the vans and drove about four hours to Sancerre. We had hoped to eat at the Pomme d'Or but arrived too late to be served. All the tables were taken up by people on the Peter Weygandt Tour, sampling Sancerre from one of Sancerre's prestigious Reverdy. The tour members were deciding whether this Reverdy should cold stabilize and filter his 2000 Sancerre or not. I have always been an admirer of participatory democracy (I have a signed photo of Tom Reverdy Hayden above my desk in New York City) and found this an overwhelming experience.
As I was fearful of losing customers or producers to Reverdy-Weygandt, especially given our recent losses to Reverdy-Yaniger, I hustled the two van loads out of the restaurant and made them eat at the only place that would take us. I had a Pizza au Crotin du Chavignol, which consisted of a frozen pizza with some goat cheese microwaved on top of the pie. I ordered a bottle of 1999 Sancerre from Hippolyte Reverdy, a distant cousin of Peter Weygandt-Reverdy, but no relation to Stuart Yaniger-Reverdy.
Frankly, I think people go too far with these hyphenated last names. I also agree that it is sexist that the child always bears the name of the father. But what would happen if Stuart Yaniger-Reverdy had a daughter named Ginger. And Peter Weygandt-Reverdy had a son named Frank. If Ginger married Frank would her name then be Ginger Yaniger-Reverdy-Weygandt-Reverdy? And what would their children be named. Enough is enough!
I had assumed that Yaniger-Reverdy was not importing Sancerre into California and was limiting their efforts to Brezeme, Pineau d'Aunis, Menu Pineau and Saumur-Champigny (800 cases from each appellation for stockists in Northern California and prestigious restaurant placements) until we visited the cellar of Jean-Paul Labaille the following morning.
3. Labaille-Thomas Cuvee Buster Sancerre Jeebus. We are now onto the forth (or maybe third) Cuvee Buster at this estate. There are 300 bottles ready to ship of the 1999 and we also got to taste the 2000 edition in barrel.
This wine comes from 75-year-old vineyards next to the Grand Cote. The 2000 had been harvested at 14.5 degrees and the 1999 at over 13.5. Gosh, that is very ripe for a Sancerre, I told my van loads of customers.
We may have trouble getting the wine. A Swedish importer has offered to buy it for 75 francs a bottle. If we match or beat the price than it will cost between $25.00 and $30.00 in retail outlets. Labaille also informed me that another American company had offered to buy the wine at 77 Francs a bottle and that they would fill the pipeline in a part of America where Louis/Dressner distribution is reputed to be weak. While no names were dropped, dear reader, the conclusion is obvious.
I'm in Beaune tonight and have tasted already at Sylvie Esmonin and Francois Legros. I have to get up early tomorrow to taste at Amiot-Servelle with a busload of customers with Southern drawls.
Goodnight.
posted on Thursday, February 08, 2001
Internet Wine Personality Jeff Connell Emerges from Hotel Room!
Jeff Connell emerged from his hotel room today, inspired by the news that Stuart Yaniger has found a distributor in Northern California who will import 800 cases of Menu Pineau 2000 and sell all 800 cases in the bat of an eyelash.Congratulations are due!
Jeff is considering a move to Emeryville upon his return to America.
More to come....
posted on Wednesday, February 07, 2001
Where have all the blogs gone?
Disease and pesitlence have seized my group here in the Loire Valley. We hope to have new reports soon, but my entire group (38 people travelling in three rental vans) has been overtaken by fierce stomach infections. Noted internet wine personality Jeff Connell is barely alive.Details to come..
posted by on Sunday, February 04, 2001
Vintage 2000 Report: The Year of Pineau d'Aunis
That's right. Pineau d'Aunis.This is a grape variety that is either acidic/austere or full/rich/complex. There's nothing in-between. It is not syrah, never has too much color and will never smell or taste like raspberry cheese cake. French oenologists have tried numerous enzyme/hormone treatments to get the much vaunted raspberry cheese cake effect (see my tasting notes below regarding Lindemans Bin 50 Shiraz) but alas, as the Angevins say, to no avail. Pineau d'Aunis is simply immune.
Vintage 2000 was a truly great year for this variety. Pineau d'Aunis easily hit 12 degrees or 13 degrees and the new century begins with a true treat for all Auniseans out there.
I'm blogging here in my beautiful hotel room at the 5 Star B&B Hotel outside of Angers. Yesterday, I attended a marvelous tasting in Bourgueil which grouped together Pineau d'Aunis producers from all over the Loire Valley. Some tasting note highlights:
Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Touraine 2000 -- lively and nervous, but rich stuff with floral overtones. Lightly colored, this superb wine can be drunk now or held for 18 months. It is best to wait two months to drink as the wine is still in cuve and the Clos Roche bottling team projects a late March bottling. So, push my projected drinking timetable back two months to allow sufficient time for the wine to be bottled.
Emile Heredia Coteaux du Vendemois 2000 -- There will be two bottlings of Pineau from this exciting new producer. Not only is 2000 a fabulous vintage for the Coteau du Vendemois it also marks a major turning point for the region -- they have been upgraded from VDQS to AOC. I am predicting that prices will rise dramatically here, so stock up now.
