Behind the Counter – Page 14

I Am Not A Meter Maid!!

Originally published on October 13, 2008 .

I ‘m thinking of changing the store’s name to “Frankly Wines & I Don’t Know If You Can Park There”. Why? Because “do you know if I can park here?” is probably the most frequently asked question at the store.

OK, I exaggerate… it’s probably 4th after the following:

Is this the way to the World Trade Center?
Is this wine any good?
Are those corks?

It’s not the question that bothers me so much as the response I get when I respond that I don’t know. People get all huffy! I suppose I could figure out the rules, but I know what would happen – if I gave an explanation, people would hear what they want to hear, which is “yes, you can park there.” (And it’s never as simple as that.) And then they would wind up with a ticket and come in and get all huffy anyway and try to say that I told them they could park there. When it comes to NYC parking, it just doesn’t pay to be helpful.

Yes, We Have No Pinot Grigio (but we do have the Valdesil Montenovo Godello)

Originally published on October 12, 2008.

Too many holidays over the last week. Distributors were closed on Thursday for Yom Kippur which meant they weren’t taking orders for Friday which meant I wasn’t able to get my order in for delivery before the weekend which means I am out of my usual Pinot Grigio! And what’s the primary grape variety people ask for by name (at least on holiday weekends when I see a lot of tourist traffic)….PINOT GRIGIO!!!

Sure, I have Livio Felluga Pinot Grigio, which is fantastic, but it has a lot more body and complexity than most people really want when they ask for Pinot Grigio by name. It doesn’t really count.

But never fear – I have a couple other substitutes I always point out – mainly the Valdesil Montenovo from Spain. It’s made from the Godello grape and has the same light citrus taste you’ll find in a Pinot Grigio, but with just a touch more body. Although it’s still a fairly neutral wine, it has more minerality and more personality than the run of the mill Pinot Grigio.

My Favorite Time of the Year to Sell Wine..

Originally published on October 9, 2008.

My favorite time of the year to sell wine…it’s not during the holidays (O/N/D in wine industry speak) when most wine stores actually make their money.

It’s days like these – when I prop the store door open and let the outside in. Days like these are actually pretty rare. When it’s cold, well, it’s cold and no one wants to shiver behind a counter all day. And when it’s hot, or even just mildly warm, the aircon goes on and the door goes closed. (And the aircon was pretty much on from mid-May through mid-September.) But for the last week, it’s been perfect weather for door propping. And aside from the jackhammers that start up around 6.30pm at the hotel construction site down the corner, it’s nice to hear the street noises. This is a neighborhood store, so it’s great to hear the neighborhood right outside my door.

An Old Classic Updated

Originally published on September 18, 2008.

A customer just told us this story:

A professor was lecturing his class. He filled a jar with some golf balls. “Is it full?” he asked. His class said yes. So then he put some pebbles into the jar which filled up the empty space. “Now is it full?” he asked. His class said yes. Then he put some sand into the jar, filling up all the remaining little spaces. “Now it’s full,” he said.

You’ve probably heard this version of the story – or read it one some annoying email chain letter – the golf balls are the important things in your life and the pebbles and the sand are the other things that just take up space. Focus on the golf balls, blah blah blah. Actually, I think the golf balls are actually rocks.

Anyhow, the customer had a little update to this story. In her version, there were two glasses of wine sitting next to the jar. So when the professor said the jar was full, the students wanted to know what the wine was for. So the professor dumped the glasses of wine into the jar, proving that there’s always time for a couple glasses of wine!

How to Keep Corks Happy Once Screwcaps Rule the Earth

Originally published on September 16, 2008.

The most commonly asked questions in my wine shop don’t involve wine. They don’t involve the parking rules for the spots outside the store. They don’t even involve directions to the World Trade Center (although that topic comes close.)

Surprisingly, the most commonly asked questions in my shop involve corks.

Actually, it’s not so surprising, because the back wall of my store is covered almost entirely in corks. Lots and lots of corks. And if you think it looks cool in the picture, it looks even cooler in person.

People are drawn to it, literally – drawn right behind the counter to where they can touch it. (This is a problem, because the staircase to the basement is right there as well, and if they don’t look where they’re going, they’ll be drawn right into a big hole.)

