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So I was just in the middle of writing a post about a wine critic that came off like a self inflated, self important jackass and I did something I almost never do, I went back and reread my post…um, remind me never to do that again. I tend to be one of those, pound it out, tell your story, copy, paste, steal some pictures off the Internets, and post kinda gals. I don’t like reread the stuff I write, hell my typos and missing words should attest to that. Not sure what prompted me to look, must have been some form of self preservation…like that time I thought it would be sexy to take nude photos in the tub…dude, (head shaking) I’m just sayin’…dude. Anyway, I went back and read, started out good I think but as I continued reading I found myself saying, “What a self important, self inflated jackass”. Yeah so nothing all that new but I wasn’t feeling it tonight. Lost myself in mindless television, (God love it) and a whole new form of inspiration hit me…gotta just say
Stop It
This is Not cute, nor is it even funny at this point. It's gross, unsettling and might be the reason people think we’re jackholes
Anything that they call, "Lip Venom" or makes your lips swell up when you put it on, well this just sounds like a bad plan.
They are gone people, just like they were last year and the year before that.
Okay now this junk makes you grow eyelashes. Grow lashes and grow them darker...where the fuck have I been, this is a problem?! Man I gotta work on my girlie but damn, really? Now this stuff can cause a darkening of the lash line, (which can be fixed) and a browning of the colored part of the eye, (that cannot). Now let me get this straight...we are now willing to discolor our eyeballs and junk and for what? Is there some man or woman going, "Oh yeah, she's freaking smokin' but....those lashes. I'm out"????
Stop it..not him but YOU! If you are at all shocked that a wealthy man, and an athlete no less, is stepping out, well than you might consider growing up. Burns my ass and makes me wonder, "Are you mad that he did it or mad that You don't?" Plus he is smokin' hot, (just look at those lashes) and I don't know who wouldn't.
Ladies this is a sweet gesture, I like the idea I really do but....and I mean this in the nicest possible, (remember the bathtub photos) way, they don't go to those clubs because those girls really know how to work the pole. Not sure what they told you but, the real draw is not to see someone on a pole, it's to see someone ELSE on a pole....like nekkid and junk. If the reason you want to go to these pole dancing classes is to, "put a little spice" back into the ol' love life, than that's great, very cool and I tip my tie to your courage...but if the reason has anything to do with competition, let me just plant this little seed----imagine your sweet husband, all snuggled in the bed, little belly flap resting sweetly on the mattress, cute little hairs sprouting from his many moles. You love him, he is adorable, you have been through everything together...the house payments, the Holiday parties, (he loves those) the family dinners, the shopping, bill paying. That's love, that's commitment, so sweet and honest.
Now picture Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Denzel Washington, (I'll just use...oh, I don't know, Dave Matthews. C'mon Google alert) sitting on a bed, a bed with white sheets, in a pair of faded Levi's 501's, raising is strong powerful right hand, reaching over his left shoulder and pulling the white T-Shirt over his head....handing you a glass of Champagne and saying, "How's my gorgeous girl?".... as far as "fantasy" goes, see what I'm saying? In the ever brillant words of some dude, (Dave Matthews..Google Alert) "I'm not all bad but I'm a faithful sinner, I might get lost but I'll be home for dinner"
Now I don’t normally take tasting appointments this late in the season, once the final newsletter is put to bed we tell our suppliers to take a hike….not really, but we are not looking for new wines and the tasting area is full of gift baskets. That and hopefully we will be too busy to be sitting around tasting wine anyway, so we just stop taking appointments. Our suppliers understand and hear the same thing from everyone, “Please go away, I’ll call you if I need something” most of those that have been in the business for some time don’t even bother asking, they know the answer is going to be, “no”.
So when I heard one of my favorite reps, Chuck Morris of Beaune Imports say, “Hey do you want to taste…” I instantly flashed the, “What the?!” face, that was until he said, “the RH Coutier Rose and 2002 Brut?” well lookie there something just opened up, yeah I know…whore, total whore. We were in fact busy, more stocking than dealing with customers so I snuck off to the kitchen with Chuck to taste the new arrivals.