Heredia is a former photographer who has bought land in the area that consists entirely of 80 year old vines. There will be two different bottlings of 2000 Aunis here: one approximates the Clos Roche bottling and is meant as a light quaffer, but the other went through a 10 day fermentation, is almost darkly colored (please remember, dear reader, that darkly colored is a relative term and we are talking about Pineau d'Aunis here). I found this wine exotic and lovely. Drink now or hold 28 months. As with the example from the Clos Roche Blanche, I strongly advise waiting two months for the wine to be bottled before consuming it. This will be difficult to do, as the wine is so delicious now that you will be constantly tempted to open the tap on your old foudres and pour a glass for yourself.
Domaine de Belliviere - Eric Nicolas -- Coteaux du Loir
Pineaux d'Aunis 1999 - this young producer in Jasnieres has produced a superb 1999 that exhibits unctuous layers of rose hip water and hawthorne. As good as this 1999 is, I am anxious to taste vat samples of his 2000 tomorrow at the annual Loire Valley wine show in Angers.I am also looking forward to meeting, once again, Nicolas' fabulous international commercial agent. This fellow, the agent, lives in Holland and has an international exclusive for numerous famous French producers. No one understands how he has achieved this position but there are rumors that one has to wear a bow tie and no socks if you expect to succeed in the international wine agent business.
Of course, Angers is filled with American importers clamoring to grab up as much Pineau d'Aunis 2000 as possible. I feel that our firm, Louis/Dressner Selections, is in a good position, but the competition is fierce, intense and often bitter.
In a sense the competition is unfortunate. The American wine trade is projecting enormous American market demand for Pineau d'Aunis 2000 and already some of my competitors have offered to pay in advance and to pay more just to get quantities of the best Aunisian cuvee. This is particularly true for the wines that have received 95 points and more in the press. These wines have yet to be bottled, but are already being offered in grey market channels, often from Switzerland.
We at Louis/Dressner are not here in the Loire just to cherry pick a good vintage. We buy and sell Pineau d'Aunis year-in and year-out. I hope the best names in Aunis understand that the current American obsession with Pineau is temporary and that Pineau producers make commercial arrangements that are in their long-term interests.
Unfortunately, the frenzy has begun and it is difficult to know how it will all end.
posted on Sunday, February 4, 2001
Eric Texier Winemaker
Eric Texier is a new winemaker who we think is making superb Rhones. We have to write some promotional material about him and I have received the following e-mail in French from him, detailing his background and ambitions.Someone will probably translate this soon, but until then, for those of you who read French, here it is:
Un petit CV
Je suis né à bordeaux en 19961. Je vis à Lyon depuis 1979.
J'ai 3 enfants : 11,8 et 4 ans.
J'ai une formation d'ingénieur en matériaux (une année à l'Illinois Institute of Technologie en 1983).
J'ai travaillé 15 ans dans l'industrie du loisir puis du nucléaire :
Clairement pas ma voie.
A partir de 1990, je décide de me reconvertir pour faire du vin, pour lequel je nourris une passion dupuis que j'ai 23 ans.
Au début je pense à acheter un vignoble.
Je fais beaucoup de recherches bibliographiques sur le vignoble français au 18ème et au 19ème siècles, pour trouver un vignoble inconnu oul abandonné afin de le faire revivre.
En 1991, j'en trouve 2 dans ma région favorite (les Côtes du Rhône septentrionales) : l'un d'eux est Brézème. L'autre sera ma prochaine surprise.
Je commence alors des démarches pour aquérir et replanter. En parralèle, je visite les vignobles du monde entier pour découvrir les différentes approches de la viticulture et de la vinification.
Quelques voyages me marquent beaucoup : la bourgogne pour la vinification et le respect du terroir, le Piémont pour le changement de
style de vins dans les années 80 et l'Orégon pour l'état d'esprit sans
le poids du conservatisme.La synthèse des trois constituera le point de départ d'une "philosophie"
à appliquer à ma région favorite : les Côtes du Rhône.- Vinifier à la bourguignonne dans le respect du terroir comme Michel
Lafarge ou les Ramonet.- S'eloigner du style lourd et pateux, de l'absence de fruit des CdR
traditionnels pour aller vers des vins plus représentatifs de leurs
terroirs respectifs, à l'instar de grands vignerons du Piémont comme
Elio Altare.- Ne pas rester prisonnier de préjugés passéistes et partir du principe que l'audace n'est pas l'ennemi de la tradition. On peut faire du neuf sur la base du travail des anciens comme l'ont fait les vignerons de l'Orégon ou le Washington comme David Adelsheim ou Joan Wolverton
(Salishan Vineyards).En 92, je commence des études de viticulture en d'oenologie à Bordeaux.
