Well
seeing as one of my questions was going to be along the lines of, “How do you
define or classify your occupation?” I figured we might as well start there
right? So Mr. Fancy, in the long line of things you do; write, wine merchant,
importer, music man…how would you explain how you make a living to a novice? In
what order and have you, at any point, wished you could shuffle the deck and
put one of the others at the top of the list?
During my twenties I was writing,
singing, and drinking wine, and still am, but my wine business pays the
bills. The books and CDs, well, if I
lived off them, I'd have to change my lifestyle. However, I don't regret it for a minute. Writing is a very solitary job. Doing it full time doesn't sound like my cup
of tea. I had a taste of the musician's
life on the road and didn't much like it either. Turns out I like the aroma of Raveneau's
cellar more than a backstage dressing room.
I do love making CDs, so that's what I do. Thank goodness I don't have to live on a tour
bus to support my love of music making.
What was your first foray in the wine business?
I tried to get a job in the local
wine shops back in 1972. No one would
hire me. Neither would the post office,
thank goodness. I borrowed $5000 from my
girlfriend and opened a little hole-in-the-wall retail shop. Thank you Joan Connolly!
What was it that lit the fire under you? Was it timing,
a certain wine?
In 1974 I went on importer Dick
Buck's buying trip with him. My next
trip was with California winemaker Joe Swan.
After those two trips, I was hooked.
I was tasting in Germany, France,
Italy and Spain. I was also buying a lot
of California wines direct from the wineries.
What I ended up doing in France and Italy, I had begun doing in
California with wineries like Swan's, Ridge, Chalone, and so on. What lit the fire was the thrill of
discovering great wines, and that's still the case.
When
I Google the name Kermit you are number 4, cool to know or a pisser that you
aren’t higher on the list?
I thought everyone knew, I am
Kermit the Frog. That's why I feel
right at home in France.
There seem to be a
lot of musicians in the wine business, my boss Randy Kemner included, any idea
what might be the common thread
Hmmm, yeah, what could it be? I've
noticed that, too. It must be that we
all appreciate harmony.
When
making purchases how much of what you decide to import is based on what you
think will sell and what you want to drink?
It always starts with what I want
to drink, then I have to decide how much to order, which of course means
considering how much I think I can sell.
What would you say was the hardest or
most unforeseen obstacle with importing French wines to the US in the
beginning? How, or has that changed at all?
Wines are shipped in metal
containers. It took about 600 cases to
fill a 20-footer, and financially, that was impossible for me then. I piggy-backed in another importer's containers. That would be Karl Petrowsky who worked for
Frank Schoonmaker imports. He was a
great help to me. The German winemakers
loved Karl. I accompanied him several
times on his buying trips, and had the chance to taste incredible Germans wines
going back to the early twentieth century.
So
you have access to some of the greatest French wines in the world, are you
reaching for Raveneau and Coche Dury every night? (Warning, admitting this is
true will make us give you the scrunchy, “Really dude?!” face. Just so you
know.)
I went over my to my pal Alain Pascal's house
two nights ago for dinner. He's the vigneron at Domaine
du Gros Nore, a hunter, and it's the season.
I took a Raveneau 2000 Montee de Tonnerre and a 1999 Corton Charlemagne
from Coche-Dury. That's a neat
progression. The Chablis was austere,
the CC opulent. Alain roasted a
marcassin on the spit in his fireplace and brought out his 1999 Bandol rouge
for it. Then Alain pulled out a Sauternes
from his friend at Domaine d'Alliance.
If you haven't tasted their wine Sauternes, you should. They only have two hectares (five acres), and
theirs is about as close to an Yquem as you can get. I know, because then Alain uncorked a 1996
Yquem that a customer had kindly given to him.
Sorry, that doesn't really answer your question. Anyway, yes, I often reach for a Raveneau,
Coche, Ente, de Cherisey or some such white Burgundy, because I like them so
much.
