I’ll Huff and I’ll Puff and I’ll Blow your House Down!
I had time last week to read through some other wine blogs and wine e-mails and endless e-blasts plying you with senseless offers of wines at below cost etc. etc. I came away with a modest headache and in need of a glass of wine, but also some personal thoughts of my own. Firstly, you only sell wine below cost if you are broke, in desperate need of money or can’t pay your next, State Required 30 day invoice. Wine at cost might imply wine at original cost – 4 years ago when the economy was strong and people wanted to buy cult Californian wines at $500 a bottle. The fact that it cost about $25 to make, sold to the ‘negociant’ for $35.00 who sold it to the ‘exporter’ for $45 who sold it to the distributor in your state for $55 who sold it to the retailer at $65 who sold it to you for “COST”, because he actually needs to pay an invoice from another Distributor who is threatening to put him on COD if he doesn’t cough up the dough! Were you really going to buy it for $100 anyway? I learnt on Wall Street that if a stock is falling there’s probably a good reason. And with wine there are so many unknown variables. Where was it stored? Was it a refrigerated warehouse? (Very rare and very expensive). Was it shipped in a refrigerated truck – equally rare but not more expensive; did it cross Wyoming a dozen times before relaxing in Miami on its last leg to NY? Did it undergo traumatic stress – like being thrown onto the back of a truck and shoved up against the hot corrugated siding of a 50 ton semi half full of rotting artichokes? The stories one could write, the adventures one could imagine – Inspecteur Cali Bordot at your service.
Seriously though, I know that everyone wants a bargain and it seems that wine has become such a kitchen stool commodity that everyone spends an hour on a Sunday morningsipping their coffee, watching their rug-rats throw crispies at the cat and surfing for the next great bottle of Screaming Eagle at $15.00. We are becoming the next generation of wine-porn surfers! Wow – look at the label on that jug, did you notice the weight of the glass on that South American beauty, did you read about the legs on that Burgundy – just oozing down the Reidel glass, perfectly manufactured to catch the sensuous ‘legs’ of French Pinot? We all know we do it, some of us aren’t sure why we do it, and for one wretched soul (Andy, I think his name was) who last week had the audacity to say ‘I want out’, he was vilified, castigated and dumped unceremoniously with a label around his neck stating: “He never bought anything anyway!” Personally I have never bought a bottle of wine off the web – never had the inclination. I did buy wine at auction, until I started selling wine at auction and realized that if I was putting stuff up for sale knowing it probably wasn’t very good, everyone else probably was too. But going back to the web – is the challenge the price, or is it the excitement of finding that last great bottle that you remember drinking with your fiancé all those years ago? Do you cross the road, into on-coming traffic because the Shell station is selling Premium for $0.02 less than the Mobile, into which you could head straight in? I’m guessing that most of us are the Mobile men.
Because I am a very vocal supporter of your right to buy wine in a Supermarket I am often painted by the ‘opposition’ party as a traitor and worse. I am told that the Supermarkets will out-price me at every turn, they will reduce my customer base to zero, they will destroy everything I have worked so hard to build and they will allow men and woman to buy a loaf of bread and break it with wine (I wonder who first came up with such an astonishing suggestion?). But the truth be told, the supermarkets will not do any of that – at least not to a wine store that actually serves its customers by sourcing wines that are different, that are delicious, that are small production, hand-made, passionately bottled and destined to be exalted at the dinner table. No. My competition will continue to be the banal liquor stores who can’t be bothered to do the work to source great wine, and who must resort to selling what wine they do have at or below cost so that they can pay their next invoice. Darwin economics – let the fittest survive and the marketplace will be enriched thereafter.
OK – Soap Box over.
I was in Colorado last week swishing, briefly, through the Aspen Pines until my L3 Disc herniated. And whilst the drugs were very, very good, there was an obvious necessity to wash all the pills down with liquid, and since the pills were going to do a pretty good job on my judgment anyway I figured, what the hell – might as well wash them down with some Antica Terra, and other delicious finds. I was thrilled to find hard to find wines at some of the little restaurants we went to – Maggie Harrison’s Antica for example – we bought as much as we could last November, sold it all out, and trust me, I’m doing what I can to find more of it. I did receive an e-mail last night that I will be allocated some of her Vital 2009 Pinot Noir and I took the gift immediately. Not sure when it’s coming in, but I only have 3 cases available – if you want it order it today – It’s going to be $39.00 per bottle, $33 on a full case. Maggie is one of the finest wine-makers in all of Oregon, and learnt her trade from one of the finest cult masters in California, Manfred Krankl and Sine Qua Non.
Also last week, Marina went to the big Burgundy trade show and spent the afternoon devouring the new 09 Burgundies. I know the French keep saying ‘mais oui, theees iz ze best vintage since I don’t know when, mais c’est vrai’. It’s certainly going to be very, very good. And very, very expensive. And rather than pick and choose over the next few weeks which ones we liked and didn’t I am going to compile a list of those wines that we have tasted, with accompanying notes and then post it as a Chinese Menu – look over the list, order what you want and then we’ll arrange for delivery – hopefully this way we can get as many of these wines in front of you without having to deposit a huge amount of cash for inventory.
And also last week, whilst the cat was away, the mice obviously tasted from the chalice of Karen Culler. In every country there are iconic wineries and wine-makers. California has a bucket full of them, and none more fascinating as Wolff Family Vineyards and Ladera. Both vineyards fly so far below the radar screen that I just love finding them and drinking them – especially the Wolff wines. Interestingly the wine-maker at both vineyards is a girl that few have ever heard of – her name is Karen Culler and if there was an Oscar for Californian Woman Wine Maker of the Year I would vote for her. When she isn’t working for Wolff or Ladera she makes about 300 cases for herself – cabernet and syrah sourced from Howell Mountain and Oak Knoll. Her 2007 is a blend of 77% cab and 23% syrah and its dynamite. Casaeda Cabernet 2007 – $37 for a bottle of pure nostalgia.
As a reminder we are also taking reservations for our dinner with Cecile Dusserre. There’s been a lot of the written word (Asimov and others) about the 2009 Rhones. I agree with some of it – the wines are more accessible than previous vintages. It was a warm/hot vintage, rainfall was light and fruit had time to really develop. But very often Cote du Rhone wine (the entry level stuff) can be green, caustic, asphalt and slate and at this level I actually want to drink an accessible red wine – that’s why I love the 09 CDR from Cecile – it’s affordable and very drinkable. But we will also pair this with her 2007 Gigondas – one of the great vintages of all times, her Vacqueyras 2008 that defines what a great Vacqueyras should taste like and I also want to pour a wine that she made in honor of her late, and very young, brother the Domaine Montvac Vincila 2007. These wines are all legendary and they all occupy a large amount of space in my own cellar. So for those who attend the dinner we will offer the wines at a very special price so that long past the actual dinner you can pop open a Montvac and bring back a memory or two. The dinner is at Morgan’s Fish Restaurant in Rye on Wednesday, March 9, 7:30pm. Tickets are $85.00 per person, all inclusive and reservations must be made directly through Wine at Five. There are seats still available but hurry, we only have a limited number in the back room.
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