Dans ce cadre je travaille chez Verget avec JM Guffens dont je suis un
client et dont la nouvelle démarche au sein de Verget m'intéresse :
acheter des raisins à des priopriétaires de vielles vignes sur des sites rares ou prestigieux, sur la base de règles de viticulture strictes.Pour ma part j'ai retenu les suivantes : Pas de clones, porte-greffes
peu productifs,pas de désherbage mais du labour, Rendements modérés
payés sur la base du rendement maximal de l'appellation (par exemple 35 hl/ha payés 42 en CdR Villages), vendanges en vert, lutte raisonnée, pas d'antibotrytis, vendanges manuelles.Guffens m'a appris le respect de la matière première et l'utilisation
des lies.Ce qui m'a conduit à adopter les dispositions suivantes :
POUR LES BLANCS
Tri à la vigne et au cuvage, resurrage vertical en grappe entière,
débourbage naturel, pas de levurage, fermentation en fûts (moins de 10%
de neufs, je ne suis pas un inconditionnel du bois neuf), élevage sur lies fines, fermentation malolactique systématique sur les secs, utilisation minimale de SO2, collage et filtration uniquement si
obligatoire, pas de pompage sur les vins, élevage en cave naturelle à 10
12°C (nous remontons tous les vins finis dans le beaujolais pour y
bénéficier d'excellentes caves extrèmement rare dans le sud).POUR LES ROUGES
Tri à la vigne et au cuvage, égrappage total en général, mis en cuve par tapis, macération à froid sous CO2 solide pour l'extraction aromatique (5 à 8 jours), pas de levurage, Pigeage et remontage 2 fois par jour en macération et en fermentation, contrôle des températures au delà de
34°C, élevage en barriques agées 2 à 5 vins et en 450 l neuves par 0 à
10% suivants les vins. Pas de filtration et collage aux oeufs si nécessaire.Je mets en oeuvre cette philosophie depuis 1995 sur Brézème, Bussières
(par goût personnel pour le maconnais). Plus recemment sur Côte Rôtie et Chateauneuf.Depuis 2000 et pour les années à venir sur les villages de Cotes du
Rhône et la Provence:
En 2000 : Séguret, St Gervais, Chusclan, Cassis et une rareté : un blanc du roussanne de Brézème).
Bientot : Crozes, St Joseph, St Peray, Cairanne, Sablet, Gigondas,
Bandol, Palette .Voilà. Prenez ce qui vous intéresse et laissez le reste...
posted on Friday, February 02, 2001
Historic First Blog from Clos Roche Blanche
Imagine!I forgot the power adaptor for me Casio Pocket PC and have not been able to blog (in fear of losing my battery charge) since I arrived in France on Wednesday morning.
Highlights of my trip so far:
1. A 1979 Brezeme Blanc that was one of the most memorable white wines I have ever enjoyed. Honied Rousanne from a great site. Drink now, or hold 15-18 years.
2. 1959 Romorantin Demi-Sec from Clos Roche Blanche -- what a cepage, what a vintage, what a wine! Drink now, or hold 15-18 years.
3. 1961 Morgon Cote du Pay -- like evolved and exquisite old Burgundy. Drink now, or hold 15-17 years.
4. 1985 Brezeme Rouge -- all syrah and with beautiful secondary aromas of apricot rinds. Drink now, hold, or cellar 8-12 years.
Keep tuned for more highlights.
posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001
My Second Industrial Wine in Four Days!
Faithful readers will recall that I drank a Lindemans Bin 50 Shiraz 1999 on Friday. Tonight, I'm writing these comments on a plane going to Lyon. Actually, I will have to post this Blog from Charnay-en-Beaujolais on Wednesday morning, as there are no wireless connections here on Delta Flight 28.Anyhow, I have been drinking the little-known, but thirst-quenching Vignes de la Bergerie, a wine that was given to me by me Delta Flight Attendant. This wine comes from a negociant I have never heard of named Les Domaine Paul Mas and is a Cabernet Sauvignon Vin de Pays d' Oc. It comes in an attractive 187.5 ML bottle with a screw cap.
Is it great wine? No. It is crappy industrial wine with no pretense to be anything other than crappy industrial wine. God only knows what type of wine the coop where Paul Mas bought this wine produced before they used industrial winemaking techniques. Perhaps vinegar.
Using industrial techniques, they can now produce a perfectly acceptable crappy industrial wine that goes well with the horrible airline food. The wine is thirst-quenching, has a little pepper and a little sweet fruit, and has no pretense to be anything other than a correct crappy industrial wine. It is truly non-grandiose in the best sense of the phrase. I liked it so much I had two bottles for a whopping total of 375 ml!
To me, this wine is far superior to the Lindemans Bin 50. That wine is not only a crappy industrial wine, but also has pretenses to be a profound beverage. Someone in Australia has worked hard to find just the right combination of enzymes, yeasts and vinfication tricks to make it smell and taste like raspberry cheese cake.
Paul Mas is happy just to produce a correct, drinkable crappy industrial wine and for that small service I have to salute his courage and decency. Of course, I have no idea if there is really someone named Paul Mas or if that is a made-up trade name. My suspicion is that this Mas guy is a fictional character, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, my hats off to Paul Mas.
By the way, we've been experience a lot of turbulence and the flight is something short of pleasant. I get into Lyon at 7:35 AM, along with my partner Kevin McKenna, and we are then off to Domaine des Terres Dorees in the Beaujolais. We will taste all of Jean-Paul Brun's 2000 vintage and then go taste wine at two farmers where he has bought Brouilly and Morgon that he will bottle later this year.
