This will be a two-part blog as Chris Lanning our rep for Republic-National Imports/ distributors just brought Chris Barker and me another FLORA SPRINGS bottle to try : a Cabernet Sauvignon. It's now in the store as of yesterday. I think we tasted it Thursday, April 15th, 2010 around 3 PM and it arrived yesterday and is on our shelves. I really liked it and the price was reasonable. I'll fill that information in once that I am back at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 , Tel : 202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ) where I manage the wine department with Chris' help.
He's just come from working at the Dean & DeLuca store in Georgetown, Washington D.C. and it will be nice to get some more help from him with the California wines that we sell and offer our customers. It has never been my strong point.
On this first tasting perhaps two months ago Chris had samples with him of both the FLORA SPRINGS 2007 Chardonnay and the 2006 red " Trilogy ". He caught me working perhaps on our store email in the office one late Tuesday afternoon? I cannot remember exactly but I think this is correct. I took these pictures in our office and was sitting at my desk when I did looking up at Chris. I had not tasted any FLORA SPRINGS wines in awhile and was more than curious to try them and check their style and balance and alcohol levels.
I like wines to taste like the grapes from which they come and am having problems with some that I taste now from the western hemisphere as I taste increasingly more that taste like lab experiments to me and less like the fresh grapes from which they were born. What's happened to that grape? Why has it been removed from it's prominence and key roll and in some cases removed entirely from center stage? Are wineries trying to produce too much? It's an ugly problem and one unfortunately that I will have to mention more often. This displeases me enormously : saddens me too.
I will write more about these two wines once I get my notes at the office. I am behind on my blogs as I have so many in their draft forms now as more and more people are coming to see me and taste with me. Chris sure is doing his job well and I have at least two others that I will be writing about his excellent selection of Washington State and California wines. He was part of our " Big Theme " Washington State wine-tasting back on March 10th, 2010 and I already have posted one blog entry on that and have another to finish.
Chris also brought me Jeff the right-hand man of Jed Steele as well as his assistant wine-maker ( they have worked together since 1985 and from what Jeff mentioned to me last night at his in-store, wine-tasting with our customers ( he tasted the SHOOTING STAR Blue Franc, $13.49, from Washington State as well as the SHOOTING STAR California stainless-steel Sauvignon Blanc , $13.49, and the Old-Vine Pacini Vineyard STEELE Zinfandel ( $17.99 - all three current vintages, and we got to taste the new dry Cabernet Franc STEELE rose - excellent, Friday night, 5-8PM, April 16th, 2010 ).
I took a lot of these pictures thinking as much about artistic expression as I did about recording the information on the labels for later use. Being an artist I often do this and am sorry that I do not have some of the labels themselves as that really helps me later when it is time to write the stories and text that I like to include for others to read and hopefully enjoy.
My blogs are less about facts and numbers and scores and hype and lengthy descriptions and details on the wines. They are more visually-oriented and made with the idea of celebrating with color and texture and contrast and combinations of label, wine bottle, wine glass and the persons involved in making or bringing the wines to our attention. I want to show the relationship that exists between these as I feel that it adds something to the whole equation that is perhaps obvious but rarely pointed out. They exist as a whole and depend upon the others. It's real and concrete and essential and to me what I want to learn more about. So, here are my artsy photos and I hope that they get you excited about the wines and their colors and their clarity and shades of colors : and that they prompt you to walk out your door and to your wine shop in pursuit of one or more of the bottles to try yourselves.
I was inspired by both the labels here of FLORA SPRINGS with their graphics and bold colors and the glossy finish - polished and brilliant. I liked all of this and wanted to see how I could capture them through the filter of the wines that they held as well as through the Reidel wine-tasting glass that I use which amplifies and enlarges, distorts, extends, bends, everything as well as creating " other " images, too - like a double image that is different and which adds again another view or element to consider. I love all of this.
It is clear to me that as I look again at these pictures that I was fascinated by the idea of capturing the essence , heart and soul of these two wines visually. Like a tribal ritual and passage from wine in a bottle to wine on the tongue and the palate : going from child to adult. I love the warmth of the red hues of wine that are captured depending on the light that they get here from the strong ceiling lights. I got lots of shading, too as sometimes I did not have my flash on with my Canon digital camera.
Like a beautiful lagoon above filled with this 2006 FLORA SPRINGS " Trilogy " red. Want to take a spin, a tongue-dip, an mouth and palate plunge? Or perhaps simply running the tip of your tongue along the surface before withdrawing it back to the safety and comfort of your mouth sounds better? So many choices. Passing it back and forth between willing participants perhaps?
I love these two pictures above and below for their compositions and contrasts and textures and warmth, hues and moods of a FLORA SPRINGS Red wine color. And instead of the lagoon image I change that now to one of that of a still spring that collects along it's journey and rests perhaps a few seconds or more before continuing on, just like it does when one holds it in their mouth, holds their breath as well as runs their tongue along and through its surfaces to reach out to the walls of their mouth, run along the ripple of their teeth and finally swallow bits at a time to taste all that the wine holds hidden inside it's liquid red brilliance and sheen ...
I like this image below that shows the shape of the Reidel glass as well as the warmth and intensity and brightness of the FLORA SPRINGS 2006 " Trilogy " colors. I am also trying to capture at the bottom of this Reidel glass some of the label/ Does it work? Did I get it? You have to enlarge the image on your monitor screen at home to see it better.
It was fun trying all the same ...
I have more to add here on Saturday morning here at home in northern Virginia before work ( it's 8:25 AM now on April 17th, 2010 ) but I will post this blog as it is now so that you may all enjoy the colors, textures, shapes, forms and contrasts of lights and darks and all the hues, reflections, distortions and nuances that the Canon camera's eye has caught here with my help. It was team work all the way as it always is.
Cheers and stay-tuned for more soon. TONY
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