williamscorner.com wine blog

Williams Corner Wine is pleased to announce Dale Quesenberry as the newest member to our team! Dale will be serving the Northern Virginia territory as Raelinn moves into a new role for us. Dale comes to us from the culinary world having spent over fifteen years in the restaurant industry in almost every position imaginable, from culinary school at Johnson and Wales Culinary Academy to Iota Club & Café and executive chef Stonewall Golf Club. Dale’s wine knowledge stems from acting as the purchaser for a number of foodservice establishments as well as from a true passion for the wines of the world. Most recently, Dale was sales manager for Fox Meadow Winery in Linden where he gained a practical, hands-on knowledge of winemaking and viticulture.

I just can’t fit everything I want to say into 140 characters, so please indulge me in a little blogging.

First, I want to thank Joe Dressner from Louis/Dressner Selections

and Monika Caha from Monika Caha Selections

for coming down and joining us in the battle that is Real Wine. We are so privileged to have them as partners! Their selections are a huge part of what makes our portfolio so special.

Next, a HUGE thank you (and that just doesn’t seem like enough!) to Diane and her crew at Cork Wine Bar in DC for hosting our portfolio tasting.

I cannot leave out a warm Williams Corner thank you to all of our fantastic friends who came out to see the new Spanish wines from José Pastor Selections, the new French wines, and Joe and Monika’s fantastic selections.

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After the portfolio tasting we couldn’t just stop tasting all that wine! We HAD to go to dinner at Dino an unbelievably delicous Italian restaurant featuring dishes that hearken back to ancient timesDean Gold’s unwavering commitment to authenticity, quality and knowing precisely where his food came from is beyond compare. Needless to say, dinner was delectable!

And I have to mention the “Undertaker” cocktail from beverage director Scott Palmer. Chartreuse never tasted so good! Scott is as passionate about the wine and spirits he serves as Dean is about the food.

Although no specific definition exists for a natural wine, it is commonly understood that a natural wine is produced with the minimum amount of intervention and manipulation possible. A natural wine producer seeks to produce the perfect vehicle to transmit the terroir of a place to you, the consumer. As such, a natural wine tends to be one that is produced from high quality, hand harvested grapes grown in low-yielding vineyards, typically organically or biodynamically farmed. Fermentation begins naturally, using yeasts present in the vineyard and the cellar, and the unfermented grape must is not sulfured. The winery producing the wine must aim to produce a transparent wine that respects its terroir; manipulating the wine through the addition of tannins, sugar, acid, oak chips, prominent new oak aging or through use of any number of other additives could dull or completely erase the wine’s terroir. The wine is bottled with no added sulfur if possible, and if not, only as much as is absolutely necessary.

Strohmeier Schilchersekt

Because (in the words of Gary V) this wine is bringing the thunder!

So here’s the deal: Drink it with someone special while enjoying something delicious (roast duck maybe.) Be sure to save one glass to drink the next day for breakfast or lunch (if you can wait that long…).

This is a no sulphur, no dosage, methode ancestrale sparkling rosé. It tastes better than most rosé champagne out there on the market that cost three times as much! For me, this is one of the truest and purest manifestations of natural wine. It is unadulterated, yet clean. Alive, refreshing, deeply fruited, taut, balanced. I could go on and on.

So get drinking!

nico

According to many of the articles I’m reading online and in trade journals, this year has been the biggest year for rosé wines that we’ve ever seen; yet I’m running across the same sad phenomenon I run across every year around this time… the demise of rosé wines until next spring. People have for some unfortunate reason held tight to the misconception that rosé is a spring/summer wine ONLY and that once Labor Day hits, the love affair is over till next spring. This simply is not and should not be the case. While rosé certainly IS a very enjoyable spring/summer wine and certainly we all look forward to the new vintages year after year, rosé, when well made, (and there is bad wine out there in every known category) is a wine to enjoy all year long. It’s compatibility with a wide range of foods and its myriad varieties and variations truly make it a wine for all seasons. It pairs so delightfully and in so many different expressions with egg dishes, salads, mild to medium cheeses, lighter meats and fish, vegetables of all kinds, and other light to medium-savory fare.

One occasion where I personally LOVE to serve rosé is Thanksgiving dinner. Sparkling rosé is a perfect aperitif and the still versions pair exceptionally well with turkey and many of the traditional sides that one finds at the Thanksgiving table, not to mention that it makes a gorgeous holiday presentation with its happy colors ranging from palest orange to almost red.

I can, of course, see why people love to drink rosé in spring and summer. I know I certainly do; but I am hoping that people will take a moment to consider the wide range of capabilities of the wines in the rosé family and keep on enjoying these wonderful, versatile wines all year long.

If you think so too, be sure to share your recommendation with people as you have the opportunity.

After my first taste of Le Telquel I was inspired to write a silly poem!

Ode to a Wire-Haired Dachshund:
O mon cher tekel du poil dur,
O comme je t’aime avec ton ame pure.
“Rouge, beau, et meme mieux que beau…
Tu as du chien”* telquel, sur.

by Raelinn in honor of “Le Telquel…un poil dur”
Thierry Puzelat’s Touraine VDT gamay, cot, pineau d’aunis

*borrowed and changed a little Yourcenar

Waldschutz 2008 GV (Gruner Veltliner) 1 Liter
Usually I write funny things about the wine in this space, but the story for this one is heartbreaking. I visited the Domaine in February of 2008, shortly after this cuvée was created. It, along with the ever popular, but soon to be discontinued Grooner (look for it to be sold by some large and clueless distributor in the very near future) were created around the same time with an eye toward the US market. Reinhard decided to make a label that would highlight the familial nature of the estate and he chose an old photo of him as a young lad accompanied by his father out plowing a field the old school way, with horses. Reinhard’s father had never exported to the US before and I think Reinhard liked the idea that their flagship wine would have a picture of him on the label. About two weeks before I visited, Reinhard’s father was tragically killed when his tractor turned over and the load of earth he was towing buried him. I like to think of this wine as an homage to Reinhard’s father and a testament to the hard work that multiple generations have put into the estate.