I am writing this on my fabulous Casio EM-500 PocketPC, using a GoType! keyboard. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the power supply with me and I have only about 7 hours of battery life on this unit. Kevin and I hope to find a power supply tomorrow morning in the outskirts of Lyon, where there are numerous stores selling everything a human being might desire. I actually know which chain sells my computer in France and we will be going there first thing to buy a new AC/DC adapter.
I remembered my passport, airline ticket, drivers license, French electrical plugs, French telephone adapter, my modem, computer, and my underwear. I left my AC/DC adapter in my office.
Merde.
I have a busy day ahead of me and need to get some sleep.
Bye.
Merde.
posted on Wednesday January 31, 2001
Rumors
The importer I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, just lost a potential wine source because of the rumors of our imminent sale at a lucrative price to a faceless multi-national wine powerhouse.The managing director of the wine producer in question told us at a power luncheon yesterday that he was looking for a firm with a personal touch. He wanted contact with his clients and wanted a marketing firm that knew how to sell his personalized wines. Given, he told us, the rumors of our sale to a larger, cash-endowed firm, he was going with one of our competitors. Someone who is on a much smaller, more humane scale.
Are these rumors true?
Who is buying out Louis/Dressner Selections?
Vivendi?
Allied/Domenecq?
Hublein?
Kysela Père et Fils?
Captain Morgan?
More to follow....
Monday, March 19, 2001
Win a Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror!
The company I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, is in acquisition negotiations with several major American importers. We have received several lucrative offers to buy us out but the major stumbling block seems to be our lack of a bulk wine producer with enormous quantities of "boxes" as we say in the wine trade. Unfortunately, we are poorly connected in the "box" circuit and I fear we will have trouble selling the company at a lucrative profit.I am asking you, dear readers, to send me suggestions of possible French bulk wine sources where we can sell huge quantities at high mark-ups and still give the impression of bringing affordable wine to the market. The wine has to be adequate but not particularly good. The pricing has to be low and the "packaging" has to be superb (by this I mean labeling, etc.).
Please address all suggestions to me personally. My e-mail address is somewhere buried on the left of this screen. I would put a link here to my e-mail, but am not sure what the html code is for an e-mail link. Can someone help me out?
The winner of the contest will receive an exciting Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror. I bought this marvelous contraption yesterday at Bed, Bath and Beyond and took my first fogless shave in the shower this morning. I am very happy with this product and think it will revolutionize your shaving experience. Furthermore, there are numerous exciting uses for women (removing make-up, facial scrubs, beauty masks, etc.) and this is a gift that anyone out there will be proud and delighted to receive. For more information: Exciting Bulk Wine Contest!
Several prominent internet wine personalities have accussed me of resorting to shaving stories on this site when I have nothing interesting to say.
I categorically deny this charge.
By the way, someone seems to have a contract out on my life. Please contact me at the e-mail address somewhere on the left side of this screen if you have any information that would lead to the apprehension of the culprits.
Thank you.
< Sunday, March 18, 2001
Back from Horrible Tastings in the Rhône
I just got back from a series of horrible tastings in the Rhône Valley. My God! The things people can make out of fabulous vineyards! It's mind-boggling!The most interesting experience I had was being levitated by Geobiology guru Georges Prat in a restaurant in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. By coincidence, the nationally prominent American wine importer Neal Rosenthal was dining at the same time with his 23 person national sales staff. So at least I have some witnesses.
Tuesday, March 06, 2001
Has the Northwest Texier Market Been Cornered?
Rumor has it that Tom Siegal at Larry's Market in Kirkland, Washington, has cornered the Northwest Eric Texier market (see Eric Texier's badly translated autobiographical statement below).I'm off to an airport to get a plane to France and do not have the time to confirm this rumor.
More to follow.
Thursday, March 01, 2001
Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Survives Washington Earthquake!
You're all aware of the 6.8 earthquake that hit Seattle yesterday. Dozens of Seattle-area buildings and some schools were closed Thursday so engineers could assess damage from the most powerful earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest in more than a half a century. While officials provided an early estimate of $2 billion in losses, Washington Gov. Gary Locke described the state as “really, really lucky” the destruction wasn’t worse.
Happily, there was no damage to the 100 cases of Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis that was recently shipped to Larry's Market in nearby Kirkland, Washington. I spoke with Tom Siegel, the extraordinary manager of this store, and was assured that the remaining 99 cases had survived the quake and were in pristine condition in their temperature-controlled cellars.What a relief!
Solicitations from Around the World
Every day brings another avalanche of mail, faxes and e-mail announcing another exciting set of products that we can sell to the unsuspecting American public. Today's faxes bring the following solictation from a producer of cider in Brittany:
Rumors
The importer I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, just lost a potential wine source because of the rumors of our imminent sale at a lucrative price to a faceless multi-national wine powerhouse.The managing director of the wine producer in question told us at a power luncheon yesterday that he was looking for a firm with a personal touch. He wanted contact with his clients and wanted a marketing firm that knew how to sell his personalized wines. Given, he told us, the rumors of our sale to a larger, cash-endowed firm, he was going with one of our competitors. Someone who is on a much smaller, more humane scale.
