I just stumbled upon these two excellent pictures of our customers Mark and Gay and Ronnie Miller our sales rep for Robert ( Bobby Kacher, I've known Bobby now for more than twenty-five years! Time flies!! ) Kacher wine selections which are primarily French though he has now sold both one " Kiwi " New Zealand wine ( Craig , my rep earlier brought him to our store, the owner that is ) and one Portuguese wine ( QUINTA D'ALQUEVE, Alentejano - we've currently been selling both the " Ancestral " 200 ON SALE for $9.99 and the 2003 Syrah/Touriga Nacional, too ON SALE for $24.99 ).
Anyway, these are excellent pictures of these three in a moment of total relaxation it appears. How rare and wonderful is that?!?
Ronnie I credit for keeping Bobby's wines alive and well at Cleveland Park because he always brings me the owners and the winemakers as they visit Washington D.C. I get to meet and taste their wines with them and I also often get a chance to have them taste their wines with our customers. Thus they become " family " for me here at Cleveland Park and I always try and remember them first as I order because they have at least been in the store and that's a personal connection that , for me is real and tangible and goes way beyond and counts for so much more to me than the abstractions of points and scores and hype.
Any hype that I want o create or convey is real and happening for us and our customers at the store at any particular moment. That moment, too can be tangible and real for our customers that might someday go visit these parts of the world where these excellent wines are being made.
Gay and Mark have been wonderful customers and friends now over the years. I've been at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008, sales@clevelandparkwine.com, www.clevelandparkwine.com Tel : 202-363-4265 ) now since April of 2000 - eight glorious years and how they have opened, bloomed, changed, morphed, expanded, broadened, flown, and revealed so many different people and experiences and wines of all colors and from all the corners, nooks and crannies of this amazing world!
Both Mark and Gay have embraced our store and really added to it in so many ways. They came at first each on their own and then together. I had to win you over slowly Mark by tasting you on many things. You came together once when rep Todd Ruby was actually at the store tasting me on a selection of many of his excellent French and Italian wines and you tasted along and bought. I remember you bought some of Todd's excellent Vouvray for example ; perhaps even his Muscadet. I know that you bought some of his French Rhone reds as well. It's been awhile for me Mark and I cannot remember. Perhaps you still have a bottle or two and can refresh my memory. I know that ( you told me once ) that you put a " T " by the wines that I sell you so that you will remember who you bought them from ) if you have any left you can tell me. They are probably long-gone and enjoyed. You did repeat at least on one or more of these wines since. Anyway, that was a great turning-point for us.
Gay, I;ll never forget those incredible Spanish Rioja Baron D'Ona's that you bought and enjoyed. They were all ON SALE and fabulous values. You bought cases from us when we opened a bottle and shared it one evening in the store with our customers.
Anyway, enjoy these two photos that have prompted all this just now from me on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 here at home in northern Virginia. Cheers, Happy New Year 2009 ! TONY
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