Frtisch 2008 Zweigelt Rosé

Karl Fritsch is one of a handful of wineries in Austria experimenting with Biodynamic farming. I really appreciate the delicacy and purity that his wines offer and the rosé from Zweigelt is no exception. This should be everyone’s summer aperitif. Break out the sardines, the olives, the terrines, this wine will pair well with all of them!

Texier 2006 Cotes du Rhone

“My good friend Eric Texier.” As Doug Rosen is so fond of saying. We had a lot of success early on with Eric’s Cote du Rhones, including the famous Brezeme wines. Eric now wants us to sell his Cote Rotie, Condrieu, and Chateauneuf but I told him that we had to wait until the crise economique had passed. He called me the other day when the latest unemployment figures came out. He said: all the analysts are saying that these figures could indicate that the crisis is coming to an end. But Eric, I said, now that the crisis is coming to an end investors are pulling their money out of the Dollar and putting it back into the commodity market and you know what that means…To which Eric responded, Time for a vacation in America! (At the time of writing, 1 euro = 1.4099 US Dollars!)

Grimaudes 2005 Costieres de Nimes

People are often confused about the origin and title of this little gem of a wine. Even the VA Dept of ABC has a hard time with it! Is the estate called Grimaudes? Or is the wine called Grimaudes? Think if it as a self-titled album by a musical artist of whom you are fond. The estate is called Domaine Les Grimaudes and the wine is known simply as Les Grimaudes. It is a delicious blend of unknown proportions of the following three varietals: Grenache Noir, Carignan, and Cinsault. Sometimes there is even some Furmint, but don’t tell anyone because the INAO might get angry. The wine itself is vinified by the world-renowned and very beautiful Emanuelle Kreydenweiss. The name might sound familiar, mainly because she is world-renowned, but also because Marc Kreydenweiss, Emanuelle’s husband, also makes a Costieres de Nimes and wines from the family estate in Alsace, but these are imported exclusively by a wine importing company called Wilson Daniels which is in no way affiliated with Williams Corner Wine.

Peillot 2007 Bugey Pinot Noir

Frank Peillot is a big jokster! Back in February we were having lunch at a restaurant called l’Herbe Rouge in the Touraine region of France. At the table with us was Jean-Paul Brun, Réné Mosse, Fernand Coudert, and Alain Renardat. We were busy tasting and drinking from various magnums from each of these winemakers while waiting for our food, which seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time to arrive. As a consequence, we were all pretty tipsy and the vignerons were getting boisterous. At one point I was tasting something by Jean-Paul Brun, I think it was a recent vintage of Fleurie, and I said (trying not to trip over my own tongue while speaking french after having tasted about 100 wines earlier in the day): Jean-Paul, votre Fleurie est magnifique! To which Franck Peillot immediately responded: Il ne l’a pas fait exprès!

Peillot 2006 Mondeuse du Bugey
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Raelinn, Jeff, and I all went up to Manhattan recently for the Louis/Dressner Selections Veri Very Tasting. Present that day was none other than Mr. Franck Peillot himself, who seemed affable but not quite as caustically funny as usual. I attribute this to jet lag. Despite his fatigue, he led us through a tasting of his recent vintages and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that many of his wines had improved since I last tasted them. Not only this, but they were showing so well that I got really excited thinking about the shipment that had, only days before, left the domaine. In fact, Franck mentioned that one of the last things he did before departing France for the USA was palletize our order… By the way, scientists recently proved that Mondeuse and Refosco are NOT the same varietal, though they did discover that Chardonnay is an inferior mutation of the well-known Athiri, native to the Greek island of Santorini. An additional note: in the Oxford Companion to wine, under the entry for Mondeuse, it is very clearly written that the Marquis de Lafayette’s favorite red wine was Mondeuse. What a coincidence!

Joyeuse Anniversaire America!!

Ciao,

nicolas mestre

FYI: I taped a Grape Radio interview the other day about the economy and wine. Brian Clark and I interview Danny Brager, VP of Nielsen Co (he follows the wine trade), and Cyril Penn, editor in chief of Wine Business Monthly. It was very interesting and I hope it’ll be posted soon (next Monday?).

Few trends I learned during preparation and/or taping:
imported rose sales are up 42% compared to last year. (malbec sales way up too.)
sales of under $20 wines are strong but over $20 wines are really struggling (gosh, bet you didn’t know that!)
big brands doing fine but smaller wineries are really struggling (more reason for us to support “the little guy”)
consumers going to restaurants and bars less often. And when they do they’re buying wine by the glass more often than bottle (that is, than before the recession)
US per capita wine consumption is ~ 9 liters/year, whereas it’s ~50 liters in France and 44 liters in Italy!

We represent a lot of great winemakers who are passionate about what they do and produce wines that are a result of tireless dedication and abundant enthusiasm. I am simultaneously extremely proud and humbled by the portfolio we have been able to assemble over the course of this past year. So many of the artisans and the wines found in this portfolio of ours are an exuberant and joyous testament to the potential of the terroirs, regions, and countries from which they come and are produced. I hope that the excitement found in these wines can somehow be translated, if even in some small way, into the day to day reality of our professional lives. It is integral that we be able to find some happiness in what we do for a living, whether that be selling wine or not. It is my sincere hope that the joy and exuberance found in our wines can be responsible for some measure of satisfaction in your metier.