The Wine Importer

Why You Should Pay More for Your Beaujolais Nouveau -- l'Ancien Nouveau Now Available!

OK, it's a boring, commodity item that is never any good anyhow, you are thinking to yourself. Why pay more? Why even bother to buy in the first place?.

Allright, I agree that it has become a cynical affair. But I still find the first day of Nouveau exciting. I may be a New Yorker, but I am always happy to celebrate the new harvest and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the grapes go from the vineyard to the bottle.

Of course, most Nouveau stink. Something fierce. Too much SO2, too much spoofalation (my thanks here to Mike Wheeler, inventor of the word spoofalation), too little wine. But those of us in the trade have a responsibility to get someting better to our customers. And now, we can.

For the first time, we are offering a bottling of Nouveau from the old vines at Domaine des Terres Dorées. This bottling will be more expensive, will come from lower yields, will be low in SO2, will be unyeasted, will be destemmed, will be vinified in a Burgundian fashion (no carbonic maceration), will be young, juicy and delicious.

Lots of people talk about how Beaujolais used to be low in alcohol, lighter in color, easy to drink, and perfect for celebration.

The Domaine des Terres Dorées l'Ancien Nouveau will be exactly that.

25 Hectolitres Per Hectare

It's my newest project. A joint project with several vignerons.

I want to find the sweet zone for low yields in several appellations where the vignerons are not used to doing extremely low yields. Small yields produced by a conscious pruning and a conscious vineyard regiment, not small yields due to frost, hail or sickness. What does a Muscadet at 25 hectolitres/hectare in a great vineyard site taste like? Does the reduced yields make a qualitative difference in the wine?

These parcels will be vinified exactly as their surrounding parcels at more normal yields. We want to eliminate vinification techniques as a variable.

So far, I have Domaine de la Pépière in Muscadet for 2002 and Domaine des Terres Dorées for 2001. I'm making calls around France these days, before the harvest starts, trying to get more recruits.

These wines, if they are successful, will cost more then the normal bottlings. But they will be worth the extra expense. Maybe they will be Cuvée Busters, maybe they will be the first step toward the $35.00 bottle of Muscadet.

Because, in my mind, many of the "smaller" appellations of France are making world class wines at ridiculously low prices. Some slob of a proprietor in a "big-name" appellation gets a big price no matter how horrible his wine happens to be. Someone will always pay for the appellations. At least in America, you can plant vines in former potato fields in Long Island and get $35.00 a bottle.

This little project of ours is an attempt to reverse the limitations of the AOC system. Because, in my mind, someone in the smaller appellations would do everyone a great service if they made the $35.00 bottle. Unfortunately, the market only responds to pricing and a $35.00 bottle of Muscadet or Beaujolais or Minervois will make everyone notice. But not a $35.00 bottle based on gobs of smoky oak, but a $35.00 bottle based on tiny yields and scrupulous vineyard work that showcases the greatness of each terroir.

Because, in my mind....

New York, New York

Buster, Alyce, Jules, Denyse and myself will be returning to New York on Friday.

We are hoping to have a live web cam chronicling Buster’s voyage in the cargo hold of a luxury Swissair flight.

Our flight begins at 7 am in Lyon. We have to arrive two hours early at the airport. We live an hour from the airport, so we will be leaving Poil Rouge at 4 am.

We will then take a short flight to Zurich where we will drink many cups of coffee. Swiss Coffee. Two hours later, we will take our places, business class, on a Swissair flight to Kennedy. To avoid eating the horrible food they pass out during these flights, even in Business Class, I have special-ordered Hindu Vegetarian for myself, Low Sodium Kosher for Alyce, Non-Dairy Fish for Jules and Low Cholestrol Swiss for Denyse. We plan on enjoying the in-flight cinema.

Hopefully, Swissair will remember to transfer Buster from the Lyon commuter flight to the JFK flight.

If all goes well, a surly New York cab driver will let us off at our luxury Sutton Place digs at about 3 pm. This means that the trip, door-to-door, will take 17 hours.

We have learned many valuable lessons about viticulture and winemaking this summer.

Sorry, but I’m too busy packing right now to share them.

One important point though: load up on Domaine des Terres Dorées Chardonnay En Fût 2000. There is none in America right now, but some will be arriving soon. This is the first year I have actually enjoyed this wine. Immensely.

