It was a very thoughtful gift Spencer ( Graham ) , thanks. I have had it here for quite some time now and meaning to write you as we have lost contact since the mid eighties when I knew you as you would come to the Mayflower Wines & Spirits to sell your selections of Robert Chadderdon selections ( we at the Mayflower were the first to bring them to Washington D.C. and when Bob Parker, Jr. as we knew him because he would actually then buy wines from us, pay for them and either write them up or not - we had magnums of the Billecart Salmon rose back then for sale at $35 a bottle or less - and he gave it 100 points out of 100 points ), as well as the excellent Veneto Guerrieri Rizzardi wines with their Valpolicellas and Bardolino wines and other Veneto blends. Anyway, that was a whole lifetime or two away from now and so many things have changed since then Spencer.
We were hosting a wine dinner with your wife Elizabeth Spencer at the Oenology Bar & Restaurant last year ( I believe the last week of October, 2009 ) and I was going to miss the dinner because of a prior commitment to be with my daughter for the week in Italy that trumped your dinner - sorry - but not really not. I would loved to have seen you again Spencer. You were always so very thin and tall and I can still picture you on the landing of the Mayflower Wines & Spirits back there on the corner of M Streets N.W. and New Hampshire Avenue. It was also then the old Arnold & Porter building or no, it was the Covington Burling Building? Yes, I think that's right. I heard that you and Sidney and Michael were sometimes discussing Bob and his future ( and how he might change things? ).
I never did that but I can see where it could have been an interesting topic, especially now as so many years later people in the wine business still refer to him unfortunately as " God ". A bad idea in my humble opinion : he's only one man with one opinion - only one man with one vote.
That's the way it should have been and still the way it should be today. We don't need people dictating to us with the power of numbers what we should be drinking and serving to others, especially not our good friends if indeed we do not like the wines but are serving them anyway because we think that we do not know better ( that the so-called experts know better ) and we are relying on them and their palates to guide us. That's just an awful mistake for us to be making. Learn your own palates and trust your own judgement and only listen for advice that might help you better select what foods better complement what wines?
If that was true and he only had one vote to cast perhaps we would not be embroiled so much - stuck so much , a victim so much to the point system that I think will eventually put all of us serious wine people/educators/ advisers, etc out of business because only numbers will matter and be remembered ( no words of the reviews ) and so we will become very soon for the very most part antediluvian and obsolete and tossed away, languished away and forgotten.
But Whoa, this is not about Bob Parker and the point system , this is about Spencer and his wife Elizabeth and I am sorry that I did not see you both then but I appreciate more than you know your gift to me. My Country Vintner rep Arielle Monaco dropped it off for me once that I had returned from an incredible week in Italy with my daughter seeing Milan, Florence, Rome, Orvieto, Montepulciano, Montalcino and Sienna pretty much in that order. We did fit four vineyard visits successfully and that was grand, too. It was , however the time that I spent with her that was precious.
Anyway, one more observation of you Spencer when I met you back at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits. I was then the California buyer of wines. Ironic, I had come from France and learning about French wines and knew very little about the wines of California. I had returned from ten years on-and-off in France in the 1970's and that was grander than grander - grandest really - impassable - something that could not be topped those ten years while my father worked for the American Embassy first giving visas to foreigners and then passports to American citizens.
So I learned about wine with my father first ( we'd visit the local Nicolas stores in the 16th arrondisement where we had an apartment ) and then through Steven Spurrier, Patricia Gallagher and Jon Winroth of both the Caves De La Madeleine wine shop and wine school not far from the American Embassy. I took at the tender age of twenty-one Steven Spurrier's first wine-class ever - some of my fifteen minutes of fame.
Who would have ever thunk?!? I was an aspiring artist back then plying my trade of the arts with etching, print-making ( in the Atelier 17 of William Stanley Hayter and Joelle Serve, French lady that has apprenticed with him and opened her own Atelier 54 that she asked me to manage for the right to make prints there for free when I was not working ). It was all pretty amazing for me : so much to take in and I enjoyed the challenge and the promise of it all back then when I turned 21 and was taking Steven's first wine-class.
Anyway as I stood there in the Mayflower Wines & Spirits with Michael Downey, Sidney Moore, Moe Parzoe, Iris and Leon the cashiers, Larry Jennings great delivery and warehouse specialist and Karen the book-keeper... those were some grand days, too of so much promise and so many slates uncovered and so much of the wine-world still to happen and to be made and realized - of dreams and ideals and hopes and aspirations of individuals - of the unknown and of struggles and pooling one's resources to make a dream come true ...
So, I would stand there by you Spencer as both Michael and Sidney gathered round, too : I'd listen to you three as I was still quite new in the business and try and hear what you were saying and what you all meant and were adding to my understanding of the wine world that was rapidly growing for me to include so much more than the France that I loved and still do love today perhaps more than anything else in the wine world. Italy is tapping at that door both with their phenomenal wines as well as their wonderfully warm people, too.
