I may still have the interview that I did with Steven Spurrier way back when in my early adult Paris-formative years having just graduated from college with an English major and having edited both the school yearbook as well as the School newspaper and spent many evening in a creaky old Biology building painting with oils my rendition of a color picture of two black men while listening to classical music - mostly Beethoven's 9th. Those were the days of delving deep into the void-the space-the inner Anthony Quinn that needed to be fleshed-out and revealed, made acquainted with and acknowledged at least to some level of real consciousness.
Wow, daunting tasks that we all face : and here I was facing them in Paris , France in the early seventies with my family on the Avenue Paul Doumer as my parents wanted to live in our own apartment and not in a group of apartments that were reserved across from Saint Cloud for the American Embassy personnel. Wow Dad, you were a bit of a visionary/rebel back then and I need to thank you for that now as I clearly benefited from this experience myself being in Paris.
As I have already written on one of my previous blogs here I was able I believe to take the very first wine class offered by Steven Spurrier's Caves De La Madeleine- Academie du Vin. Both were side-by-side and I got to know them both quite well.
I remember vividly my first couple of times walking into the Caves Du La Madeleine wine shop from the back and walking into it : a rectangular space I recall that was filled with the most intimidating selection of wines ever - at least to me. I still have both labels and cards and sheets and catalogues from the Caves De La Madeleine here somewhere in all my artistic mess of an organized-thoroughly not art space of mine filled to the brim with meaningful and of-the-most-importance memorabilia of mine. Ohhhhhh, how I love and treasure it- ohhhhhh, what a bordello it all is!!!! I was an English major, I do love the dramatic and the emphatic and the exclamation point : I do declare!!!!!
I did interview at one point Steven Spurrier in his small office above either the Caves De La Madeleine and/or the Academie Du Vin. Which it was I cannot remember anymore. It's been too long : my mind was filled with too many various things at that point which included art and etching, learning French, falling head-over-heels-in-love with pretty much everything French which included art and culture and, theatre, opera, wine, music, architecture, movies, quartiers, parks and museums like the Marmottan, boulevards and fancy and dive restaurants, fountains like the Place De La Concorde, fashion like that of my British gay friend Paul De Auth, cooking like that of my American gay friend Steven Schumaker, and much, much more like drawing in the classes of the Beaux Arts ( with live seated nude models, and moving nude models - all before being asked to leave as I was not actually enrolled and supposed to be doing any of this. Oops : I was a bad boy at times.
So, here I am now years later at home here in my back yard on our large wooden deck marveling at the glorious sunshine that was able to peak it's head from the clouds for brief moments at a time before being replaced by the lush-thick carpets of rolling-meandering-whimsical-seeming white clouds on Sunday, October 3rd, 2010 at 2-3 PM on a clear blue skies, cool and lovely autumn afternoon. I love being outside : I love being aware of the beauty of nature and of the life all around.
I was reading Tom Shroder's article " Uncorked " in the Sunday Washington Post newspaper's magazine of today ( Sunday, October 3rd, 2010 ) and stopping from paragraph to paragraph almost to soak in it's meaning as I soaked up that fleeting sunshine I just mentioned in the previous paragraph. I kept thinking of what Tom was writing about, wondering why he had not also consulted someone in the wine retail shop business for guidance as well as a wine sommelier? This bothers me greatly as the whole profession of wine shop retail wine-consultants seems to be ignored and passed over almost always for those in restaurants? Am I imagining this? Am I crazy? Do I need to apologize immediately for making such a pat and blanket-uniform statement with no validity whatsoever?!? Maybe, but my gut tells me " no " and so I will go with that for now and ask for an answers to my question. Feel free, there's a comment section at the end of each blog and so feel free to weigh-in with whatever observations that you may have.
Don't get me wrong : I have no beef with restaurants and wine personalities and sommeliers that are in the restaurants : I just want to see a greater balance of opinions asked for and generated from both retail shops and restaurant personnel.
Tom, I enjoyed very much your article " Uncorked " and found it quite enlightening. Bravo, really. My other observation is why you took Kathy Morgan to a Wegmans instead of an actual store that is completely devoted to wine and not simply as Wegmans is including wine in their huge arsenal of trying to be everything to everyone? Don't you think that a store that is completely devoted to wine and spirits can do an equally good job as Wegmans if not better? The Wine shops in both Washington D.C. and in Virginia have been around longer and this is their whole livelihood. Don't you think it is because of their great job that behemoth operations like Wegmens can even come around and do their jobs thanks to the efforts of all the excellent wine stores that came before them?
Do you think Wegmans could have done their job and sold as much wine without piggybacking off the time and effort and years of work that was done for them before they even arrived from New York on our scene? I don't think so.