There’s a whole story about the vinfication but I’m too busy packing right now to share all the details.

And make sure to check out The New York Times Article on manipulative winemaking. That’s right, the Newspaper of Record is telling the truth for once. Wine muckraker Alice Feiring is to be commended. The url is: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/business/26WINE.html

I would code the url with all the appropriate HTML coding but I'm too busy packing.

A Plea for Accounting Help -- Does Anyone Know a Capable Multi-Currency Accounting Program Suitable for a Wine Importer, Or is Anyone a Super Microsoft Access Programmer Willing to Trade Their Skills for Lots of Wine?

What a calm, pastoral scene here in Poil Rouge, deep in the Mâconnais. Yes, Poil Rouge, the French hypercenter of Louis/Dressner Selections.

I'm not sure what a hypercenter is, but hypercenter is the type of word that you throw around in France to impress people who think Foucault was a philosopher rather then a vigneron. There are a surprising number of such people here in France.

The Pastoral Serenity of Poil Rouge

In reality, Poil Rouge has become a living hell for me this weekend. I am alone, deserted by wife, children and dog, secluded and lonely, trying to update our accounting software for the upcoming Euro. I am also using the time to try to come up with a more comprehensive accounting system. I am returning to New York City on Friday and have promised the Louis/Dressner Financial Comptroller that I will have a finished package. I fear I am stuck and incapable of supplying the software solution that I have promised.

Do any of you out there have any idea if there is an off-the-shelf package that might work for us. I am not a programmer and I fear I am incapable of developing this system on my own.

Please help. Send me e-mail with your suggestions. Anyone who provides a workable solution will win a free case of Ghislaine Martemot-Bouilloux's Meursault Charmes 1er Cru 2000 (subject to the liquor sales restrictions of New York State and in accordance with reciprocal shipping arrangements between New York State and the resident state of the lucky winner)!

Louis/Dressner Selections -- Proud Sponsors of the 4th Annual Burgundy Xtreme Skateboard Competition

Excitement mounted this weekend in St-Gengoux-de-Scissé, this year's home to the 4th Annual Burgundy Xtreme Skateboard Competitions. This year's competition, which featured 38 entrants from ages 8 through 18, was made possible through a generous contribution by Louis/Dressner Selections.

The winner of this years competition was Jean-Edouard Potel of Morey-St-Denis.

Jean-Edouard Potel performing a 42 minute non-stop xTreme skateboarding exhibition.

Our congratulations to Potel and the other 37 contestants.

Hail

Volnay, Pommard and parts of Santenay, Maranges and the Côte Châlonnaise were hit by hail in a major storm two weeks ago.

Denyse and I were invited to lunch by Marie-Claire and Bernard Morey of Domaine Bernard Morey et Fils in Chassagne-Montrachet. After a grueling meal -- involving numerous courses, bottles of Chevalier-Montrachet and bottles of Corton Rouge at Le Chassagne, an excellent restaurant in the heart of downtown Chassagne (tell them at the door that Monsieur Rateau sent you) -- Bernard took us on a tour to witness the localized nature of hail storms and to see the damage that a hail storm can create.

The above picture was taken in Chassey-les-Camps, which is directly south of Santenay.

Note how the vines were almost completely stripped of vegetation.

A heartbreaking site.

Exciting New Producer in Meursault!

We have been looking for an exciting producer in Meursault for several years now. Someone working in low yields, someone making superb wines.

We are proud to announce that we now have the North American marketing exclusive for Domaine Martemot-Bouilloux!

We will be shipping Martemot-Bouilloux's 2000s shortly after this year's harvest.

Ghislaine Martemot of Domaine Martemot-Bouilloux in Meursault

No Cuvée Buster in Vosne-Romanée This Year

The dog refused to leave the car even though we were parked right below La Tache.

Trinch! An Appeal to the Wine Public and Wine Trade

I just drank a bottle of Pierre Breton's Bourgueil Trinch 2000.

This is a wine made from younger vines at 10.8 degrees of alcohol, unfiltered, with almost no sulphur. It is light, the wine is cloudy, and it is absolutely delicious. I just drank a bottle. Maybe it was two bottles. I forget.