Are these rumors true?
Who is buying out Louis/Dressner Selections?
Vivendi?
Allied/Domenecq?
Hublein?
Kysela Père et Fils?
Captain Morgan?
More to follow....
posted by Joe Dressner 9:13 AMMonday, March 19, 2001
Win a Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror!
The company I work for, Louis/Dressner Selections, is in acquisition negotiations with several major American importers. We have received several lucrative offers to buy us out but the major stumbling block seems to be our lack of a bulk wine producer with enormous quantities of "boxes" as we say in the wine trade. Unfortunately, we are poorly connected in the "box" circuit and I fear we will have trouble selling the company at a lucrative profit.I am asking you, dear readers, to send me suggestions of possible French bulk wine sources where we can sell huge quantities at high mark-ups and still give the impression of bringing affordable wine to the market. The wine has to be adequate but not particularly good. The pricing has to be low and the "packaging" has to be superb (by this I mean labeling, etc.).
Please address all suggestions to me personally. My e-mail address is somewhere buried on the left of this screen. I would put a link here to my e-mail, but am not sure what the html code is for an e-mail link. Can someone help me out?
The winner of the contest will receive an exciting Z'Fogless Ultra Mirror. I bought this marvelous contraption yesterday at Bed, Bath and Beyond and took my first fogless shave in the shower this morning. I am very happy with this product and think it will revolutionize your shaving experience. Furthermore, there are numerous exciting uses for women (removing make-up, facial scrubs, beauty masks, etc.) and this is a gift that anyone out there will be proud and delighted to receive. For more information: Exciting Bulk Wine Contest!
Several prominent internet wine personalities have accussed me of resorting to shaving stories on this site when I have nothing interesting to say.
I categorically deny this charge.
By the way, someone seems to have a contract out on my life. Please contact me at the e-mail address somewhere on the left side of this screen if you have any information that would lead to the apprehension of the culprits.
Thank you.
posted by Joe Dressner 7:52 AMSunday, March 18, 2001
Back from Horrible Tastings in the Rhône
I just got back from a series of horrible tastings in the Rhône Valley. My God! The things people can make out of fabulous vineyards! It's mind-boggling!The most interesting experience I had was being levitated by Geobiology guru Georges Prat in a restaurant in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. By coincidence, the nationally prominent American wine importer Neal Rosenthal was dining at the same time with his 23 person national sales staff. So at least I have some witnesses.
posted by Joe Dressner 10:03 AMTuesday, March 06, 2001
Has the Northwest Texier Market Been Cornered?
Rumor has it that Tom Siegal at Larry's Market in Kirkland, Washington, has cornered the Northwest Eric Texier market (see Eric Texier's badly translated autobiographical statement below).I'm off to an airport to get a plane to France and do not have the time to confirm this rumor.
More to follow.
posted by Joe Dressner 1:19 PMThursday, March 01, 2001
Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Survives Washington Earthquake!
You're all aware of the 6.8 earthquake that hit Seattle yesterday. Dozens of Seattle-area buildings and some schools were closed Thursday so engineers could assess damage from the most powerful earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest in more than a half a century. While officials provided an early estimate of $2 billion in losses, Washington Gov. Gary Locke described the state as “really, really lucky” the destruction wasn’t worse.
Happily, there was no damage to the 100 cases of Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis that was recently shipped to Larry's Market in nearby Kirkland, Washington. I spoke with Tom Siegel, the extraordinary manager of this store, and was assured that the remaining 99 cases had survived the quake and were in pristine condition in their temperature-controlled cellars.What a relief!
posted by Joe Dressner 3:57 PM
Some More of the 17 Reasons The Wine Importer Likes Being a Wine Importer
Posted Monday, April 23rd 2001
8. Introducing Unknown Wines to an Unsuspecting Public -- When we first started, Minervois and Corbières were oddities. Alain Jungenet had a couple of estates and perhaps a few others were around. Now, they seem almost commonplace. What has been extremely gratifying for myself, Denyse and Kevin is to see wines from obscure appellations being drunk by wine lovers around the country. Bourgueil, Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny, wines from the Bugey, great Muscadets, high-priced Mâcons, Beaume-de-Venise Reds, Gaillac, Touraine whites
9. Popularizing Wines Without the Wine Press -- I don't have the popular wine palate that gets the big scores in the wine press. Sometimes it depresses me that we are not Bobby Kacher. But more often than not I am delighted to be buying and selling wines that have a purity and authenticity. Rather than finding wines for Parker, or wines for the Wine Spectator, or wines for the "American palate," we have found wines we love and found the people in the wine trade who can get them to a public that will appreciate them. With or without a shelf talker that has a 93 point score from a Parker review.