My two experiences at Wegmans in this same downstairs space that you walked with Kathy Morgan were quite disappointing. I went once by myself and introduced myself after being approached by someone asking me if I needed any help. That was good : on my first visit I was approached and spoken to : on my second both my wife and I were completely ignored by the one lonely sales person that stayed fixed to their desk and chair area with one sole cashier. We walked the aisles for ten-fifteen minutes and were never acknowledged with a nod, greeted with a " hello ", spoken to, asked if we needed any help - nothing at all on this second visit. Unacceptable, pour salesmanship, pour business, inexcusable under any circumstances : room for dismissal and being fired on the spot from my humble retail wine- business experience over the last thirty years.
So Tom , you could have gone to Arrow Wines, Cecile's Wines in northern Virginia as well as Rick's and many more. You could have come into Washington D.C. your old Washington Post stomping grounds and gone to Continental Liquors, Schneider's Of Capitol Hill, Bells, Burka's Fine Wines, Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits, Chevy Chase Fine Wines, Circle Fine Wines, Wide World Of Wines, Addy Bassin's- Mac Arthur Beverages, Calvert Woodley and many more. Yet you chose Wegmans because I suppose it is so beautiful and offers such a lovely space within which to shop? I always say myself that if places like Wegmans and Whole Foods cannot sell a bottle of wine then they must be brain dead because their spaces are so beautiful and filled with just about anything that anyone could ever want - more than anyone would ever need to buy.
Of the bunch, by the way, the one and only one I really recommend is Trader Joe's. From this humble retail wine experience of mine I would say that there you would have found everything that you were looking for to start and even more as that is where you buy your Two Buck Chuck or did in the beginning. You should have given them a greater chance as it was they that have saved you so much money on wines over the years and for the money they cannot be beat : that's value in a nutshell!
The one line in the article that I loved of your Tom ( you always have one in each article that I read of yours ) was : "Besides, I suspected that much of the hype about wine was pure pretension. Just as I had managed to find perfectly fitting Levis for $13 at Target, I'd also discovered a drinkable bottle of wine for less than $4 at the Trader Joe's grocery chain. By the way, you should check out both the $5.49 bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon that Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits sells of both the MARCUS JAMES ( Argentina ) and the NIGHT HARVEST ( California ). They both can be enjoyed quite well without adding both crushed ice and fruit juice to make sangria wine. I think that the MARCUS JAMES would impress you now the most of the two.
But hey, this was an article about my early days knowing Steven Spurrier in Paris, France back in the mid to early seventies. As I said I took his first wine course as a gift from my mother and father to celebrate my twenty-first birthday. I had been learning about wine already with my father with our local-weekly excursions to the many Nicolas stores on pretty much every third block or so. I discovered Muscadet and Corbieres and Sauvignons, Madiran reds, Bordeaux and Burgundy, Chignin, Gamays, roses of Corbieres and many more wines with my father at these local quartier Nicolas wine stores. How do I know and remember all of this ? I do because I still have the labels that I painstakingly soaked and scraped off the wine bottles back on the Avenue Paul Doumer so many years ago. I'm glad I did : that also tells a story.
I don't remember which came first : I think it was buying wines at the Caves De La Madeleine before taking that first wine course at the Academie Du Vin. The class by the way was taught by two excellent Americans : Patricia Gallagher ( now a chef-teacher at the Cordon Bleu - is this correct? ) and journalist and writer John Winroth ( Funny, back in the U.S. so many years alter I would get letters from my dad that included clippings of articles that John Winroth would write and have published here in the U.S.? I think so. I still have the articles somewhere ) . They were both lovely ( very nice to me and always made me feel welcome and at ease ) and I did appreciate greatly this most fun and exciting wine trail-blazer wine-beginning for me that started with a wine from Jura as I still recall that set the stage ever so alive and wonderfully magical and unknown and daring and regional and indigenous for me so long ago.
I was the youngest member of this small group of tasters that was much more opinionated and knowledgeable than I was. They were astounded I believe when I would ask my questions as how was it possible that I did not already know this and that and why or where that was and when it happened?!? Oh well, I had enough self-presence to not be intimidated by them all and I'd ask away.
Sometimes we would all see Steven. He did not conduct the classes but he would descend and be involved from time-to-time. We met, we exchanged kind words and we always had brief but very friendly, cordial exchanges and so I always had - still do - a very good opinion of him.
This was a period when I had graduated from my alma mater Randolph-Macon college in Ashland, Virginia ( student body of one thousand that had just gone co-ed perhaps two-three years before my arrival. Susie Lykes told me about it and so off I applied and was accepted and went. I would in these four years of college return to be with my family for the summers ( I'd work at the American Embassy just off the Place De La Concorde and take some of those hard-earned dollars and turn them into French francs at the exchange rate of four or so francs to each dollar and then go and see Steven and his clerks ( there was one particular American clerk-salesperson from Colorado, oh : what was his name?!? Argh, can't remember now : he was helpful for the most part even though even now I still have a nagging feeling -memory that he was always talking down to me and perhaps a bit annoyed/put out by me? That was so long ago.
