Brennan always brings some fun wines for Mike Martin and me to taste at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel : 202-363-4265 , sales@clevelandparkwine.com, www.clevelandparkwine.com ). This must have been back in late 2009 when Brennan stopped by with this fun " Bag of tricks " for us to taste and enjoy and often marvel over.
Brennan has a great selection of Italian wines which is the base of his family's selections that his father Michael Downey with his mother, Peggy got off the ground many years ago before Michael unfortunately passed away way too early for his time. We still miss Michael and are thrilled to work with Michael and Peggy's children now ( along with Peggy, of course ) : Brennan and Shannon Downey. Bill Mckenny is till with them as well as Guillaume from France that married Shannon. There are others, too but it remains a family-run/tightly-knit operation offering now excellent Italian as well as French wines ( some from Kermit Lynch and other small importers, too that do biodynamic wines ) as well as some excellent wines from Uruguay which we buy and promote along with those from Abel Sozza ( Uruguay Imports ).
Here Mike is texting someone and taking a quick message or two while Brennan reaches into his bag of " goodies and tricks " displayed in some of these pictures here.
We miss you Mike as it is now Sunday, February 7th, 2010 as I sit here at home in northern Virginia with our house and yard bathed in bright sunshine as we basically lay buried in a thick blanket of 30 inches of snow or so - blazing saddles here at home just enjoying the splendor of the outdoors and getting ready to celebrate personal events as well as watch the half-time of the Super Bowl with the Who playing : " Won't Get Fooled Again! " or other classics ...
On this trip Brennan had some excellent Saint Martin 2007 French Loire Valley Menetou Salon white from Kermit Lynch is it?; some Tosca Forte Sangiovese Toscano from owner Count Guichiardini of POPPIANO I believe, some TAMBASS Piemonte dry red Barbera is it from owner-wine-maker Giulio?: some TERRA _____ Nero D'Avola dry red Sicilian ( we have it in the store now and it was fun to taste again. It's got some nice earthy grip and mouth-feel that with a meal would really work well ) as well as others that I did not picture here in my photos. Oh well, this is the life of an artist as I am concerned with taking artsy photos as well as pictures of the labels of the wines for easy identification and detail later at times like these when I have to recollect what was tasted way back when ...
Sorry, I will have to finish the details here as soon as I am back at work and I promise I will. In the meantime it is Sunday here now at 1:39 Pm on a beautiful day and I am off upstairs to read some of my Julia Child book on her years in France with her husband Paul. I am enjoying that immensely, really I am. I am at the part where they may be moving from Marseilles, France to Germany? I am also inspired to use Julia's cooking book later tonight on some chicken breasts... I could use some of this Saint Martin 2007 just about now as I am still largely buried in here and have just earlier finished a whole lot of shoveling. Both my wife and daughter are out doing some more of that now while my son is down here in our basement now watching an old re-run of the popular t.v. show : " Will and Grace ". Earlier it was a " what if? " episode of the other very popular show " Friends " which I had never seen before .... Ahhhh, family life, nothing like it! Especially when one is off and at home and free to do whatever as there is no place to go even if one could drive their car on this - one of the biggest snow-storms ever here in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.
So, if you happen to see this know that it is very much in it's rough form now and that I will add to it shortly. In the meantime enjoy these pictures and the stories that they tell and the images and memories that they evoke all on their own. Cheers, TONY
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