This may be quite a long story because as I have thought of it many observations have come to me. Special dates of note are : May,16th, 2006 when I met one of the owners ( director ) Cameron Ashmead at our store Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( www.clevelandparkwine.com ) , June 15th, 2006 ( when I got a " thank-you note from Cameron in the mail, an actual-factual letter ! ), and February 17thor 18th ( I believe ) when with Chris Pigott we visited ELDERTON Wines ( Barossa, 3-5 Tanunda Road, Nuriootpa, South Australia 5355, tel : ( 08 ) 8568 7878 fax: ( 08 ) 8568 7879 www.eldertonwines.com.au ).
I think I first really got a sense of ELDERTON wines was when I started working at Macathur Beverages ( Addy Bassin's , Washington D.C. ) back in 2000. I was only to work there a year but I learned a whole lot in that year and am happy for the experience I had there. One of the most important bonds that I made there was with Italian wine-buyer/educator Tom Hanna. He was happy to share his knowledge with me and we had a very fruitful exchange of ideas and worked well as a team. I remember using one of the annual small gray sales catalogues from Bassin's to go searching in the myriad catacombs/nooks and crannies/spaces still and dusty/rooms forgotten but for their inestimable treasures in cardboard and wooden boxes for some of the " Command " ELDERTON Shiraz. I marvelled at the prices, high, and they were the sale prices! Why were these wines so expensive? What qualified them to get such high scores and points? Why were people paying all this money for wines that I with my twenty-years of experience already was just discovering now? I guess this tells you a lot about me, huh?!? Good and bad. Oh well, you can only know so much and be exposed to so much : and more importantly only absorb so much. I say that in my defense.
My curiosity was piqued by ELDERTON and I wanted to try some and discover what magic/wealth and wonder they held ; and would all this once I tried it mean anything to me? Would I become an ELDERTON convert? Time would tell. I believe I finally tried a bottle or two and tasted the amazing extraction of fruit, weight , alcohol and attending spices, aromas, tannins and acids. The Command I sampled already had some bottle age and was showing some good development. I was impressed and yet I still had questions about this style of wine making. My questions were mostly about the balance in the wines, what was put front and center and what ( tastes, elements , components ) were off in the back or to the side and minimized as such? Could you still get a truly great wine by this technique? I could see why many people clamored to this wine. It was impressive, but what about the ten or so other reds that they make at ELDERTON Wines?
I'd fetch these wines for our customers at MacArthur Beverage and either they'd take them with them assorted into cases of wines or we would ship them around the country where it was legal to do so. I was beginning to discover a whole new part of the wine world at MacArthur Beverages : the Australian high-end, small-batch, highly-scored-reviewed wines and I was so very intrigued. It gave me something new to look forward to as I had already been so taken with many European wines as well as several California, Oregon, Washington State, New York and Virginia wines ( not to mention South America ).
One day, May 16th, 2006 to be exact Chris Pigott my rep from Country Vintners brought me both Cameron Ashmead and a selection of ELDERTON wines to taste. I was very interested in meeting Cameron and tasting through these wines. Again my question was what would they signify to me at this stage in my development? Would I discover that in fact I liked a couple, a few, all of these wines. At this point in my career and development of my palate I was impressed with the less-expensive wines with lower ( or at least showing less ) levels of alcohol, especially on the palate. I like the wines I drink to be balanced. I want the fruit/sugar, the acids, alcohol and the tannins all to work in harmony and grant equal opportunity for all to shine as a combined effort. For the money I thought that some of Cameron's less expensive reds ( mostly $30 and under ) did this best for me and I bought some to add to our collection of Aussie wines. I was happy to have those , I was happy to have met Cameron. I was happy to have balanced wines that were sffordable that I could recommend without reservation to our customers as " must trys " at least once, If they hooked you then you would be inclined to come back for more.
