Michael Martini Of LOUIS MARTINI Winery, Tasting Here In Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits With Our Customers In 2006

     It's always fun to get someone like Michael Martini here in the store to taste with customers. This was sometime in 2006 ; I will find the paperwork and include that shortly.

      I had met his father years back when I worked for Forman Brothers distributors back in the mid 1990's - Louis Martini when he came to do a seminar tasting for the salespeople of Forman Brothers. I enjoyed meeting him : gentle, soft-spoken, like a gentle giant moving ever so slowly but thoughtfully and with definite knowledge and purpose.

     I asked him how long a Zinfandel could age and he responded fairly quickly that a good one could easily last twenty years or more. He should know. LOUIS MARTINI winery has been making really great wines at great values for more than forty years I believe.

     I remember drinking a bottle of the 1968 Merlot I believe, or it might have been Cabernet Sauvignon. It tasted like it had been made the day before and I drank it sometime I think in the mid 90's. Wow, it was stunning, like the fairest of the fairest California sunshine's through grapes that tasted of bright, no-bite, creamy pure vibrant red cherry/berry/strawberry flavors - unbelievably impressive for so much bottle age. BRAVO to you all for this delicious red California wine!

     When Michael Martini came to taste this go-round in 2006 sometime we decided to taste both the Napa and the Sonoma bottlings of the Cabernet Sauvignon as well as one or two of the smaller-batch, more expensive Zinfandel that tasted like a great old Italian wine as well as  a Cabernet Sauvignon. I will have to find my notes, it's been almost three years since the tasting and memory fails me now. I do, however want to share these pictures with you all as they are quite interesting.

     I spoke some with Michael : never enough as I have to share the winemakers / owners with our customers. I did find out from Michael though that he plays in his own rock band along with someone from FERRARI-CARANO and another winery which the name escapes me now. I liked that quite a bit and would love to hear your music Michael. I can't remember if you told me you were the singer?

     Anyway, the tasting was another big success. We had a number of our favorite customers stop by to taste with you like Ian, Mary-Shannon, Margaret, John and more. Both the two Cabs : Napa and Sonoma sold well. We actually sold out of the Sonoma first because it is such an unbelievable value for all you Cabernet Sauvignon lovers out there : and it's balanced and focused and a great match for food with the alcohols all in check so as mot to overpower either the wine or the food.

     Here are the pictures. I will add more later of the details, time, vintages, prices, etcetera. We always continue to sell LOUIS MARTINI Cabernet Sauvignon here at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington D.C. 20008, sales@clevelandparkwine.com   www.clevelandparkwine.com  Tel : 202-363-4265 ).

     It's 7:55PM now on Friday evening here at the store in our nation's capitol, January 2nd, 2009. Happy New Year to everyone. Cheers,   TONY

David Mirassou Of MIRASSOU Winery, CA. Visits Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits Wed. Nov. 16th ( 1- 2:30 PM ) At Tastes Our Customers/Signs Bottles

It was great to finally meet someone from MIRASSOU Winery, one of California's oldest wineries still run by the family that started it. We had David Mirassou the winemaker here himself to taste his family's " new " releases of Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Riesling , Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir - ALL selling for the very reasonable price of $10 a bottle. Bill our Gallo rep showed up an hour before the tasting and helped me set up the area around our round tasting table just before David Mirassou and Mike McNally showed up. Without Bill's help it would have been a real dash to the last second and because of him it went so much more smoothly.

We have at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 2008 Tel : 202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ) been selling the Chardonnay for a number of years already quite successfully. As I told David when I met him I remember years ago buying from Gordon Palmateer. Jr ( their rep then through International Distributors was it ?!? ) the white burgundy that they promoted and made famous.

David confessed that they simply had to give the whit burgundy up because they could not produce enough of it with Gallo having just recently bought them. We talked frankly about their relationship with Gallo, too.