I had, just a couple of days before, tasted the regular…sounds so stupid to call it regular, let me start again. I had recently poured the NV R.H. Coutier Grand Cru Brut, ($39.99) at our end of the year Champagne event, and had been somewhat floored by how well this, “little” (as far as price, not texture or flavor) held its own with the other, more expensive wines that night. I first tasted the wines from this estate like three years ago, the importer had taken us to dinner at A.O.C and asked us to taste this Champagne from Ambonnay that he was considering importing. After pulling my jaw up off the floor, (humbled by the trust of my palate) I tasted through the wines…lovely, powerful and rich but lovely….thought about the other Champagne in his book, the more delicate, Chardonnay based wines from Agrapart, thought this wine would offer something entirely different and finally asked the price, “What the hell are you waiting for?! Are you freaking nuts? These wines are wicked delicious and seriously…at those prices? Dude..” I am sure he was so glad he asked me, he was asking my opinion, taking me to dinner, (So does that count as disclosure?) and I’m breaking his balls. He ended up laughing at my reaction, (guess he knows me pretty well) saying, “Okay, okay…this is why I asked you” and after some serious negotiations the wines arrived last year.
Chuck was waiting for me when I raced back to the kitchen, he had two bottles open and had already started tasting, “Damn dude, way to wait for me” I said as I reached for a glass. “Just making sure I had them in the right order” Chuck responded while sipping from his nearly empty glass. I started with the Rose, found it somewhat boring to tell the truth, I kept spinning the wine in my glass, sticking my nose as far in as I could…meh. I was fearful as I put down my glass of Rose and poured myself a glass of the vintage, I nervously brought the glass to my nose the whole time thinking, “Shit, why the hell did he ask me? What have I done? This poor bastard is going to be stuck with boring ass wines and it is going to be my fault” with trepidation I lowered my nose and I swear the wine leapt from the glass, grabbed my face and laid a big passionate kiss on me. My fears assuaged, I tasted the wine and fell in love all over again, so I reached for the Rose again, slowly brought the glass to my nose and while it didn’t quite leap from the glass, it was shaking its stuff for me, revealing ripe succulent fruit…awe, it was just shy!
2002 R.H. Coutier Grand Cru Brut, ($59.99) now the first thing that came out of my mouth when I tasted this wine that afternoon was a rather snooty, somewhat geeky, total dork word and seeing as I try and spare people from that kind of verbage I will just say, “this wine is very wine-like”. Deep core of red fruit, baked rich flavors, little bits of that kind of white flower thing you get in great white Burgundy, and an almost oily texture in the mouth that almost makes you forget you’re drinking Champagne…you know, except for that sassy stream of tiny bubbles that tickle the tip of your tongue. The wine seems to grow in your mouth and the finish is insanely long.
N.V. R.H. Coutier Grand Cru Brut Rose, ($57.99) not a starter wine as I found out, this wine needs to open a bit and would serve you well as bottle number two. The nose is rather delicate, rose petals, spice and wild berries with just a bit of sweet butter on brioche, but the palate…damn, the palate. All ripe black cherries, mouth filling, broad shouldered but elegant but all cherries and the finish…sweet black cherries and sweet cream. Supple, graceful for its size and so freaking generous without clunking up your palate with yeast or toast…pure red fruit is what you’re left with and what keeps you reaching for your glass.
All three wines from Coutier will have a spot on our shelves for as long as they are available, which sadly is not that long as they make very little of it and the importer only brought in a small amount for this inaugural launch, (of the Rose and vintage) and I know I will be snagging a few for myself, finding wines with this much power and grace at $60.00 a bottle is very rare and I will unashamedly be “gettin’ mine”.
When I first started blogging 20 years ago, (okay it’s been like a year and a half but it feels like a lot longer) I longed to be blogrolled more than anything, I mean how else was I going to be all famous and junk? I would spend hours pouring over other wine blogs, longingly looking at the list of recommend sites and wonder what it was going to take to see Samantha Sans Dosage there. I would read, or try to read, (I mean C’mon some of that crap…ugh) upwards of 20 blogs a day, looking for any tiny window for me to stick my head through, make my voice heard and through my, “compelling” comments, inspire the blog host and their readers to read my stoopid blog…brilliant, this was a brilliant, never before thought of plan.
