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:

1. Rode my bicycle to work through 50 mph gusts. Almost lost my eyeglasses on the Williamsburg bridge. I'm blind without them.
   
2. Received a fax from Bernard Baudry that he had only 1/2 the quantities of wine we had ordered the day before.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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?"
   
6. Responded to a fax from a producer in Mâconnais who wonders why he is not being paid. Oddly, he is being paid.
   
7. Worked on the Louis/Dressner web site.
   
8. 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.
   
9. 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.
   
10. 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.
    
11. 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.
    
12. 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.
    
13. 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.
    
14. 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.
    
15. 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.
    
16. 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.
    
17. 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.
    
18. 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.
    
19. Receive a fax from Franck Peillot telling us he is sold out of Mondeuse and has little Altesse left.
    
20. 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.
    
21. 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.
    
22. I sent faxes to various distributors around the country reminding them to pay some bills.
    
23. Went to lunch.
    
24. Returned to work and the day continued in much the same fashion as above.
    
    posted on Tuesday, December 12, 2000
    
    
    
    - Joe Dressner 5-09-2001 5:11 pm