Pierre's idea is to make a wine that is true vin de comptoir or what American's call a quaffer. Something easy to drink with a meal and good friends that won't give a headache and that makes you want to eat, talk, laugh and write wine reviews on the internet. Trinch succeeds nobly.

My fear is that no one will buy the wine. The color is somewhat hazy, it is light, and I will be attacked all over the internet. Retailers and restaurant owners will throw me out of their establishments. Relatives will stop calling me. My daughter will fall off a bare-backed calf (see below).

Is there any hope?

Regardless, Catherine and Pierre Breton are making absolutely superb wines these days. From the quaffer Trinch through Galichets thru the memorable Bourgueil Perrières through their Chinon Picasses, they are at the summit of Cabernet Franc production in the Loire and one of the most exciting domaines in France.

Trinch!

News from Domaine des Terres Dorées

There's a lot hopping here. That's right, your plain old Domaine des Terres Dorées Chardonnay will soon include a parcel that Brun picked on October 15th with pouriture noble. Noble rot!

I'll add my notes tomorrow or the day after or on Sunday.

I have to visit vineyards tomorrow and I'm exhausted out of my mind.

It is a lot of work having a web site, a job, a wife, children and a dog. All at the same time.

Good night.

The Making of a Cuvée Buster Part II: An Inside Look Part II

Here is Buster scouting out vineyards for a Cuvée Buster.

Buster is a firm believer in terroir, that all the great Cuvée Busters are made in the vineyards, not the cuvérie.

Despite an exhausting day scouring the vineyards of Regnié in the Cru Beaujolais, Buster was unable to find anything to his liking today.

Trip Comes to Abrupt Halt

My daugher, Malmolleux-Alyce Dressner, was spending two weeks at a Circus/Rodeo Training camp near Auxerre while we were touring the Loire. Unfortunately, she rode a cow bareback and was thrown into the air and against a metal fence, breaking a bone near her shoulder. We were called on my portable phone by the emergency room staff of the Joigny hospital as we were entering the famous cellars of Louis Farou in Chinon.

We had to end our appointment with Farou and rush to Auxerre and take our daughter home to Poil Rouge and the Louis/Dressner Family Compound. We only got as far as Chinon, working our way westward from Sancerre, and were forced to cancel the second half of our trip.

Happily, Malmolleux-Alyce is doing well.

Here I am at the entrance of Louis Farou's cellar, only five minutes before receiving the phone call from the hospital in Joigny.

The Making of a Cuvée Buster: An Inside Look

Here is Buster with Catherine Roussel and Didier Barouillet of the Clos Roche Blanche in Touraine:

Vintage 2000 is uniformly healthy and delicious here and the quantities are too high to qualify for a Cuvée Buster. As is well-known, a Cuvée Buster must be 50 cases or less. Any quantity over that limit does not qualify.

There was some sentiment amount the tasting panel to release a special 50 case varietal bottling of Clos Roche Blanche Rolle, but at the end they decided the wine was too acidic for the coveted Buster denomination.

Otherwise, the trip is going well in the Loire Valley.

Highlights include a refermenting 1997 Chenin Blancat Bernard Baudry. Only 4 bottles remain in stock. Aboslutely delicious -- a Cerdon de Chenin du Chinon!

Otherwise, watch out for Ménu Pineau and Pineau d'Aunis 2000s from Thierry Puzelat this September. Puzelat's négociant business has bought grapes from a producer in biodynamie in the Touraine in these two varieties and the wines are smashing. More and more, I'm convinced that Pineau d'Aunis at low yields and with a long fermentation merits a revival.

Tomorrow the Sancerrois

Got to get up at 6 am and it is already 12:54 here in Poil Rouge. So much to do. So much to blog.

I'll be touring the Loire for about two weeks so I don't expect to be posting anything here. But do feel free to call me on my mobile phone during my trip.

Now, if I could only find a Pouilly-Fumé producer who harvests by hand....

Classic Cult Champagne and Coteau Champenois from David Léclapart

Léclapart is a young guy in biodynamie, not to be confused with cosmoculture, who makes some of the greatest Champagne I have ever tasted. Léclapart works out of the tiny 1er cru Trépail in the Côtes du Blanc. And that Coteau Champenois....