I kept up that pace for about 3 months before I grew weary of reading the same story spit out in a different voice, reviews of Crane Lake Shiraz and basic wine information, that while helpful for some was stuff that I learned 10 years ago….not to mention the fact that the more I read, the more I wrote, I could see the bridge to the ever illusive blogroll getting longer and further away, my blog looking less like a wine blog each step of the way.
I surrendered my dream of being a famous wine blogger, (is there even such a thing?) and just kept writing, both for the few readers I did have and for me, and found that I was more at ease, happier and quite content…free from the constraints of bottling my voice, behavior and feelings in order to keep, “on point”, be a wine blogger. Yammering, I was just yammering, sometimes about wine, a lot of the time about over indulgence, once in awhile about me, my heart, my love and pain, for whatever reason people kept reading, my readership, (damn, don’t that sound fancy) grew and that was when I got the email from Tom Wark. “I love Sans Dosage, would you be willing to do a Bloggerview for me?”…well that made me swell with pride and that was when my, “readership” sailed into the double digits, who the hell needs to be blogrolled, I had arrived!
Been pretty much the same since then, I still read some wine blogs, the ones listed on my very own blogroll, and I truly enjoy reading them, do it daily and find myself compelled to comment from time to time but not for the reason that I used to, not to be noticed, clicked on and discovered…it’s more because I have something to say about the topic or I’m just letting the blogger know that I am in fact reading and appreciate the time they take to write…hopefully making the task less thankless for them just as my regular readers do for me.
A couple of days ago a friend and fellow blogger said, “you’ve got to be on Vinography’s blogroll, that guy has every wine blog there is listed” not in a “you HAVE to be” kind of way, more in a, “that dude has a giant roll” kind of way. I finally got around to checking it out and as I suspected my blog was not listed, makes sense as my blog is not really a traditional wine blog, I was not wounded, didn’t faze me in the least but the thing that struck me? Took me like 30 minutes to even look….why would anyone bother? I mentioned that I was not listed to another blogging friend and he said, “Send him an email, he will link you, he’s a cool guy” but the thing is, why would I want to be a needle in a haystack?
I spent this morning going over some other wine blogs, the big ones, the ones that get the most hits and checked out their rather hefty blogrolls as well, found myself glossing over, just scrolling and not even really looking at the names of my fellow bloggers, this was what I wanted, to be a part of, some long list that people just gloss over? What the hell was I thinking?! Well I can say with all honesty, without one shred of snark, without a doubt that I am thrilled that my silly little blog only shows up on a few other blogs, blogs with manageable blogrolls, (well Tom’s is a tad um…well, long) makes me feel truly selected and very special. I’m perfectly content being an un-famous, un-wine, blogger.
I walked out the back door of The Wine Country this evening and the second I felt the skin on my bare forearms constrict I knew you would be with me all night; I would not be able to stop thinking about you….wanting you. I’m tortured by thoughts of you, those thoughts that send shivers down my spine, make me ache, make me remember, they are always with me but on a night like tonight, a cold, quiet Friday night…I am consumed by my thoughts of you.
I found myself flipping the station on the radio in the car on my way home, pause for a second or two, hover on a song looking for something, anything that might bring up some other memory, some other feeling, and yearning for some flicker, some tiny spark….something to distract me. I found myself searching for words, phrases, choruses, harmonies…something mindless, less intense, less you, but it only takes one, “I will”, “I want” one, “We” and I am right back in your grasp, bound to you…bound by my need, my ache, my desire for you.
My walk from my car to my apartment feels so long on nights like these, like it is taking me twice as many steps, my bags are bogging me down, my frame too weak to carry my deficient soul…like my desire is weighing on me, my overwhelming want feels tied to each leg like a forty pound brick…each step, agonizing…jarring, a reminder that when I reach my stoop, unlock my door, I won’t find you there. Hopeless, feels so fucking hopeless…my whole body telling me what I need, what will fulfill me, soothe the pulling knots in my tummy, it’s there, just not with me, not tonight, not yet.
