I tried the Noussan Pinots and was impressed. The 06 was a little more friendly, but after opening the ‘07 was fine. At first the ‘07 had a sharp taste on the palate with a bitter sort of pithy, grapefruit juice flavor. After an hour or so it retreated and was a lovely accompaniment to skirt steak and potato and ham soup. The ‘06 was a little smokier and relaxed. Both were good wines and interesting examples of Italian Pinot.
Cheers,
Jeff
Check out Sheri’s interview here:
http://www.wines-france.us/2009/02/24/one-on-one-with-laurent-miquel/
To learn more about Laurent Miquel, to learn where to purchase or to start selling it at your store or restaurant, check out our website:
http://www.williamscorner.com
Andrew Greene and I recently hosted a stellar tasting of 2006 Burgundies from Pacalet and Pernot at A La Lucia in Alexandria, Virginia. The wines showed extremely well, especially the 1er Crus from both producers.
Word on the street is Philippe Pacalet is coming to hang out with Williams Corner Wine on October 19th and 20th. Personally, I can’t wait to have another excuse to open and drink the 2006 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Bel Air. Wow, what a wine!
In other news: Jaymee Martin, the famous artist and “Zine” publisher (and recent UCLA graduate) is moving to Charlottesville, Virginia from Los Angeles. Jaymee Martin, my closest friend from my days at Hampshire College, has actually decided to take a job with Williams Corner Wine. We will of course pay her a sub par salary and expect too much from her. On the other hand, she will probably garner a high score for her selfless and relentless pursuit of filing VA-ABC compliance reports correctly. This will likely launch her to stardom and a high paying art job. Everyone will want to purchase her complex installations for millions of dollars, all because of a small Natural Wine Importer that had a keen sense of intuition and a good lawyer who made her sign a contract forcing her to give it most of the profits in the event that a high point score produced such an effect.
Hooray for wine critics and ratings!
Hooray for REAL wine!!
Speaking of REAL wine and wine ratings. Our Muscadet producer, Veronique Gunther-Chereau, recently received some ridiculously high point scores for her stellar wines. I forget what the scores were exactly and we are sold out of most of the wines anyway, so don’t bother to call and ask for some now that her wines have become super luxurious commodities and not just a tasty drink. But do be sure to look for the half page picture of one of her labels (in color!) in the next issue of whatever magazine it was that scored these wines (since we shelled out the $500 for it).
Massa Vecchia, the most transcendental wines I’ve tasted since Catherine & Pierre Breton’s 2005 Nuits d’Ivresses and Perrieres, arrive tomorrow morning. I am nearly giddy with excitement. Of course, no one will want to buy them, except maybe Peter Pastan at Obelisk in DC who is known to have a penchant for the weird, the unusual, the natural.
In other news, August sucks. That’s right, the worst month ever. I have been subsisting on Reeses Pieces and free samples of Muscadet from our very generous Muscadet producer, Veronique Gunther-Chereau, as a result.
Breaking news: Andrew Greene, the 97(+) point person I recently blogged about is heading to Manhattan again this weekend. His departure comes at a very inconvenient time as I plan on moving into a small apartment near our warehouse this weekend and will not have anyone to help me move boxes and furniture around. I must admit to some bitterness on my part as I have helped Andrew Greene move his boxes and furniture around on two occasions this year alone.
Special Late Breaking News: Andrew Greene has received a promotion at his office! And a raise!! I hope that he plans on celebrating by taking me out to a nice dinner. Eating Reeses Pieces and drinking Muscadet is getting old. Well, ok, not the Muscadet, just the Reeses pieces.
In other news, I recently tasted a bottle of 2004 Fonsalette CDR Syrah. I was told that this bottle of wine was one of twelve that was allowed to enter the Commonwealth of Virginia’s borders. I am not sure why this is exactly, but I suspect it has something to do with Tax Management’s reluctance to allow good wine into the state.
I traded a bottle of 1995 Lecheneaut Clos de la Roche for it. I think this was a good deal since most of Kacher’s burgundies taste of a timber yard and not of pinot.
The Fonsalette was delicious. Can you believe that the National Republic actually sells a decent wine?