I would stand there and listen to you speak Spencer of coming all the way from Charlottesville, Virginia. You would talk about the town back then in 1984-5 I believe and even though I was living myself in Falls Church, Virginia I wondered about Charlottesville , Virginia and what it was and what it represented in the wine world then? To me the wine world was Washington D.C. I lived and breathed the District Of Columbia back then : I still do for the most part and am proud of my long-standing, continuous relationship with this town our capitol of the United States. Put me in capitols : Paris and now Washington D.C. I seem to gravitate to them somehow.
So I would stand there by you Spencer and you would make me have to expand my horizons and frontiers and perceptions and knowledge. Here you were somewhere in Virginia bringing us some pretty extraordinary wines and that was impressive as was your height, your smile and your gait. You broadened me and for that I thank you.
Now years later my daughter has graduated from U.V.A. and I have been there many times to visit her and the town and I know that other wholesalers like Simon 'N Cellars and Margaux-Janisson Selections and many others are located there as well. I also know all of them even though I have never visited one of them at their warehouses.
So the other day in early September I did a " Big Theme " Wine-Tasting featuring the wines of Morgan Hartman a dear friend of Vine Connections and Nick Stacey of WEST CAPE HOWE in Denmark, western Australia. I invited both of them to come over for dinner along with Morgan's sister Molly and Molly's boyfriend. Unfortunately Nick was not available at the last minute but the others were and so with my wife and my son we proceeded to have a wonderful dinner here in northern Virginia.
Your magnum of the Proprietor Selected SPECIAL CUVEE Elizabeth Spencer Grenache , Mendocino County Vintage 2006 44 Barrels ( produced and bottled by Elizabeth Spencer Wines , Ukiah, California www.elizabethspencerwines.com, fax : 707-963-1822, alc. 14.3 by volume ) was the first wine that I opened for my guests as they gathered closely in the kitchen with the appetisers and I went outside to grill the steaks that I had just bought at the Brookville supermarket a couple of storefronts down from Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel:202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com and now on Facebook at : clevelandparkwines&spirits, too ).
It says Grenache on the label, 2006 and of course once that I tried it and now that I think back on it - tasting it with my friends and family - I wonder : " was it 100% Grenache and if not, what was blended into it - the rest of the 15%? ".
The wine challenged me in many ways and I kept returning to it taste after taste to see where it would go, what it would become - especially what would it become on my palate at this particular time and moment?
The color was beautiful and you could see through it's transparency and admittance of light from our ceiling lights. I liked that, I was trying it quickly on for size, fit and feel and I was trying to find my " perfect " connection with it and was struggling here a bit. I thought that it needed food, the right food : what would/could that be? What do you recommend to eat with it Elizabeth?
Mood is such an important factor in trying wine and I was distracted cooking the meal for everyone. I was outside at our grill making sure that I did not overcook our good steaks on our deck. My attention was split as a result.
Everyone seemed to really like it and the bottle was emptied before everyone left to go home so there was none left for me to try the next day. Too bad, I would have loved that : I always want to see what happens to a wine as it opens gracefully?
What wood did you age it in Elizabeth : French or American or Slovenian oak? Was it Slovenian and in larger barrels like they do in Italy sometimes?
The ELIZABETH SPENCER Grenache Vintage 2006 ( I know all this Elizabeth because I have the empty bottle sitting here by my side as I type. It's a beautiful olive-colored green and the lamp light looks great shining ever so warmly just now through it ) went alright with the steaks but I think that there is a perfect match or two for it and I would love to hear your thoughts on that , both you Elizabeth and Spencer.
In late August I drank from a regular bottle some of the ELIZABETH SPENCER Chardonnay and I warmed to that immediately. Funny, I would have in my mind thought that the opposite would have happened : that I would have warmed immediately to the Grenache and not to the Chardonnay. That's why it is always a good idea to have an open mind with just about anything. So often I am completely wrong and humbled when I bring preconceived ideas with me to any topic or subject or table. I try as hard as I possibly can not to anymore that I have to.
I will ask Arielle more about the Chardonnay and order some of that to sell at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits. I want to carry and sell at least one of your wines in December, 2010 before we end the year. Any suggestions from what Country Vintners currently has for me to buy this week Elizabeth and Spencer? Let me know.
Cheers and thanks again and next time around I hope to see you. You are welcome anytime to come visit me at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits and if you ever want to end your day at the store doing an in-store wine-tasting of your wines I would love that.
That's what we do at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits : we sell the wines themselves and what's inside the bottle as well as the wine-makers and wine owners and not the points and the scores and all the artificial hype and buzz that is created to sell them. It's hard work, it's the old-fashioned way of selling : I love it even though I know I lose sales from time to time by not promoting the scores. So shoot me : I'm in no misery now though.
Take care and until our paths next cross.
What do you now say Spencer about Bob Parker, Jr. now after all these years and so much has passed and changed.
It's a brave new world today, isn't it?!? TONY
P.S. How was the dinner anyway that I missed? Did they match the right foods with the right wines? Were you pleased?
I will include a picture or two of the bottle when I get to work tomorrow and start my week as I am off on Sundays and Mondays. Until then enjoy this mini-novella of mine. I hope you do enjoy the way I weave together the past with the present as there could be no present without a past and so often we forget that entirely.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment