I like very much this first picture above of Andres' face through the glass and the golden color of the sparkling Chardonnay ALMA NEGRA from Argentina.
To get to this other blog simply scroll down on this page and look to the right of the page where it says : View Complete Profile - click that and scroll down to where you see my other blogs and click on the chatart blog and it will be right there.
As you will see from these pictures that a number of them are quite artsy and hopefully with some new angles and perspectives. The same is true on the chatart blog. I hope you like both blogs.
I was helping this young lady here in the red dress while tasting and holding my camera in my right hand. I could not resist taking the pictures to see what I would get. The camera was resting on the rack and I snapped the shutter three or four times and I got these two provocative images of her mouth and the red dress in this first image and then the second which appears shortly of her smiling.
I wonder if she knew that I had taken these pictures? I hope that she will not mind : they are expressions of my artistic character let loose to run a bit wild in fulfilling it's expression. I like them : and yet this lady in red did not try the ALMA NEGRA. She just happened to be in the store at the same time. Fortuitous? Yes, I think so ...
I liked both very much the sparkling ALMA NEGRA Chardonnay as the ALMA NEGRA dry red. It does not say on the label what the blend is. They do this on purpose. But as I have said it is mostly a blend of Bonarda and some Cabernet Franc.
It opened slowly and continued to come more into focus and reveal more of all it's charms with time. It's more of a food wine in my opinion. The bubbly can be enjoyed all on it's own with or without food.
Jody Jackman our Winebow rep arrived to do her tasting ( Friday evening, October 9th, 2009 and since she sells the ALMA NEGRA wines it became almost like a private, intimate party of the five of us and I am sure people that passed by in the store wondered what was going on? I explained and we did have some of our customers try the ALMA NEGRA.
We have now sold the ALMA NEGRA sparkling wines at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel : 202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ) for at least the last two years if not a bit longer.
We have sold the two sparkling wines at different times and are currently out of both but will have some of the sparkling Chardonnay come back in a week or so.
I captured by accident something nice with all the parallel lines going from left to right and upward with the tilt of the wine glass, of Andres' face and with the light above. My good fortune.
Below I captured one of the many pictures with Andres speaking equally with his hands as with his spoken words.
Just like Andres is speaking with his hands above I am also trying hard to preserve a " moment " : our " moment " of this specific place and time and filled with things perhaps slightly orchestrated but mostly serendipitous, unexpected and delightful ... claro que si Senor et Senora ... es verdad mio amigo ... hasta luego ...
I love the deep golden colors and the distortion of the facial features and the light above of this picture.
Nelow, I love the way the glass and the bottle of sparkling ALMA NEGRA act like a pyramid and converge to the top where Andres' face is perched ? No, it's just where the eyes are led to ...
I like these next four or five pictures that follow below of everything seen through the Reidel champagne glass stemware that I drinking from and also using as the second filter to that of my Canon's lens. I liek the brightness, too of the ceiling lights at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits that provide a lot of light and contrast of the lights and the shadows.
These intense golden colors of the sparkling wine in the pictures above and below remind me of the deep color of the FALESCO " Ferentano " dry white from Lazio that is made with the Roschetto indigenous grape from this home area of Riccardo Cotarello, the owner of FALESCO. It's unoaked but seems to have some because of the thick, oily skins of the grape. We sell it now for a reduced price of around $25 a bottle and it sure is impressive. Kelly of Palena and I both discovered it at the same time three years or so ago at the Johhny On The Half Shell restaurant ( the old La Colline location across from Union Square ) where Riccardo Cotarella himself did a small seminar for a few lucky retailers and restauranteurs like ourselves. We both started singing it's praises pretty much immediately after that.
We spoke a lot about the Bonarda grape. It seems that Andres is even a bigger fan of it than I am and that pleased me no-end. I am sure that I was smiling broadly as he spoke of the history and the Argentinian love for this grape. I agree : it has many great expressions there in Argentina even though it came from Italy's region in the northwest of Italy in the Oltrepo Pavese region.
Conversation was brisk and very animated with lots of smiles and good cheer going between the five or six of us, depending on who was around at any given time around our tasting table as customers walked back and forth and business was good.
The elongation of the features above of the eyes and the mouth are incredible in the picture above.
In the picture above I am taking a picture of the champagne bottles on our shelves and on or in our cooler through the Reidel glass filled with bright golden sparkling Chardonnay ALMA NEGRA. Nice.
Look at the arc of the diver here in the tilted bottle of ALMA NEGRA sparkling wine and the tall, thin, sleek Reidel glass and the pose of both of Andres' hands. I love seeing the golden bubbly enter the glass and leave the darkened bottle. Ahhh, the promise of so many good things still to come ...
Enjoy this glass of ALMA NEGRA bubbly Jody because soon we will be starting our Friday evening for our store customers and featuring among other things Miriam's Tuscan Rosso di Montepulciano 2006 dry red ( $19.99 ) that is drinking so well just now. I don't think that it has ever been readier to drink and enjoy than now.
Above I told Andres that I wanted to take a picture of him with Jody Jackman and this is the pose/stance that he took immediately and he kept it going for me long enough to snap two good pictures with a beaming Jody.
Here Kelly of the Palena restaurant down the street from us is amused by something that she saw or heard Andres say or both.
I love this picture above ( it is one of two that I took ) of all of us holding this black t-shirt with the ALMA NEGRA white mask on it that was given to me by Andres. Thank you Andres, I will enjoy wearing it I promise you.
Kelly of Palena listens to Andres speak eloquently on the subjest of ALMA NEGRA, Argentina, Buenos Aires and the Bonarda grape.
WE were also doing a Peroni Italian beer tasting at the back of the store as you can see in these final two pictures that I have posted here.
I hope you enjoy these pictures and their various angles as I feel that they capture different levels of reality and perspective. I love how the faces bet distorted and broader often through the Reidel wine-tasting glasses.
What do you think : do you like these pictures of color and light and fractured and distorted objects and people through the Reidel wine glass stemware ?
1 comment:
Its taste is best paired with fish and chicken dishes.
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Paris Wine Tastings
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