Don't get me wrong, I believe in value first but I am not against selling more expensive wines. They are just not the first ones I turn to when selling to our customers : there are too many great values/wines to enjoy at $30 and under, that's all - simple. Prove me wrong if you like.
I met Cameron and tasted his wines that May 16th, 2006 and took some pictures of that visit with Cameron that I will download soon onto this blog entry. They came out quite well I believe. Thanks for coming to see me Cameron. Love your smile, love your good cheer and openness. You took my strong opinions of wine quite well and I appreciate that. This is what you wrote before leaving the store : " Tony, Great to meet you. Store rocks! Love the personal touch & the fact that you love the little guys. One of the two idiot sons ( he's referring to himself and his brother ), Cheers Cameron Ashmead.
A month later on June 16th, 2006 I received this nice " thank-you " letter in the mail ( thanks for sending me an actual letter Cameron, priceless today ) that said " " Anthony, Many thanks for being so good to me on my recent trip to D.C. & buying the wines. I love your work! Let me know if you are ever in the Barossa or any of your clients. Thanks again. " Cameron Ashmead.
Well Chris Pigott and I went to Australia, just the two of us, earlier this year in February ( 7th-20, ) 2008. We did not know we would be visiting ELDERTON Wines. It was not planned. Our visit was serendipitous and very enjoyable. We were tasted by a charming young lady who's father was also a Aussie winemaker in the region. She was totally professional and really gave us a good tasting/explanation/history/etcetera for all the various wines and I liked some of them again very much. I was pleased by all this, really. Thanks. I can't remember your name but I took a picture of you and I will download it here.
When we were there neither Chris or I could remember our time spent at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits with Cameron. We must have been brain-dead at that moment. Sorry Cameron. It came back to me later, but not that day. It was just a lot to absorb and this was so coincidental that Rob Gibson was off marrying one of his sons and had hired a man with a neat old 60's American car ( was it a Chevrolet? red and white, sporty ) to chauffeur us around for the afternoon. We had a blast Rob. Thanks for that : sharing all the Barossa with us and not just your wines. You are an ambassador to Barossa, you are. Anyway Cameron that's how we got to ELDERTON. Chris kept saying : " let's go visit ELDERTON Tony ". That's what we did and I sure am glad that we saw your place. It's an impressive tasting-room, really warm and welcoming and well-thought-out. Cheers to you all for that because when you couple that with your excellent wines then you've got more than enough for a wine combination.
It occur ed to me that I went all the way to Australia to ELDERTON Winery in Barossa and did not meet Cameron. I met him at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3425 Connecticut Avenue, NW, DC 20008 202-363-4265 ) where I manage the wine department. Many of our customers do just like me : they visit these wineries in distant parts of the world - far away from Washington D.C. and yet at our store they actually meet the winemaker or the wine owner. At the vineyards often they meet people employed by these owners or winemakers to pour and explain the wines. Funny. Anyway, I'm proud that at our store we are able to complete the circuit so to speak and put you all in contact with the principles and the reason(s)/money/inspirations/dreams for which these wines exist/are able to exist/must exist! Fun. I love that, being the one that introduces, makes the connections.
Here are some of the pictures of Cameron in the store( 2006 ) and us later at ELDERTON Wines ( February 17th 2008 ). Hope you enjoy them. ELDERTON is also the place where Chris and I first discovered that marvelous new book of Aussie Wineries and their owners.winemakers with a picture on the cover of a naked(/) Rob Gibson hidden to the chest by the weeds growing up high and wild between his vines. What's it called, something about bad language, great wines? I love it! I later was given a book by Rob and Annie. Cameron and ELDERTON are both also in this excellent, captivating, fun and quirky-irreverent book with some good text and some excellent " ambiance/atmosphere " photographs.
I can only find the one photo here at home. The others are stored on my computer at work so I will download those on Tuesday morning. Stay-tuned and sorry for this delay.
Cheers to ll you mates ( can I say : sheilas ?!? don't mean to offend anyone ) out there and about! TONY
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