This was absolutely a great event for me and I had a blast and enjoyed every moment as it unfolded for me from the first when I received my email from Angie Goff asking me if I would be interested in doing this segment on holiday party wines under $20 a bottle? I jumped at the chance of course and responded pretty much immediately that I would love to do it.
It's really quite an amazing set of circumstances and so I will relate them here quickly before telling you all what twenty-four wines I brought to the studio to talk about in three categories : 1 ) Wines In The Fridge, 2) Wines To Take To A Party , 3) Wines To Serve At Your Own Party : and all three categories including some wines that looked more expensive than they actually were.
Years ago at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits I met an American young woman teaching French and in a three female group ( her sister and herself and one other young woman ) called Betty. We would both speak in French and tell and listen to each other's stories back in the tasting room up the ramp and to the left. Those were some really fun and special times there at the wine-tasting station. Anyway I had not seen Amy ( Ziff, and have never met her sister Elizabeth ) since then and here she came into the store with her friend Anna Pagli. They were both with their backs to me looking at the wall of spirits and I noticed Amy's incredible dreadlocks. They fascinated me they were so bold and raw and authentic. I kept stealing glances at them.
Later in the Italian and French wine department Anna asked me a question about some Reserva LIBRANDI Ciro wine and if I had any and that started our conversation. I was looking there at them face-to-face and suddenly I realized that this might be the Amy that I had known so many years ago? I summoned my courage from my gut and told them that I thought that she might be the young woman I knew so many years ago in an all female rock group? They smiled and asked me the name of the female rock group? I said " Betty " of course and was right! Well, that all played a big roll in my getting to be on NBC4 Universal yesterday, Saturday morning at 9AM November 26th talking about holiday party wines at under $20 a bottle.
It's such a small world after all. I love it, really I do. So to continue now with this story above. Anna Pagli brought her friend Katy Adams to Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits one evening and Anna wanted to know if I recognized her? I said I knew who she was and we were off all over again. I was introduced to Katie at our tasting table and I drew everyone around and closer and started to taste everyone on what I had there from that Saturday's tasting. It was late and I had lots of great wine left-overs which included some of the excellent MARCHEI DI BAROLO 2004 single-vineyard Barolos ( the Canubi was one of them - that Vince Grande had brought and left as a treat for me ) as earlier it was Cleveland Park Day ( Saturday, October 1st, 2011 - I have already written about this here at chatwine ). Vice had done a long Italian wine-tasting with his wines from around Italy. Thanks Vince : it was a great day and a great success even with the crappy gray and wet weather.
Katy liked how I worked my tasting table and included everyone and explained and entertained as I poured for everyone. She told me that I should be doing this on t.v. or on the radio and that she knew people and did this and coordinated and arranged for people to come together and work together. Sounds a whole like what I do? I liked hearing all this of course, very flattering to my very tired ears and so I brought out the 2004 single-vineyard Barolos from 2004 and together at the very end the three of us polished them off. But before that Katy with her big smile and golden locks started texting her friend Angie Goff and I watched her do this by my side. I had my trusty camera there and even took pictures of all of this while it was happening. She showed me as she talked and texted and I learned a whole lot about Katy and we bonded really quite quickly right there in a very short space of time with Anna mostly observing the two of us. What did you think of all of this Anna as it was unfolding before all of our eyes? Pretty remarkable / pretty special, right? I thought so, it really did surprise me and I was hoping and wondering and scratching my head all the time.
After we three closed the store down with Ravinder Sharma we headed our own ways and I did reach out to both Anna and to Katy. I became " friends " with both Anna and Amy ( and her sister Elizabeth Ziff of the group " Betty " ) and I emailed Katy and thanked her and exchanged emails with her. Small world, really and then about two-three months later I got this email last week from Angie Goff asking me if I wanted to be on their NBC4 Universal segment of holiday wines under $20? Wow, blew me away. I love it, really I do.
I still have all the twenty-four wines to add here but I think I will stop here and make this a Two Part Blog on chatwine and include the twenty-four wines in Part Two. This is Part One. I like it : the Before and the After.
Cheers to one and all : happy holidays 2011 to one and to all and thanks for everything that you all did to get me to NBC4 Universal yesterday at 9AM talking about holiday party wines costing under $0 a bottle where I included the traditional and the old world ( VALDIPIATTA Chianti Colli Senesi, $16.99 , vegan ( TARIQUET Cote dry white blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc ) and organic ( ALTAMANTA of Menzoza, Argentina, I spoke about the Natal Chardonnay of owner Andrej ) and biodynamic, sparkling wines from clear ( the two CANTINA MONTELEANA Prosecco and the " Annalisa " Moscato ), to pink( the LEO HILLINGER 100% Pinot Noir Austrian that supports breast cancer awareness ), and to reds ( the DREI DONA Dolce Lambrusco ), from dry to sweet, all over the world including the dry red Saperavi grape variety of Georgia, the popular grapes like Malbec that come from Cahors, France and I mentioned the CEDRE Malbec. It was amazing : only four to five minutes, clearly not enough time. But I hear that I got more time than most. Thanks Andrew for that. You all : Elaine, Chuck, Chris were a whole lot of fun to work with. More about that in Part Two. Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn
No comments:
Post a Comment