Children are especially fascinated by these corks. A few (including mine) have written their initials on a specific cork and come to visit it from time to time.

Misforecasting

Originally published on September 7, 2008.

So this weekend was the first official weekend of fall, at least according to the retail calendar. The wine drinkers in the neighborhood appear to back from their summer holidays and drinking wine with a vengeance! And let’s just say, I was a little bit unprepared. As of this moment we are out of, or 1 bottle away from being out of the following:

Saint Clair Sauvignon Blanc –> go-to NZ Sauv Blanc
Rain Sauvignon Blanc –> a few bottles scrounged out of desperation on Friday to get me through the weekend. People seemed to like it so it may be added to the permanent line-up, at least temporarily)
Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc –> between vintages. The 2008 will be here soon, thank goodness!
Stellina Pinot Grigio –> as good as Santa Margherita for less than half the price and it’s downright painful to be out of stock on this wine because people looooooooooooove pinot grigio!
Chateau Beau Vallon –> damn good St Emillion for $25 bucks
Roger Perrin Cote du Rhone –> the current winner in the on-going battle for the CdR space on the shelf
Terrazas Reserva Malbec –> was moving sort of slowly in August, but the last week, it has zoomed off the shelf
Sebastiani Chardonnay –> good Cali Chardonnay for less than $15. Fills the creamy/buttery slot for Chardonnay
Nell Chardonnay –> good Aussie Chardonnay for less than $15. It’s from Yarra Valley, where it gets quite cool, so it fills the crisper/cleaner Chardonnay slot
Domaine de la Noiraie Bourgueil –> had this open on Friday and it was a huge hit…huger than expected – only 2 bottles left!
Hirsch Riesling –> fantastic biodynamic Austrian producer. Love this wine
Ruinart Blanc de Blanc –> $66 may not seem like a bargain for a bottle of Champagne, but after all the recent price increases, it is! If I’m spending my own money on big house Champers, this is one of the few I’m buying
Julien Meyer Pinot Gris –> blew through a case of this in just over 2 weeks, which is amazing given that it’s one of the wines I always forget to recommend. Doesn’t seem to matter – people seem to know it and realize it’s fantastic stuff at a great price
Ecchverria Sauv Blanc –> people seem to inhale this one

Well, time to stop typing and get down to ordering…

Forget about school, let’s get Back to Wine…

Originally published on September 2, 2008 .

Haven’t written about wine in a while….so thought I’d give highlights of a couple recent tastes.

Donnhoff Riesling 2003 -No special vineyard designation, just plain old Donnhoff. That’s an oxymoron, really. Even basic Donnhoff is pretty fabulous. If you want to read all about the magic of Donnhoff, the best place is the Terry Theise catalog. I tasted this one blind and liked it at first sniff. It had that hint of petrol you can get with ageing Rieslings, but not too much. And to my nose, crystallized pineapple. Very pure, fresh, opulent without being full-on decadent. Just delicious. And acquired for the rock bottom price of $17 at a wine shop that shall remain nameless (at least until I go raid the selection myself…then I’ll give full disclosure.) In fact, I don’t even know the name – just the address – it’s one of those many fairly nondescript stores you’ll find on the streets of NYC that sometimes have treasures lurking on the shelves.

Actually, maybe I’ll give highlights on just one recent taste – it’s time to close shop and go home!

You know how to spit, don’t you?….

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: I nearly spit out my coffee as I read this post. Because just yesterday I was re-reading Alice’s book, the very scene that describes spitting. And was I musing over the ridiculousness that every wine book requires such a scene? No I was not. I was wondering, “Hmmmmm…. how would I write about this myself?” So I have either become ridiculous, or there really is something so universally weird about learning how to spit wine that it does warrant a scene in every wine book. (And yes, “both” is a perfectly acceptable answer.)

Originally published on August 25, 2008.

….you just put your lips together and…no no no, that’s whistling. Spitting is a completely different matter – and apparently interesting enough to merit special mention in almost every wine memoir ever written.