When you started KLWM was there an existing
store or did you start from the ground up?
It was an empty storefront on San
Pablo Ave near Solano. Eight hundred
square feet. By the time I painted it,
put in phones and all those little basics, I had enough l money left to open
the doors with a 33 case inventory. I
was open four days a week, five hours a day, because I still thought of myself
as a musician with a wine hobby.
You
have an amazing ability to describe a moment, rich in vinegary greens, a female
winemaker in a fine woolen suit, the soothing first splash of Beaujolais used
to wash down a creamy, meaty piece of pork rillettes…a way of sharing the
moment as you saw and felt it. How did you know Kermit? That there would people
out here that would respond to that kind of beauty in wine and the story rather
than the coco, beet root and dried tuna, kind of wine description?
Wine critics' tasting notes have
become laughable. So many aromas of
things that no one I know has ever smelled in their entire lifetime. Just
painfully ludicrous. Do they think the
more numerous and more esoteric their descriptions, the more we'll believe in
them. On the contrary. Eric Azimov has a
great chapter on all that bullshit in his recent book. And those tasting notes are off-putting to
our customers. They read about a wine
with a dozen different perfumes and they think, Jesus, I don't smell all that,
I must have a lousy palate and might as well go back to buying rot-gut. And here's another thing: you taste a wine one week and find raspberry
in the aroma, and you taste it a week later and it might smell like cherry or
strawberry. Living wines change whether
they are in a barrel or a bottle. Every
winemaker knows that. So even if a
critic were right about what a wine smells like the day he writes the tasting
notes, it won't be true by the time you buy a bottle and take it home.
Three
way fork in the road. To the left you have Salma Hayek, to the right, a jam
session with Charlie Parker and Lady Gaga and straight ahead, a magnum of
Lapierre Morgon, what ever do you do?
Take the magnum to Salma's.
What would you say have been the most
significant changes, good or bad, in French wines in the past 15 years?
There has been an immense
change. For year's it seemed that the
enologists were going to sterilize all French wines. Make sure they were stable no matter what
they tasted like. Now the pendulum is
swinging more to so-called "natural" wines which have been minimally
treated filtered medicated and all that sort of stuff. Hurrah for it.
Hangover cure of choice?
I drink wine with meals. And I don't hit the harder stuff. I haven't had a hangover in years. In the new edition of Adventures I tell of
the time a hangover nearly killed me after a long night at Domaine Tempier and
then Richard Olney's house.
Can you give me three wines that would help us understand your passion?
I don't think I can. Sorry.
My mind goes haywire just thinking about it, for some reason.
Have you ever sneezed while peeing?
(Dead air)
Dammit, he snuck off before I could
squeeze out that last one! Knew I should have started with that. Dag-gum-it.
I would like to thank famed importer, musician and
impassioned wine writer Kermit Lynch for taking the time out of his busy schedule
in France to let me play reporter with him...made me feel all fancy and
junk.
Kermit Lynch, his wines and his extremely devour-worthy book
Adventures on the Wine Route have been instrumental in informing,
beguiling and inspiring many of us to dive head first into the deep end of
wine.....appreciation sounds too perfunctory, feeding our appetite
for wine, the people that make them and the meals they are gulped along
with. His voice is anything but dogmatic, it's more of a romantic summoning and
I for one am all in.
So
do you have any questions you’d like to ask Kermit? Turns out he will be at The
Wine Country December 7th! This year marks the 25th
anniversary of Kermit’s Adventures on the
Wine Route so he is traveling around signing copies of the 25th
Anniversary Edition with its updated epilogue and list of 25 most memorable
wines. We will be conducting a special tasting of Kermit Lynch imported wines
in honor of having the man, the myth, the legend in our shop signing books.
4:30-6:30 PM, $25.00 for the tasting and we will also be selling books so you
can get your very own copy signed and trust me, it is a book that will leave
you wanting to taste, smell and see all that he did….I know I still do.