Great work in the vineyards, a vineyard that is on the scale of a little garden. No dosage, minimal sulphur, no industrial yeasting, real wine vinification, completed malos, and gobs and gobs of finesse, elegance and class.

This is not a mainstream Champagne, nor similar to all the récoltants-manipulants flooding the market. This is best of Selosse taken to the extreme! If you understand what Selosse taken to the extreme might mean then you will want to get a hold of some of this wine.

There will be three cuvée of Vintage 1999 -- Cuvée l'Amateau, Cuvée L'Artiste and the sensational Cuvée l'Apôte. There will also be L'Eden Coteau Champenois Rouge, an absurdly beautiful expression of Pinot Noir from 51 year old vines. All of which are vintage 1999.

This is a new estate and despite its size, 80 percent is still sold to négociant. We are delighted to be working with David Léclapert and expect the wines to make their way to America by late November. The quantities are tiny, we are paying the producer up-front, and the pricing is sky-high.

Make Mine Cosmoculture

Why stop at biodynamie when you can have Cosmoculture?

Domaine Viret has built a Romanesque Abbey of a Wine Cellar in the middle of splendid vineyards in St-Maurice Côtes-du-Rhône Village. The picture does not do the structure justice -- it is breathtakingly beautiful. Beautiful, compelling and strange.

Yes, there are Menhir in the vines to direct energy.

Yes, the placement and architecture of the cellar are designed to maximize cosmic forces using well known principals of cosmoculture.

Yes, the Grenache reaches ripeness and this is an estate to watch.

The wines will be available on August 21st at retailers near you.

Be the first geek on the block to imbibe cosmoculturally.

The Domaine Viret Côtes-du-Rhône St. Maurice Cuvée Renaissance 1999 will run about $15.99.

The Domaine Viret Côtes-du-Rhône St. Maurice Cuvée Maréotis 1999 will run about $19.99.

What the difference between the two cuvées? Varietal composition and vine age.

You've probably never heard of this appellation. Fear not, no one has. The entire AOC is dominated by a coop that makes standard stuff. Viret's 1999 is their first vintage and hopefull St. Maurice will soon be as well known as Cairanne, Rasteau, etc.

The only Americans who have tasted these wines (prior to Vinexpo) are myself, Robert Callahan (a long-time supporter of Cosmoculture), Peter Vezan, some Canadian wine agent who lives in Paris, and various other wine business flotsam and jetsam.

For better or worse, Louis/Dressner Selections is the first to import the wine.

Available at a retail shop near you on August 21st.

Annual Louis/Dressner Selections Tour of France

Every year the entire staff from Louis/Dressner comes to France to tour a viticultural area.

This year, we will be touring the Loire Valley, beginning on August 1st. We will be starting out in Sancerre and making our way to Muscadet over a 12 day period with a final stop in Jasnières. This is a very exciting time for the entire staff at Louis/Dressner and it will be difficult to leave postings on this site during the trip.

The trip is logistically difficult, as it requires the use of four vans and mulitple hotel and restaurant reservations at each stop. One highlight of this year's trip is our plan to stiff fine restaurants all over the Loire Valley on the grounds that they served us fake wines.

On behalf of the entire Louis/Dressner team, I would like to think all you readers out there for your support this year. We hope to be finding new and exciting wines during this trip. Additionally, we look forward to visiting old friends who have new vintages to taste, love and market shamlessly.

Thanks again.

Jacques de Jessey

It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of Jacques de Jessey of the Domaine du Closel a few weeks ago.

Jacques de Jessey was an engineer who threw himself into the running of this estate when his wife received Closel as part of an inheritance in 1961. As he explained, on the excellent Domaine du Closel internet, site:

"Before we took over this Domaine, I went to the Ecole Centrale de Paris, and was involved in industry, mainly in metallurgy. I first worked as an engineer, then in marketing but eventually primarily in management. For 20 years I worked with Pont-a-Mousson in the management of subsidiaries, then of a branch."

"I have helped my wife with the management and the administration of the domaine, and developed the marketing of what in 1961 was only a small family vineyard, but now has acquired an international reputation."

Jacques de Jessey did his work with intelligence, kindness, passion and humor. I will be visiting the domaine in ten days and he will be sorely missed.

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