I open the door to find my home just as I left it, my piles of magazines left unread, my blanket, the one that warms my feet, snuggles my thighs, is still sitting tossed on the end of the couch where I left it, my unopened mail still waiting for my attention, my wine glass from the night before still sitting on the table. The smells that greet me are the ones I find every night, the ones that remind me that I am home, that old library smell…my home, my safe place, but tonight, tonight I am not safe, not at all comforted by these aromas, they only remind me of what I don’t have, what’s missing…you.
Something about my haze made dealing with the evenings essential needs easy to coast through, get food, pick up the clutter, chat with the neighbors, all things I was able to do but I have no real recollection of really being a part of. I was there, my body and voice were there but me, the real me, the one that has felt you course through her body, well I was off somewhere remembering you, your scent, your touch, the way you feel when you slip beneath my skin…I was with you.
I felt my blinks lasting longer, like I could hold you closer, pull you closer if I could just shut out everything else…no lights, no television, no yet unread magazines, like each second in the darkness of my own body was one more second that was just ours, me with you in our space…I swear I could feel you slipping inside me, I could smell you, taste you…feel you. I wanted, needed, still want and need more….I would wait for no one the way I have and do wait for you. Only you can move me this way, just you…I have others that can fill me, touch me and make me feel amazing, but there is just something about you, haunting…you haunt me.
Your unique brand of seduction, the way you slither around me, the way I can smell you, feel you, days after we have spent a night together, the way I can taste you when I hear your name, only you can do this to me. I feel your fingers tugging at me, pulling me, making me move like some drunk with passion puppet that you can make dance, skip, crumble…all at your hand, only your hand, and when you have finished with me I will pull myself up by my own strings and…be back for more.
Burgundy, why don’t I have more aged red Burgundy at home?! I want, need, ache for more aged Pommard, Volany and Savigny-les-Beaune…damn, I want you.
So I spent a good chunk of the day feeling like poo, there was a person out there, (and I mean out there…who the hell knows where these people are, what brings them in, why they are really reading and commenting) that found my last post snobbish, I just freaking hate that. I don’t hate that they said what they felt, hell that’s why I left it up and responded, but I hate that someone found something I said rude or in some way snobbish, that is so not what I’m about. I was planning on just letting it go, throw up some post to try and bury that last one but…well, that aint me either.
Behavior seems to be the topic of the week, Tiger Woods, White House party crashers…boorish wine store customers, and while I could give a crap about the first two it is my job to care about the last. When anyone disrupts a class, makes the rest of the crowd uncomfortable in anyway, it is my job to nip it in the bud. This person was not singled out for challenging me, this person was singled out for causing multiple disruptions throughout the night….if a man had been so aggressive sexually, made so many crass and off topic comments, in the way they were delivered, (really loud) in this type of setting I think most people would have asked that I make him leave. But this mouthy monster got a bit of a pass because of her gender and people just kept looking at me with those, “Oh My Gawd” eyes all night, it was for those people, the people that dropped sixty-five bones to attend a Champagne tasting and had to endure the, “Shock Jock” all evening…it was for them that I shone my beaming blog light on the beast. The thing I found really telling was the uses of the word, “snob”….if all this had taken place in an English or math class would I still look like a snob?! Telling, really telling. Bring wine into the equation and all of a sudden snobbery is sited, never once knocked her palate or taste in wine…just her behavior.
I waffled back and forth about removing the post and while it does pain me a bit to know someone now thinks I’m a snob….I’ll live with it. This woman clearly wanted attention and I gave her some, her behavior warranted my scorn and if I lose a reader for expressing my distain for people that ruin the night for everyone else…well then, so be it.