I noticed this while working through this summer’s crop of wine-related books. In Reflections of a Wine Merchant, Neal Rosenthal devotes a full paragraph to the etiquette of spitting. Good aim, flair, and self-confidence are good. Drooling, dribbling, and barrel splattering are bad. In The Battle for Wine and Love, Alice Feiring remembers her first time time – especially the backsplash on her glasses.

I dug out a few older books and sure enough, in Red, White, and Drunk All Over, Natalie MacLean goes into great anatomical detail as to the mechanics (seems you can’t just put your lips together and blow). And in Bacchus & Me, Jay McInerney recalls the strangeness of tasting wine without swallowing during an interview with Helen Turely, his first as a newly-minted wine writer.

Apparently, if you write a book about wine, you must have well-defined opinions and memories about spitting. And here, I thought it was something you just did to keep from getting drunk.

Chateau Musar – Cellar in a Box

Originally published on August 9, 2008.

One of the things I like most about being a retailer is dreaming up cool ways of selling wine – hang tags with quirky tasting notes, 2 or 3-packs that play on a theme or a varietal, rotating displays and features, and so on. For a while, I’ve wanted to put together some 12-bottle cases that play on different themes – summer whites, a Bordeaux starter case, a wine course in a box – the list could be endless. But the day to day of the store seems to always come first. But when I heard that one of my distributors was pre-selling some Chateau Musar back vintages, I decided I had to act!

Chateau Musar is one of my all-time favorite wines with a back story that’s the stuff of legends. Winery and vineyards are located in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Founded in the 1930’s, with wine produced in nearly every harvest despite battles waged among the vines. Cellars that served as bomb shelters in the 80’s. Certain vintages that taste of gunpowder.

What I really like about Chateau Musar is that it tastes like nothing so much as itself. When describing wine to customers, I’ll often compare regions and grapes, like some wino-version of a Hollywood pitch (it’s like a Beaujolais on steroids with a little bit of Shiraz-spice thrown in.) But with Chateau Musar, there are no comparisons. It’s a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan, Cinsault and a few other grapes. It’s a constantly evolving mix of exotic spices, stunningly vibrant fruit, earthy, gamey, meatiness. It lasts practically forever and is a classic example of a wine that you want to keep tasting as it changes. You want to grow old together.

Ah, growing old with a wine – buying a case or two of a specific vintage, drinking one bottle every year or so until you decide it’s just the way you like it and then polishing off what’s left. Such is the dream…You read that advice everywhere, but it’s not so practical in real life.

So when I heard that the Musar importer was putting some of the back vintages up for sale, I decided I was going to put together a little Musar cellar-in-a-box. 12 bottles of various vintages, including one bottle of the highly obscure Musar white.

It will include:

3 bottles each of the 1997, 1995, and 1994 vintages – three very different young (for Musar) wines to be opened now, later and much later to see how they evolve
1 bottle each of 1991 and 1988 – two older wines that are generally thought to be the two best vintages of the last 20 years
1 bottles of the 1995 white, which is a whole other bottle of uniqueness – read about a recent vintage here

While it’s not cheap, I’ve priced it to be a much better buy than purchasing all the bottles individually (if you could even find them.) And it’s still much less than buying even one bottle of a top Bordeaux.

I think it’s a pretty cool concept. We’ll see if anyone else does.

Frankly Wines is Zagat Rated!

Originally published on July 27, 2008.

So the 2009 New York City Gourmet Shopping & Entertainment Guide has hit the shelves. And my store is in it with a big ‘NEW’ next to it. Even better, I neither paid anyone nor asked anyone to write the review – it just happened. So in the name of shameless self-promotion, here’s the the review:

A “frakly fabulous addition to the neighborhood” according to locals, this new TriBeCa wine boutique uncorks a “small but thoughtfully selected” range of labels highlighting small producers and wines from the Southern Hemisphere (Australia and New Zealand, Argentina and Chile, etc.); those who’ve discovered it give a thumbs-up to the fair prices and “perfect recommendations” from its able staff.
2009 New York City Gourmet Shopping & Entertainment Guide

I couldn’t be more pleased with the review even if I had paid someone!

Category: Behind the Counter