| Enjoying the Holidays?! |
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Hi all: I hope that you’ve been enjoying the holiday season and had a nice Christmas (if you celebrate it). I know that I have been lately as I keep saying Merry Christmas to my daughter each morning - which drives her a bit nuts but I’m too busy before the holiday to really enjoy it. However, I do on Christmas (always fun to enjoy drinking some of the wine I sell) and afterwards - so Merry Chrismtas and Happy New Year!
You may even be looking forward to a bit of a party for New Year’s and the first weekend of 2010 in which case continue enjoying this time of the year. We’re closed on New Year’s Day and back to normal Saturday with a tasting featuring Bargain Basement Beauties - wines ranging from $6-12 and all very enjoyable. OK, relax if you can and enjoy the end of a tumultuous year. |
| Soggy Fun |
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Our thanks to those who braved the rain (it was coming down in the picture above) and cold to come into the Champagne tasting last Friday. Evidently there are lots of diehard bubbly fans out there among you bent upon enjoying yourselves despite the slightly ugly conditions. I do hope, however, that the rest of your Holiday season won’t be quite so dreary.(Pyromaniacs: visit the video link below)
Seeming favorites were the Roederer Brut Premier ($38) and the Lancelot LeRoyer Blanc de Blancs ($44) but the biggest hit was Brandon’s Firespinning and I want to thank him for coming out on a rather cold and soggy evening to entertain us (disclaimer required - he’s my son). Thankfully the rain didn’t stop him or Tim Sanchez who took the photos.
Now if I could just get the lights back on in the parking lot all would be well in the world. So, don’t let the dark lot fool you, the door’s always still open until at least 15 minutes after “closing time”. OK, you’re busy and I’m done - get back to all those holiday things you need to do (my list is below)!
My Christmas List: Just like many of you, I used to make a Christmas/Holiday list of things to do and things I would like. Operating the store has simplified things quite a bit as it demands strict attention. Here’s my 12 days of Christmas list (feel free to tell me yours when you come in). Day 3 thru 10: Day 11: Day 12: I hope that if you have a list during the holidays it is more interesting than mine but ends with your own version of Day 12! |
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First things first To make things a bit simpler for people with early week wine needs your Wine HQ (that’s us silly!) will be open on Mondays from 11-6:30pm for the rest of 2009. Feel free to come in for a bottle, perhaps more, or send your friends in for all their family dinner and party needs. They’ll get our best recommendations, save money, find some new wines and, hopefully, go home happy.
Now, just how does #6 save me $5? Well, some of you may recall that in late June I guaranteed that the 2006 Chappallet Signature Cabernet Sauvignon would make Wine Spectator’s Top 100 of 2009. In fact I backed up the best price you could get that wine home for ($38) with a $5 back offer if it didn’t make the list. Chappallet only released 75 cases of it’s 2007 Cabernet to Northern California retailers of which I received a disproportionate share of 4 cases. So if you missed the ‘06, or would like a follow up to it, come on in for a bottle. I’ve kept the price at $38 which is below any other price I can find in Northern California and matches or beats anybody’s by the time you ship it home from NJ or Timbuktu! |
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This week I wanted to say an official goodbye to my old friend - Charamba, the little $6 Portugese wine that could.
That wine, which hundreds of you have tried over a year and a half, switched vintage a little while ago. Although still good, it didn’t quite have what it’s predecessor did. So, please join me in a moment of reflection as we remember good things that have gone (but know will come again).
I’ve been looking for a quality substitute for Charamba for a while and, wouldn’t you know it, found it in Portugal again. That is the “Altano” pictured below which I brought in a few weeks ago. About a week later it was featured in the NY Times as their best buy in wines under $20 from the Douro region of Portugal - and under $20 it is, at just $6.49 here! If you need an inexpensive but enjoyable daily drinker you should grab a bottle of this on your next visit in.
The Kind is dead, long live The King!
And with that, I leave you to the end of your week and then your weekend. Bye.
Back to It!
Although we’re always looking for interesting wines we don’t usually find ones such as this (’54, ‘58, ‘60 Lafite Rothschild from Bordeaux, ‘62 Ch. St. Vivant from Burgundy, etc). These I only find in the Real Wine Mine - aka my dad’s cellar where these pictures were quickly taken just before Thanksgiving. Fun to think about though!
Well, it’s the New Year so back to it! - even while resolving my year end accounting (shoot me now!) I’ve started looking for new wines in a serious manner in order to fill the holes in the store. Although I purposely winnowed down our selection during the Holidays I was a bit surprised by how many holes developed by the beginning of the year.
That doesn’t mean that we’re out of wine - far from it - but it does mean that we can bring in lot’s of new stuff to freshen up the selection without having to figure out how to fit them onto the shelf/floor.
I started off last week, tasting about 90 wines,with 14 of them arriving over the last couple of days ( if interested take a look at the bottom right of the email for a quick listing).
This week I expect to go through at least 100 more, which isn’t an unusual week, and we’ll have to see how many actually make it into the shop.
Actually, the tasting process answers many frequently asked questions such as
- “Do you taste the wines before you buy them?” Yes I/we do! In fact I can only think of two wines in the shop that I haven’t tasted and that’s because they’re well known entities and too expensive to be opened by my winery representatives.
- “How often do you bring in new wines?” Usually the answer is that there is a weekly flow of new wines with the normal range of additions being 10-20, although I’ve certainly brought in many more than that when I’m a bit out of control. In fact I remember one crazy week in ‘09 where I brought in about 40 but that created too much havoc so I’ll avoid doing so again.
- “Do you bring in most of what you try?” As you can tell, the answer is Nuh, Uh! Believe it or not, I’m fairly picky - I think we probably average buying one wine out of every eight to ten presented. At times my “batting average” (an interesting stat for a tennis player to be using) is higher when I’ve really directed my vendors to show me certain types of wine. Right now would be a good example of that as I’ve asked to see specific wines and given general direction to primarily show Italian and French wines over the next two weeks.
As you can imagine trying this many wines can take up a bit of time, especially when you add the sales pitch into the equation!
Just part of the job and I’m back to it. I hope to find lot’s of interesting juice for you over the next few weeks. If you come in and see me slurping away you’ll now know why - feel free to invite yourself into the process as there are always extra glasses available.
Extra opinions are always welcome also!