You know, when you work retail for as long as I have, (13 years) you see a rather staggering array of human behavior on a daily basis. I mean I know I have it much better than most, it’s not like I work at the DMV or Walmart, (people seriously, you have to check out peopleofwalmart.com magic, that site is just magic) or anything, most of the people that enter the doors of The Wine Country are perfectly civilized, kind, fun loving and they obviously like to get their drink on. Sure we have some kooky regulars, people that hork cheese while yammering about cat piss, animal dung, (what up with the wine and animal, “functions” comparisons? Might want to get out of the house more kids…just sayin) test our patience and can on occasion get on our nerves as I am sure we get on theirs…part of that whole, “I know you too well and you’re buggin the shit outta me” thing. But for the most part, we gots it pretty good at The Wine Country, I adore our customers, they are more than accepting of me and my, um…voice, they find my bites charming and know that all we are trying to do is share wine and run a business…like I said, I adore them. That being said, there are some real challenging individuals that come through from time to time…Friday night got me thinking….I might need to have a, “Character of the Week” feature here at Sans Dosage.
I find myself in awe at least twice a week, and while I have no desire to make anyone feel bad, (so I will not be including names or too much of a physical description) this stuff is too good to not share. Time to quit with the, “Oh My God” stares back and forth with the staff, time to use this space, my living journal, (thank you customer in the parking lot for telling me to stop calling it a blog and keep writing) to share some of this crap…it’s good for me, good for us, sharing is cathartic right? So yeah, Friday night….
Right about 7:00 on the nights of my events I find myself in a full on tizzy, I’m a wreck…my nerves are shot, my palms sweaty and I suffer a pretty severe case of the erps as it were, seriously feel like my legs are gonna give and I might wretch. People tell me this will subside, I’m still waiting…think 7 years is too long to wait? I suck at public speaking, I feel completely naked and man do I hate being naked in front of 30 people. I am confident in my knowledge of the wines, just wigged out that I may flub, or choke as I did this last tasting….got everyone’s eyes on me and my throat seizes up and I start hacking…dude. Anyway, I am in full freak out mode this last Friday and she walks in.
Hard to miss really, very “clad” in purple, very loud and she had this, Rosanne Barr, Momma Cass kind of look and feel. I heard her long before I saw her and found myself peering around the corner of the kitchen, (where yes, I was hiding) to see what all the hub-bub was about. As my eyes met the source of the noise I found myself making one of those Little Rascals faces, that sharp head jerk, big eyed, “what the hell?” look. She had one of those voices that carry, I could hear her from like yesterday, and the look…well, (picture the Little Rascals look here).
The dark purple shadow and the drag queen fake eyelashes were hard to miss, she stood out, she was looking to so I guess she got what she was going for, I noticed, that’s for damn sure. I was just starting my class when she says to her neighbor, (in a tone that would make an auctioneer envious) “I learned that in my pole dancing class. I’m a fun girl”….now I cannot, do not know what inspired the comment, but picturing this woman, this Violet Beauregarde looking woman, on a pole…well, that erp thing came rushing back tenfold. There were overtly sexual comments being tossed out left and right and try as I might I could not escape that little, “ewe” shudder that came with picturing this beastly woman, pole dancing…there had to some form of animal print underpants…had to be, but her love of “Champagne” well that made her all classy and junk.
I fought through all the noise that came from her end of the table, kept talking, trying as best as I could to ignore the ick but, well she decided to come after me, challenge me for that, “most listened to” spot, now I might be shy and what not but I am not going to let the lowest common, whatever you are, control the show. “Now this wine is a bit more austere” I said while introducing a flight, “Well I am going to stop you there and you are going to have to explain what you mean by that” the purple people eater barked at me…there were cheesy chunks flying I can assure you. “I mean, I know what the word means, but I think that sounds scary, so I am not going to let you get way with saying something like that without an explanation”. I stood there, watching her flap those ridiculous lashes, trying her best to work her sass. I let the room go silent for a moment, stared back at this ghastly person and said, “It means subtle”.
Who would have thunk a word as simple as, “subtle” would soothe the wild beast but I think paired with my special, “are you seriously trying to screw with me?” face it did the job. Heard almost nothing from her for the rest of the night….well unless you count her challenging people that found similar flavors as I did, “You’re only saying that because SHE did” and the ever charming offer she gave one of my regulars at the register, “I’d put out for a bottle of that!” while she was buying her bottle of Prosecco and 3 bars of chocolate, gross.
