Friday, May 25, 2007

Did you know that there is no firm requirement that allows you to call yourself a sommelier?

One of the most annoying things about dining out in the United States is that, with some exceptions, the American restaurant trade cares rather little about the relationship between wine and food, and some care even less about paying for quality employees.

In fact, it's built into the restaurant trade's collective business plan to pay below the federal minimum wage--which is legal--in the hope that an improperly trained staff will make a living on tips forked over by guilt-ridden consumers.

Few in the restaurant industry seem to think that paying for quality wine knowledgeable employees, or at least trained ones, might improve their bottom line by enticing consumers to keep returning to the restaurant and to keep ordering wine.

Labels: The Dining Amenity Enhancement Project

Posted by RM Dustin :: 7:06 AM :: 0 Comments:

Post / Read Comments

-------------------------------------

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Come Monday go a tastin'

On many such Monday the industry calls; a coagulative beckoning to sample wares from juice producing latitudes around the globe, and the tamers of the grape proudly and with the courage of conviction display their passion. Much is still mass produced and that can be found by detecting mixtures of lessor nose, non-complex nuances, terroir, and yes... price. And how does one know where to look, what to see amongst the buzz of the rep whose living depends on the sale, or the distributive mechanism that doles out that living via matched quotas and surpassed expectations? The truth lies in the grape. The task is to find it.

A camaraderie of the palate plays throughout the warehouse, for me more so than the lobby, the hotel, the high-rise, or the free buffet line. Wine being born of cavernous abode would seem to be aproposly displayed as such. Is that lamb on the Weber, over by the wheels and bricks of cheese, knives poking and tearing; nothing pre-sliced for convenience sake; a free-for-all nudging and elbowing where the art of sampling is all inclusive and pretension is left at the loading dock. Where the spit bucket is used less for professional expedience; here is where we buy.

With friends found old and new; then what? A sauntering jaunt to where the quaint and flavor infested meld to offer an ending to an evening that reminds us all why we are in the industry in the first place; where zoopa is perfectly pureed and the rabbit is medium rare. Where toasts to good fortune clink and tinkle throughout the room; that is where you will find us.

Salute!

Labels: Other Observations

Posted by RM Dustin :: 7:02 AM :: 0 Comments:

Post / Read Comments

-------------------------------------

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Pitch...

I would not want to wear the shoes of a wine distribution sales rep. I imagine battling in a two front war must be a continual bombardment; both nerve racking and demeaning. Constantly striving to meet sales quotas from demanding district managers and dealing with the incessant whining of retailers who bitch about everything from missed deliveries to being left out of special allotments. That being said, I loathe distribution, especially in the tiered system we are forced by legislative mandate to live in. We currently deal with 16 importers/distributors. For a shop our size, that makes us but a small blip on each vendors' radar, even though collectively, we spend quite a bit of money filling those shelves. The alternative is to stick with a small handful of distributors and not try to spread the love too thin, but there are so many in the State and no two can carry the same wine. Quite the dilemma. So we are given multiple opportunities to taste the latest and supposedly greatest. We are asked to fill our shelves when they all stop by. And if we don't buy enough, then we are put on the back burner when it comes to accessing the really good stuff or special tasting events. So maybe it's time to get really specialized, really focused on what we want to project... rarity, value, winemaker passion. There may be some disappointed sales people in the next week or so.

Labels: Fear and Loathing in The 3-Tier System...

Posted by RM Dustin :: 8:11 AM :: 0 Comments:

Post / Read Comments

-------------------------------------

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Good Hooch and Kitsch in one package...

Intoducing... Sun Garden Riesling.

According to my favorite intellectually non-academic (and thus snubbed) preferred reference site (Wikpedia):

Kitsch (pronounced "kich" as in "rich") is a term of German origin that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style. The term is also used more loosely in referring to any art that is pretentious or in bad taste, and also commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass.

Hooch is a slang term for an alcoholic liquor, especially inferior or bootleg libation with potential damaging properties pertaining to one's liver.

In this particular case, Hooch is probably not apropos and is rather a sizable dis' with respect to this Mosel-Saar River region Reisling. This stuff is actually quite good regardless of the bottle color. Straw color; sweet orange zest, marshmallow and sugared grapefruit aromas, tangy and fruity sweet, grapefruit, peach, and watermelon flavors, this German Riesling has a long clean ripe and tart peach skin fade with delicate minerality. And it is cheap.

All that for a summer deck wine that goes great with fish and fruit and salad type stuff and it was winner: WORLD WINE CHAMPIONSHIPS AWARD: Gold Medal
RATED: 91 points (Exceptional).

Now take all that in with the possibility of turning the empty bottle into tacky tiki lanturns for the deck. We have a steady supply source that appears to be adequate for the summer quaffing season.

Labels: Wine Alert

Posted by RM Dustin :: 7:54 AM :: 0 Comments:

Post / Read Comments

-------------------------------------