Just this past Wednesday December 3rd , 2008 Tim, our local Washington Wholesalers rep to Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 2008 Tel : 202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ) came by the store with Lisa Simon the national sales rep for IRON HORSE wines and sparkling wines in California.
We hit it off almost immediately. I really enjoyed the four bubblies pretty much from the get-go. It was our day to see our reps and discuss orders with them. I had a line waiting but I also knew I had a special visitor and so I took a bit more time than I normally would to fully immerse myself in the IRON HORSE experience; and I am not sorry that I did.
Tonight we will be pouring the Classic Blue Label brut at our annual Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits December BUBBLY tasting. Lindsay Pike that works with Tim of Washington Wholesalers will be pouring the IRON HORSE Blue Label Classic. I liked all four of them last Wednesday. I will include more information on all of them a bit later. In the meantime I want to post these pictures with the blog this morning from home before rushing off to a very busy day at the store.
Claude Thibaut used to be the original bubbly/sparkling wine maker at IRON HORSE. I found this out when he came two years ago to sell me the JANISSON champagnes with his wife Pamela Margaux. Together they run an import company close by in Charlottesville, Virginia called Margaux Imports. They have both been at our store tasting their bubblies ( Claude also makes his own Virginia bubbly called THIBAUT-JANISSON that we currently sell for $29 along with the line of French JANISSON champagnes.
I got a lovely note awhile back ( was it 2006 or 2007? There's no date on it and I forget ) from family member Joy of IRON HORSE who was visiting Washington D.C. with her mother that was receiving an award from the Smithsonian Institution of Arts I believe. In the note Joy writes : " Dear Tony Thank you so much for your great support of my family's wines. I sincerely hope you will come visit us at Iron Horse soon & often.The best meal in Sonoma is at our house - Until then, all my thanks and best wishes - Joy. You have beautiful handwriting Joy. Thanks for the lovely note and invitation. I still have not been able to make it out to California but look forward to it someday.
It's funny how so many things interconnect. While Joy was visiting Washington with her mother Claude Thibaut came to visit. I told him how Joy was in Washington and all of a sudden the phone rings and it is for me. It's Joy on the other end calling from her hotel. She wanted to say she was sorry that she missed seeing me this trip. I passed the phone over to Claude shortly after and she and Claude were able to reconnect after all the years that he had been there and created for her wedding the " Wedding Cuvee : that is so tasty and famous ! Wow, talk about serendipitous moments that bring excitement and joy to us. This surely was one.
This is the kind of interactions that I treasure so much at our store. It's all about learning, sharing, experiencing and appreciating.
I really enjoyed taking these pictures. They are really more artsy and fun and not at all academic. They tell a very wonderful, more casual, more serendipitous ( of the moment ) story. They are more about pure joy and wonder and being caught-up in the flow of things a bit out of one's own control. Fun mostly I hope , and certainly memorable, too.
I am an artist after all and I hope I bring this element of me to the glass and bottle. I really like how I captured the broken reflections of facial expressions in the champagne flute. They are fun, odd, quirky and make me smile. I hope that you like them.
We also tasted the three still wines of two Chardonnays and one Pinot Noir. I enjoyed them but was much to much captivated and enthralled to pay the attention to them that they deserve. I almost think that they should be tasted on separate occasions because of this.
Thanks for this wonderful tasting last Wednesday guys! Happy Holidays to One and to All and come taste bubbly with us tonight at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits in our nation's capitol ! Cheers, be bubbly always, TONY
UPDATE : It's Thursday morning here at home at 7:47 AM in Virginia and it's drizzling outside and I still have to walk our dog before going to work.
It's Thursday, December 11th, 2008 the morning after our really successful BUBBLY-TASTING of around 45 different types from all over the world. The store was jam-packed and Bill announced : " Tony, you sure know how tot throw a party !" I liked that. It was hard to move there were so many people there and yet everyone coexisted in peace , young , middle-aged and older and there were lots of contented faces and smiles to go around several times over.
I got a quick chance to try a number of the bubblies and I have to say that the blue Classic label IRON HORSE held it' own and shone. Even in plastic cups you could tell the high level of quality that it spread over the surface of my palate, slowly, seeping-in ever so gently, lingering: I would have liked it a touch colder to really sing to me even more " sweet nothings " on my tongue but then I'm not complaining. So were no others complaining.
I heard several really positive comments, too about it over the course of the three hours. Thanks Lindsay for pouring it for us. We appreciate it. Tim, your visit was timely and I appreciate that, too.
I just reviewed this one last time and love how in the pictures with the bubbly in the glass that it changes the light ( the actual bright white lights above the store ) to a lovely golden, cream-bubbly-dream color that is relaxing, comforting, warm and overall irresistible! The second to the last photo may in fact be my favorite here. As you scroll down this blog it's the second to the last photo that you come to. There's a serene quality/peace to it - a contemplative mood to it. I like it. Those eyes, those lips ...
Thanks Lisa for doing such a good tasting here with me and being such a great sport, too. It was great meeting you and reconnecting with all the bubblies of IRON HORSE.Cheers, TONY
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