10. Meeting Like-Minded Geeks in the Wine Trade-- most importantly, there is Kevin McKenna, my partner along with Denyse Louis. Kevin was one of our first buyers, when he was the buyer at Astor Place in New York City. For six years now he has been an integral part of our firm, bringing a wide range of wine and business knowledge that Denyse and I have always lacked. There is David Lillie at Garnet Wines, the King of the Loire Valley, who helped us so much to get going and to keep moving in the Loire. JR Battipaglia at Garnet, whose commitments to our Burgundies was so essential to our stability and expansion. Steve Mosher at the Wine and Cheese Cask in Boston who has flooded the Boston market with too many obscurities from our book. Tom and Carol Piscatelli in San Francisco and all the work they has done for our wines. Eugene Kaplan in Dallas, Robert Yellin in DC, Frank Lichtenberg in Atlanta, Paul Roberts in Chicago.... Then there are all the sommeliers and retailers out there who have invested in maybe one or two of our wines, but without whom we would never have had wide distribution. There are also the great distributors like Roanoke Wines, Domaine Selections, Triage, Silenus, Slocum, Douglas Polaner and so many more who can sell wine as wine and not simply as commodity.
11. Meeting Like-Minded Geeks Not in the Trade -- there's a whole group I've met around Robert Callahan that coalesced around various internet wine forums and who can now be found at Robert Callahan's Wine therapy. Callahan is kind of in but not of the Wine Trade, so I best put him in this category. It has been not only gratifying to meet all these people but I've learned about Gruner Veltiner and so many other wines by spending time with many of these maniacal characters. I will never forget all the support I received from these friends during my heart surgery a year ago and I will never forget their generousity and kindness.
12. Brad Kane.
13. Discovering Chenin Blanc -- I do have a home in the Mâconnais and I suppose could have been happy just drinking Goyard and Jean Thevenet. But there is such a beautiful range of Chenin -- from dry Savenniéres to Vouvray and Montlouis Demi-Secs through Moëlleux onto the special bottlings of great vintages -- wines that uniquely express their terroir and that age superbly. Wines that are delicious young or at 80-years-old. Wines that go so well with so many different foods and have yet to be corrupted by gobs of new oak and over-extraction.
14. Discovering Cabernet Franc -- I do have a home in Southern Burgundy and I suppose I could have been happy just drinking Pinot Noir....
More to come....
Grape Varieties, Lawyers and Medications
Originally Posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2001
Yesterday was another glamorous day in the life of The Wine Importer.
6:00 AM -- Wake up, make oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal is very good for heart disease. I had four bypasses last May and have to take endless medications and eat lots of oatmeal to remain alive and to evangelize Pierre Overnoy's wines. Who else will do this if I falter?
8:00 AM -- Spoke with a French Lawyer who guaranteed, for a modest fee, that he would bring the Citibank and Crédit Agricole to their knees. Both banks will soon be rewarding my firm vast sums of money.
8:30 AM -- Called Long Island Carpet Cleaning to arrange to have the ugly wall-to-wall carpeting in my apartment cleaned. I would like to strip the carpets off the floor and just have wood floors, but legally I'm obligated to cover 80% of the apartment's surface. Given we have a dog who scurries around the apartment and my son Jules has taken to riding his skateboard and doing elaborate tricks in our flat....I suspect we need to maintain some level of sound insulation. But the carpets get so dirty and so ugly. Every few months we have those miracle workers at Long Island Carpet Cleaning come to our apartment and totally clean the carpets, leaving them almost as clean and shiny as the first day they were installed. The carpet cleaners are coming on Friday, but cannot guarantee what time. It will be somewhere between 9 am and 5 pm, they assure me.
8:45 AM -- Get on my fabulous Swiftfolder bike and ride to work. I'm in an energetic mood and purposely take a 55-minute trip over the Queensboro Bridge (immortalized in the 60's by Simon and Garfunkel) through industrial Queens and industrial Brooklyn and then return to Manhattan over the Williamsburg Bridge to our office somewhere in Soho. Of course, I cannot play my usual mental game of counting the number of Duane Reade Drug Stores I pass and using my chronometer to time how long it takes to go from one Duane Reade to another Duane Reade. Industrial Queens and industrial Brooklyn are official Duane Reade Free Zones (New York Mayor Rudolph Guliani calls them DRF Zones). Instead, I count how many trucks from 1800-MATTRESS pass by me. Only three of them this morning. Unfortunately, I cannot get the jingle from the 1800-MATTRESS commercial out of my head and hum it to myself for the entire duration of my bike ride.
9:45 AM -- Arrive at my office and check my e-mail, foreign currency rates, faxes from angry French vignerons, and faxes demanding we pay for services we performed for free or at our expense for our customers. This last ‘charge’ is part of the wine racket -- if we travel to another town, we pay for the air fare, the hotels, take out the customers and salespeople from the distributor, organize a luncheon and pay for it, and get nary a thanks. It is a norm of the wine racket. A few weeks later we receive a bill for every last bottle of Muscadet or Gris du Toul that was open during our stay. We throw out this bill immediately. One month later we get a threatening letter from the distributor. Then their collection department calls. Then they start deducting money from payments. Distributors call these sort of trips "work-withs." They call me personally a "rep." What do I "rep?" A "supplier" named Louis/Dressner Selections. What are my wines called? "Brands," "Product," or “Products."
9:55 AM -- Make reservations on Amtrak to take a Metroliner to Baltimore on Monday morning at 7 AM. This is altogether too early for me to be traveling, especially considering my heart problems, but my mother is having a Passover Seder on Sunday evening and I want and have to be in attendance. I am of the Jewish persuasion. One of the joys of this Seder will be having my sister-in-law say that she actually prefers the Manischevitz Heavy Malaga to the other wines available at the dinner. Since no one is religious I don’t bother to bring horrible Kosher wine, but my folks always have one bottle of the Heavy Malaga.