Anyway, this was a period of me asking those big questions of what was I going to become/do with myself/what direction would I go in next? So many big questions : so many possibilities. I decided at some point that I could write about Steven Spurrier and publish my interview. I reasoned that that would be a great start and something perhaps a bit novel and cutting-edge and pertinent as I was right there at the right place at the right time and that the American public would want to discover Steven as I had and still was? Yes, it was a good, solid idea and so I screwed up my nerve and asked him if I could interview him and amazingly-enough he said : yes " and so we set a time and I showed up and we spoke in his office for at least an hour or so at least once if not twice. I can't remember all the details it has been so long ago.
What I am amazed at is that he said " yes " to my request to interview him. Thanks Steven for saying " yes". I thank you now as I am sure that I thanked you then.
And so here and now I am finally publishing and entering the memory of that time that we passed in your office at the Caves De La Madeliene so many years ago back in the seventies perhaps it was 1972-74? I will have to look into this further. It was well before the ground-breaking California Versus French Wines Wine-Tasting back in 1976 : I do know that.
You were polite and gracious and welcoming and kind, gentle : a complete gentleman as you always were. Thank you for that as well. We spoke of your Caves De La Madeleine and the classes and your inspiration for all the many wonderful French country wines. I know I had questions written down in advance and I had to write quickly your responses. I remember all of that. It was all without any help from anything mechanical except a basic pen and pad of paper. Just us across from one another. It was a bit daunting for me at first and yet you always gave me plenty of room to maneuver and ask my my questions. Thank you again.
I hope someday to find this actual interview and to transcribe it here. I hope that I still do have it somewhere. If I am lucky I still do and so I will begin to search for it now in the hopes that I did not really misplace it or throw it away by accident as I did move fairly frequently between places.
What I also recollect is that years later I went to the Vin Expo with my friend and work colleague Philippe Mellot ( read my recent blog on D& M Imports as Philippe was the " M " in D&M Imports ) and I bumped into Steven Spurrier there and it was like two old friends seeing each other again after so many years. He saw me, smiled and came right up to me without any reservations or anything. The exchange was one that was warm and sincere and again I will never forget that. Thanks Steven for that, too.
So, I think this was the majority of what I wanted to share with you all here today. I think I have connected a fair number of the disparate and far-off/near memories and observations and recollections where one helps another to materialize just a wee bit more for me each and every time that I grapple with it all.
I'm glad that I have these memories. Steven, the next time that we meet I want to do some quick portrait sketches of you as I like doing those a lot and giving them to my friends and wine-makers and wine owners, reps in the business, customers, excetera. I still am very much a practicing artist and I always bring my artistic outlook and background to each and every moment that I live and thrive and absorb as completely as possible as I may never ever get such an opportunity/experience as this exact memorable-enriching one... just like in the past - so many amazing moments as that time that we both sat together in the quiet of your office and I asked you some questions about yourself, your dreams, your aspirations-goals-wants-plans-visions-wines ... incredible, really. Glad I brought it all back to the surface of my consciousness just now.
Do you remember it Steven? I hope that you do. Cheers to you and until we next meet. Let's drink a good bottle of wine together. How about a bottle of that great LEGRAS Brut Integral N.V. champagne that I used to buy from you for around 50-55 francs back then in the early seventies in Paris, France? What does it run now Steven? Is it still amazing? I'd really like to try some once again but do not know whom to buy it from anymore. TONY
P.S. I will add to this I am sure with more observations and some pictures, too.
I still have the blue drawing that I started of the Caves De La Madeleine and Academie Du Vin , sitting across the alley way from them both and looking at them as I drew both back in Paris, France at this very same time. When I look at this sketch and take pictures of it to include here I will also note the date as that was the time that all of this was happening for me and when I was the most inspired and fired and stirred by it all.
Thanks again Steven, Patricia and John. John, your name may be spelled Jon and not John. I will check this, too as memory is faint on this. Sorry.
I learned a lot in this first-ever wine-class of mine with you three and it gave me the strength and the courage to drive from Ashland, Virginia up to the wilds of Washington D.C. to buy some wines to take back to Randolph-Macon College to offer my few wine-education classes. Funny, I was talking to Ed a brother-in-the-bond Phi Delt the other day over the phone and he reminded that he was one of the people to take one of these classes. Amazing, Ed, Jim, Patty, Margaret, Martha, Mary Anne and who else? Boy were those classes fun but rudimentary as I covered both France and California : Inglenook, B.V., some Bordeaux red and more. I still have some of the labels as I scraped and soaked those labels off, too along with all the others from The Caves De La Madeleine and Nicolas. Good thing, memories fade and it's hard to recall it all.
My biggest sadness in it all is that I did not take more pictures of all of this. That's too bad as a picture really does bring it all together for later fun, recollection and extension and joining together of so many fragments and pieces of this wonderful puzzle called life.
A la prochaine fois mes amis, je vous embrasse tres fort tous!
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