I’ve just woken up from a rather late night roaming the streets of the District of Columbia. Last evening, I treated myself to dinner at Palena’s on Connecticut Ave where I drank a delightful glass of Domaine Noblaie’s 2006 Chinon Blanc and a glass of the Tondonia 2002 Rioja (great with my cheeseburger). Michael Downey Selections brings in the former, Potomac Selections the latter. I highly recommend both.
You may wonder why I was dining alone? Well, Andrew Greene, my good friend and business partner, decided to visit his lady in Manhattan for the weekend leaving me without a drinking & dining buddy. I’ve decided that Andrew deserves to hear just how important he is to Williams Corner Wine, as an employee, and to me personally, as a friend. Which is why I have decided to bestow upon him 97(+) points. Andrew is a 97 point person now, but I think that in time he could potential become a 98 or 99 point person (I shy away from predicting he will become a perfect person, but you never know, if anyone is capable, it is Andrew Greene).
Unfortunately, there is only one Andrew Greene, and he is in high demand already (kind of like Sine Qua Non or Chateau Lafite) so I wouldn’t be surprised if his sense of self-worth increases significantly because of his new status as a 97(+) point person.
In other news, Ryne Hazzard of Potomac Selections has disclosed that if he ever met a woman who smelled like FX Pichler’s 2006 BA, he would marry her. I have contacted Annick Goutal in Paris and she is considering my proposal to create a new fragrance based on Pichler’s magical elixir.
Another noteworthy even this week: Stacy Parfitt, the newest addition to Williams Corner, has finally changed her voice mail message. She is now officially bound to Williams Corner Wine! If anyone would like to hear Stacy’s new voice mail message, her phone number is available on our nifty new web site.
Ted Burns, my other business partner, returns to civilization today (he was in Kansas for a week). I am excited to see the effects that two weeks of meat, potatoes, and miller lite has had on his constitution.
Nicolas Mestre and I had a successful, 10-day tasting trip to Austria in early March. Many thanks to Monica Caha for her help organizing the trip and introductions to many of her winemakers. We started off in the Wachau after a drive in from Munich and lunch stopover in Salzburg. Even before noon we had made it into our first wineshop in Salzburg and were interrogating the owner about good wines. We ended up tasting a number of wines with him, plus some herbal liquors harvested in the Alps and probably made in somebody’s bathtub.
We arrived into the Wachau at sundown and found the right Donabaum (all european wine towns worth their weight have several estates with the same family name, I think we came across a town with 32). As we arrived, there were several gentlemen from a wineshop in Linz tasting, we joined them for a few of the last pours but knew our full tasting would be in the morning. Anyway, too late to taste at this point, we got settled into our rooms at the small inn that is part of the Johann Donabaum estate and then headed off to Krems for dinner.
The first place was closed for a private party, which was fortuitous because Johann’s second choice turned out to be excellent. In a brightly lit, modernly furnished, slightly subterranean space off a small square, Zum Elefant turned out to be a great place to drink a selection of Johann’s wines with food, good food. This having been four months ago, I can’t recall the exact menu, but I know I started out with an octopus carpaccio and I know we finished on Johann’s super special gruner veltliner. He produced something like 500 bottles (magnums actually, only bottled in magnums) of a super rich, oak free, dryish gruner veltliner with laser cut aluminum labels. 2006 vintage allowed him the hang time to get the superb fruit ripeness to make this style and thankfully he knows how special that is and that new oak would be the best way to ruin it. This was not a high acid, crisp GV, but it was a completely unique style and totally well executed.
After dinner we headed to a Relais & Chateau restaurant and wineshop (both now closed) with a bar upstairs and dance club in the basement. Avoiding the russian mafia look-a-like (or maybe just russian mafia) gentleman at the dance club entrance, we settled into a seat at the long bar, complete with an equally long lineup of schnapps from one end to the other. We did a little schnapps tasting and then at some point ordered a 1996 Knoll BA. The sommelier disappeared for a long while and returned with a bottle of the 1995 and news that the 1996 was sold out. Left out of this news however was the 40 euro price difference between the 1996 and 1995, so we enjoyed the 500 ml of precise opulence completely oblivious of the $160 surprise-in-waiting.
Using the full up-to-the-minute, blog from anywhere on earth capabilities for Web 2.0, I’ll now post several months worth of catch up material.