10:00 AM -- Organize documents for the meeting later today at our lawyer. Why am I going to Washington? A shipload of Louis/Dressner product just arrived there and I have four days of work-withs scheduled with our distributor there to move boxes and promote the brands.
10:15 AM -- Retailer in New York calls and orders some Corbières. He wants to know exactly what grape varieties are in the wine and in what percentage. I make up something that satisfies the guy. Why he, or his customers would like to know this sort of information is a mystery to me. The wine is a blend dominated by Carignan and there are many more interesting things to say about this wine then to describe what grape varieties are in the bottle. So, it is just easier to make something up. Later in the day another retailer calls and gets my wife on the line -- I'm already at my Cardiologist. The retailer wants to know what grape varieties go into Franck Peillot's Modeuse from Bugey, which the retailer has on his shelves and likes very much. My wife says Mondeuse, which is the actual answer and all is well. We are considering reducing the Louis/Dressner catalog to mono-cépage wines to avoid all this bothersome talk with customers and consumers about varietal composition.
10:30 AM -- A guy named Peter from San Juan calls and wants to know how he can get three cases of Cerdon du Bugey for a marriage in two weekends in Puerto Rico. As importers, we cannot sell to consumers, but apparently retailers in New York City can ship to Puerto Rico. I tell him that I do not condone or condemn the shipment of wine to Puerto Rico (in case he is actually an agent of the New York State Liquor Authority) and suggest he call a store I know that carries the Cerdon. Five minutes later a retailer from the Hudson Valley calls to get prices on the Cerdon du Bugey. Turns out a friend of the guy in San Juan has already called this retailer who is desperate to bag the three-case sale of Cerdon. I inform him that the wine is distributed by Douglas Polaner Selections and that I had unfortunately sent his potential customer to another store. The best and most satisfying part of this whole exchange was that no one asked me what grape varieties go into the Cerdon du Bugey. Later in the day a woman calls and asks if we sell to the public. I ask her if she is a member of the public and when she informs me that she is I tell her that we Federal and State laws prohibit us from selling wine to her. Assuming yet another call for a wine from the Bugey I ask her what wine she wants. She is looking for Sutter Home.
10:42 AM -- A phone company calls offering us a national rate of 1.2 cents a minute and 3.4 cents a minute to France. I say "no thank you" and hang up the phone.
11:00 AM – I feverishly print out, annotate and collate the information for our law firm, Klein, Foster and Steinfesse. Someone from a distributor calls to complain that Garnet Wines is lowballing the price on the Clos Roche Blanche Cabernet in Garnet's New York Times ad on Wednesday. We sort of agree, but what can you do? The caller then wants to know what grape varieties go into the Clos Roche Blanche Cabernet -- is it Cabernet Franc or Cabernet Sauvignon or a mix of the two. It is actually only Cabernet Franc. I hang up the phone and am relieved that I had an entire 45 minute interlude without talking about the dreaded "What Grape Varietal" question. I am assuming that my lawyer and cardiologist will not be discussing grape 'varietals' when I see them later today. But who knows? Spring is here and Grape Varietals are in the air!
11:43 AM -- Take cab to 14th Street to the corporate offices of Klein, Foster and Steinfesse. The entire Board of Directors of our firm converges on their offices where we discuss the latest legal challenge to our wine work. Peter Steinfesse, our attorney, assures me that we will not only collect $30,000.00 in debt, but will also make $50,000.00 in damages! Wow! I wasn't certain if this was a new episode or a repeat. Steinfesse looks remarkably like many of the character actors who appear on NBC's long-running Law and Order television series. Apparently, if we pre-emptively sue on one issue, it short-circuits our opponent's attempt to sue us over inflicted business damages. Or something like that. We were fearful that our antagonist would resort to physical reprisals. Happily, they have only used theft, slander, racism and sexism. We can deal with that. There is talk of dragging long-time Louis/Dressner confidant Eddie Wrinkerman into the legal arrangements as some kind of designated hitter. Wrinkerman has the same relationship to Louis/Dressner Selections that Bebe Rebozo had to President Nixon. But frankly, I lost Steinfesse Esq.'s logic on this matter.
1:13 PM -- After this exhausting meeting, the entire board adjourns to a restaurant called Republic in the Union Square neighborhood. Since the Board has 14 members, we purposely pick this restaurant as they have large tables that can accommodate such a large group at short notice. Noodles are healthy, nutritious, and inexpensive. For $6.00 to $8.00 you can enjoy a bowl of noodles which includes a healthy broth, starch, fresh vegetables, and a variety of meats and fish, depending upon the dish you select. The decor is minimalist, with a "sit-where-you-will" seating arrangement in a strikingly smart and modern space. Service is provided by a chic, hip staff. I wanted to order a wine and then grill the chic and hip waiter over what grape varietals were in the wine but the restaurant only serves beer.