David struck me as a very savvy business man. He was open and direct and ready to respond promptly and with conviction. He was a no-nonsense type of guy, driven, pleasing when selling and introducing himself, seizing upon any opportunity to sell/taste/promote his winery. He was proactive and readily said who he was. I liked this frankness and lack of holding back.

I had less to do because he was so good at engaging people in conversation and asking them to taste his family's wines. Unfortunately it was lunchtime and a number of our customers then were more interested in buying beer than wine. Oh well, together we persevered and sold some bottles of wine.

David stayed just long enough to leave his imprint. Mike Martin than I work with was quite impressed with David's 2007 Pinot Noir as I was. I had remarked upon this earlier. David signed many of his bottles and we said our " good-byes ". I'm sorry David that you had not come later when you could have gotten a munch better idea of the job that we do and could have done on the spot with you.

I realize that the job continues way after the end of any of our tastings. We start the job then and the effects trickle down and spread-out over a large expanse of time afterwards. This was the case with MIRASSOU : we have since sold many cases of MIRASSOU in part thanks to the Gallo team and to David himself. In case you read this David know that we ordered more of your wine because for $10 a bottle Mike and I are happy to recommend it to our customers. And, with the golden sun it's a really positive and powerful label that attracts one to it instinctively like the moth to the flame.

I am thankful as I type this just four days before Thanksgiving that I said : " yes " to Mike McNally when he called me and proposed this tasting to us at Cleveland Park. I am thankful that though it was not an especially good time that we could and did make the most of it. I am thankful that Mike called and that David MIRASSOU was free to spend some time with us. I am thankful to have met you David. I am thankful that we will all be hopefully enjoying a Thanksgiving meal soon and that we may enjoy some MIRASSOU wines with our meal, especially the 2007 Pinot Noir that would be ideal, American and great value-for-taste, too. It's so lush and ripe and like red grapes filled completely with warming, soothing California sunshine! Yes!!!!

Mike and I have a lot of American wines to recommend for Thanksgiving and we are happy to have them, including wines from Maryland, Virginia, New York, and Ohio - all wines that we featured earlier this month in our " Big-Theme " American wine-tasting. MIRASSOU was not part of this tasting but has joined the ranks in a big way because of it's easy-approachability with each wine and value, too.

There are many more pictures to follow. I will include three tonight ( Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 8:58 PM at home ) and then more tomorrow. I love the blazing light cadmium yellow sun on the labels of these bottles : great label design.

For more technical information about MIRASSOU go to: www.mirassou.com 1-888-mirassou. David Mirassou is a sixth-generation of the family. In praise of Gall winery I applaude them for helping some of these wonderful, original wineries like MIRASSOU and LOUIS MARTINI with cash-infusions so that they can continue to offer theri excellent wines at really competative prices. On another personal note as a wine-educator and someone who has sold and educated people in Washington D.C. for the last thirty years lamost I'd like to see gallo help more California wineries and spend less time developing wines in other parts of the world like France and South Africa: and now Argentina with the ALAMOS brand. That's just me of course. Anyone else share this point-of-view?

This last Wednesday Bill came to Cleveland Park to get his weekly order and we spoke about this tasting. I told him how pleased we were to have hosted David Mirassou here and that we were really happy to be selling more MIRASSOU wines. I told him that I had praised his efforts at helping us to set up before the tasting. Thanks again Bill.

I asked him if anyone had mentioned this to him later? He smiled and did not really answer my question telling me that he had not. That's bothersome to me if so. One's hard efforts should always be acknowledged. That's my small beef of the moment. It takes so little to say " thanks " even though we are all under a whole lot of pressure to produce.

Business has become too much of a box business : sell! sell! sell! Get more boxes/cases of wines into the stores, restaurants, hotels, convention centers, etcetera. I get it, but it's only part of the equation as far as I am concerned. We're still human and not machines. Not yet, anyway.

Enjoy, cheers and Happy Holidays and Thanksgiving to one and to all. Even in these truly trying times I believe that most all of us have things to be thankful for. Take time to realize what those things may be and feel better. TONY