It was a really pleasant surprise to finally meet Andrea the young lady behind the
DOMAINE MERCOURI Greek red dry blend that I have always loved. That's been ever since I first discovered it when
Sotiris Bafitis saw the white in our store at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits on one of his very first calls to sell us wine at the store.
He did not represent the
DOMAINE MERCOURI but he sure knew it's history and he could not say enough about it's property and vineyards as well as about it's history and superb quality. I told him how much I enjoyed then the complexity of the white on the shelf that already had a few years of bottle age. I was surprised to see how well it showed with all this bottle age and told
Sotiris that I thought it was a superb wine to enjoy at it's present state of development with food and not by itself. It had too much flavor and taste and needed the counterpoint that a good meal would provide.
Anyway Jody
Jackman our
Winebow rep I believe brought Andrea
Englisis ( Vice President of
Athenee Importers & Distributors, LTD P.O. box 2039
Hempstead , NY 11551 Tel : ( 516 ) 505-4800 Fax : ( 516 - 505-4876 www.atheneeimporters.com ) to Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( Tel : 202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com 3423 Conn. Ave. N.W. Wash. D.C. 2008 ) to try some of her company's new releases. This was on August 4
th, 2005. How time flies! It really seems almost just like yesterday or a few weeks ago and not three years and three months ago!
I always ask everyone to write a page in our guest book before they leave. While Andrea was writing I took these pictures. I wish that I had also taken pictures of the other bottles that they tasted me on as memory fades easily away. This is what Andrea wrote : " Dear Tony, It was great to meet you and learn about your store and your philosophy. I look forward to working with you and spreading the good cheer about Greek wines !! Best wishes , " Andrea
Englisis.
In all fairness to Andrea I was a bit hard on her as I viewed her as someone descending from New Your City to invade the D.C. area
where Sotiris Bafitis had worked so hard to already " spread the good cheer about Greek wines ". I said that my first allegiance was to those wines of
Sotiris' but that
because she was working with Jody
Jackman whom we really think the world of that we would fit a couple of her wines into our store : i.e. the
Commanderie and the red 2003
Domaine MERCOURI.
Jody did in fact come and taste both of these wines as well as others on at least three various in-store wine-tasting at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits since Andrea's visit and they have always shown and sold well to our customers.
Since Andrea's visit I am also sorry to say that
Sotiris' Greek import company ( Vina Mediteranaean ) has unfortunately gone out of business and so we can no longer purchase wines through him. Some have been picked-up by others companies such as
ATHENEE and so there is a continuity/fluidity and a history still at Cleveland Park with these excellent wines as well as many other fine Greek wines.
Sorry Andrea that I was so rough on you on your first visit. You handled yourself really quite well though I could sense and feel the fire and the fight in both your eyes and your stance as you readied yourself for whatever next I might throw out there to see how you would respond. I have always been a bit more than just a bit of a devil's advocate and I have paid the price for this as it has not always endeared me to those that have not appreciated or seen eye-to-eye with me. Oh well, is that why you have not returned to see us in more than three year's now Andrea? You must come sometime and we should drink some more of both the
DOMAINE MERCOURI red and white. Is there also a rose?
Questions! Questions! I have so many. Anyway, we continue to always sell lots of Greek wines at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits. You see they are a tradition in our store that was started years before me by my Greek predecessor Peter
Anastopolos and now carried on by me. I must sell them, too , and not just because of their excellent qualities alone.
Let me explain : my name is Anthony Quinn - like the famous actor. I loved Anthony Quinn in the
movei "
Zorba the Greek ". It was filmed in black and white so many years ago and the last time I really watched it in it's entirety was back in the mid seventies in Paris, France with my then-girlfriend-now-wife at the cinema international of
Trocadero. Wow, it was powerful and still is! I loved how Anthony Quinn in the last few moments of the movie when his grand plans have all been but dashed still has the love and the affection and energy to teach his English poet/professor/benefactor how to dance on the white Greek sands as the sun sets! I was hooked then and there! Their smiles and their affection for one another was cemented as for-always then and there and I'll bet if the film had continued that they would have still been there for one another.
So you see, though Anthony Quinn was Mexican and I am Irish I still must sell Greek wines because of this and so much more! We have had a lovely customer, too named Joan that has worked with
Sotiris that visits regularly and we always speak of things Greek and so much more including
Sotiris!
Then there are all of our customers that come and are searching for Greek wines and are always pleased and sometimes thrilled to see that we always offer a
selection and not just one or two. We could always buy more, we never really have enough. Our customer David whom is Greek also likes to always give his friends Greek wines even though he himself does not drink. Then there is Gaby and Lane that love the small bottles of Retsina that we must always have on hand because it just goes so well with certain dishes that they like to enjoy every now and then. It's really quite simple and yet quite complicated this fine web of individuals and their stories that they bring each week to us in search of Greek. We don't mind, we rather like it actually. That's life : real life as it is meant to be and we are there to
facilitate that it always remain this way.
Here are the pictures I took on this day when I tried a series with this young brunette who I later discovered was the owner with her family of the New York import company of these very fine wines which also included another favorite of mine :
KEO St. JOHN
COMMANDERIE'S after-dinner liqueur- like a cross for me between a grand cream Muscat Spanish sherry and an elegant southern French Rhone Muscat
Beaumes-
de-
Venise with splashes of so many other exciting flavors as perhaps you might get with an accent
od Malvasia grapes?!?
Cheers Andrea, Come back and see us again. You now represent the future of Greek wines in our country. It's up to you and the young people like yourself with dedication and the desire to press forward and continue the great work of those before you. It's a day-by-day, store-by-store, restaurant-by-restaurant, hotel-by-hotel grind that keeps these excellent Greek wines in the minds and in front of the eyes of those buyers that today have the whole world to chose from right at their finger-tips and almost at their frony doors!
It's been way too long! Come and do an in-store tasting with our customers so that we may introduce you to some of them that can't get enough Greek wines !
It's Tuesday night at just past midnight ( 12:34 A.M. ) here at home on November 11th, 2008 as I type and edit these last few thoughts and stories before sending them out into that universe we call cyberspace. Enjoy! TONY