2:42 PM -- Return to our office. There are almost 15 messages for us, the vast majority dealing with the varietal composition of wines we sell. It takes over an hour to clear up all the confusion.
3:42 PM -- A representative from Verizon telephones calls to propose sending me a free cell phone. I give him my address and tell him to send it as quickly as possible. The representative then wants to know which service plan I want. I tell him I do not want a service plan but only want the phone, which he had graciously offered me for free. He insists I have to have a service plan. I tell him that if I have to have a service plan then the phones are not for free and that I will report Verizon to the Better Business Bureau for false advertising. The representative wants to know what I will do with a cellular phone that is not connecting to any wireless provider. I tell him that it is none of his business. I find the entire discussion a relief, having gone through a day of varietal discussion and legal argumentation. The Verizon representative eventually hangs up on me.
4:02 PM -- We receive a fax with a lot of orders from some hapless distributor who thinks they can make money with our product. We then have to spend 40 minutes doing the necessary paperwork to facilitate the movement of the brands from suppliers in France to the hapless distributor's warehouse somewhere in America. We have a mix of distributors -- some are hapless and some are dynamic. But to stay in business we need both of them. Some of the distributors who are hapless about wine are great personalities. Some of the distributors who are wine geeks are insufferably humorless. As Georges Prat has taught me, I look for a Geobalance. One thing is for certain -- as soon as the container arrives with out product one of us will obligated to go to the hapless distributors' city and do work-withs and have our firm receive bill-backs.
4:32 PM -- A New York retailer calls to ask if there is any more 1999 Morgon Javérnieres left in town. I tell him that there is no more Savennières. He says, no, not Savennières but Javérnières. I tell him that no, the Jasniéres has not arrived. I offer to send him a free cellular phone and hang up the telephone.
5:00 PM -- My daughter calls to speak to my wife and complain bitterly about her life.
5:12 PM -- My son calls to find out what we will be eating for dinner.
5:18 PM -- Someone calls to sell insurance.
5:30 PM-- Prepare to see my new Cardiologist. I just fired my old one, but regret that my new Heartman is not in a building where I can leave my bicycle as was my old guy. So, bikeless, I go down to Lafayette street to hail a taxi. After 12 minutes a taxi comes and a woman and I almost come to blows over who will get possession of the free cab. I ask her where she is going and it is on my way, so I offer to let her off for free. She seems hesitant but finally agrees. She's a very nice chain-smoking woman who is picking up her 4-year-old son at a day-care center. I go on to New York University Hospital and arrive at my Heartguy's office on time at 6:00 PM.
6:42 PM -- after sitting around for 42 minutes the guy finally sees me. At least he has the decency to apologize about the delay, the last Cardiologist never cared. Anyhow, the new one doesn't want to take any lab tests and pronounces me as fit as a beaver after poking at me some and taking an EKG. Fit as a beaver or some other medical term I did not understand. The only problem is that my homocysteine level is too high and he wants me to take a higher level of folic acid every day, along with a megadose of B12 and B16. Already I'm taking Baby Aspirins and Lipitor to lower my cholesterol. The Heart Guy makes this judgment based on old lab reports that my former doctor has forwarded him. Nevertheless, despite my insistence, he doesn't want me to take new lab tests but wants me to wait six weeks and take the new medication regimen and then take a lab test. He will then review the results and call me. I mention that we should make an appointment as I will be going to France around June 10th for the summer. He says it is unnecessary, that he'll look at the lab results in six weeks and then decide if I need to see him. Otherwise, I should call him in September when I return. Assuming, I'm still alive. So, finally, I have changed Cardiologists and get another indifferent guy. What's the point? At least the last guy, who I just fired, allowed me to bring my bike into his office. Of course, the last guy let me have a low level of homocysteine without any preventive measures. The guy was so busy with his busy practice and his hot tub in Great Neck (in which he was reported to study the Talmud!) to ever look at my chart or test results. The worst thing about being ill is having to see doctors. The only thing I could imagine that would be worse than this is being dependent on oenologues.
7:35 PM -- Arrive at the Duane Reade Drug Store to buy megadoses of B12, B6 and Folic Acid.
7:42 PM -- Take a cab crosstown to meet various wacky internet wine personalities at a famous Indonesian restaurant for dinner. I suspect that every detail of this evening will soon be appearing somewhere on the internet so I will leave it to others to chronicle the evening. All I will say was that the Rijsttafel was sumptious.
11:15 PM -- Arrive home. My wife informs me that Neocork, a leading manufacturer of synthetic corks, has initiated a multi-million dollar lawsuit against our firm. Something about libel, slander, Pineau d'Aunis and my having blabbed confidential material that led to the firing of one Stuart Yaniger. Steinfesse received the papers while I was being poked by my Cardiologist and sent a summary to our home fax.
11:47 PM – Fall asleep. I decided to call it a night as I had forgotten to get home to watch re-runs of Seinfeld that are now on at 11 PM, rather than 7:30 PM – having switched from the WB to Fox. Dream that George Castanza has been transformed into Steve Plotnicki. Or was it Stuart Yaniger?
older posts...
- Rode my bicycle to work through 50 mph gusts. Almost lost my eyeglasses on the Williamsburg bridge. I'm blind without them.