I get the big girl sassy thing, it’s kinda my deal and all…but there is a right way and a wrong way, she was so purplely doin it wrong it was simply repugnant. When she slapped her name tag down on the counter and told me, “I want to be on a funner table next time” I nearly shot Champagne out my nose…funner? Really? Might I introduce you to your people, the people of Walmart dot com?!
So in a effort to ensure that we would have a sold out class the day after Thanksgiving Randy booked one of my Champagne events, these classes are always the first to fill up, sell out and have been the most successful in terms of sales, so I too thought it was a good idea….but we are starting to have, well and issue. So we can seat, (comfortably) around 30-35 people for one of our classes, many more than that and it can get pretty cramped not to mention it is harder to control the crowd, so I have always taken 30 for the Champagne events….a few glasses of bubbles and the crowd gets a little um, boisterous, so 30 seemed to be the magic number for me.. The class this last Friday sold out long ago, that’s all good right…yeah except for one thing.
The format of my bubble events is super relaxed, I don’t pound a bunch of, “how Champagne is made” or history of the estates down people’s throats, I let the wines do most of the talking and I interject with bits of information and walk around the tables making myself available for any and all questions. I talk briefly about the wines before each flight but for the most part the crowd kind of does their own thing. This format has been working for me for years, people like the chill feel of it and end up chatting with their neighbors, making new friends and having a great time…I love that, have always loved that but, as I checked the enrollment sheet for the class this Friday I saw what I have been noticing for the past few…large parties, really large parties and a long ass waiting list with more large parties.
Now normally this would not be a problem, full seats are full seats, but what has begun happing is the same groups are showing up, bringing their friends, (and a picnic this last time) and while one member of the group, (usually the one that makes the reservation) may buy a bottle or two, the rest of the group is not…problem. I have people on a waiting list that want to attend but my seats are full with people having a private party, I appreciate that they like my events and all but the goal is to move some wine, turn people onto things they have never tasted and like sell some too. Well these groups are starting to be a problem, even filling a cancellation is a problem, 4 people cancel and I look to the waiting list and it’s all groups of 5 or more…argh!
The class this Friday was full of the regular suspects, (two large parties in particular) and we had 2 no shows, (just so happens they are my biggest Champagne buyers as well) so the class really was not all that successful, sure we filled seats, sure my core group of ardent supporters bought some Champagne, we sold over three thousand dollars worth of wine, but wrestling with the noise from the private parties and having that loud group not buy any wine, well it told me that I might need a change in my program.
The first suggestion was not taking reservations for groups larger than 4, well that won’t work because they will all just make separate reservations…oh and what a nightmare when they all arrive and tell us that they want to sit together, nope that’s out. The second was to say the class was sold out when these parties call, well I am not about to do that, I’m not lying. So aside from pulling these people aside and telling them, “I know you like these classes, I’m flattered, I really am but if you wish for them to continue we need the seats filled with people that may actually buy wine”…thinking that might just go over like a fart in church. No what I think I am going to do for the time being is take 45 reservations for all the Champagne classes, sounds rather daunting to me personally, (all those eyes on me at one time…makes me feel kinda barfy just thinking about it) but I’m at a bit of a loss, I need more bubble lovers to support and grow my department, the little private parties just aint gonna make that happen.
All that being said, the class was still fun, (another problem with the party goers, they tend to want to stay. They just sit there while we are cleaning up around them. No offence folks but we are not at a party, we’re working and we would like our evening to end before like 11:00 PM and stuff) those ardent supporters, well they stayed to help me clean and empty the bits of leftover Champagne before convincing me to go to a bar and have a few drinks…weak, Champagne makes me weak. The best part of the night was as it should have been, the wines, the wines were fucking, (sorry Thomas) fantastic!
Featured Wines
NV Jose Dhondt, ($59.99) I was the odd man out on this wine, I loved it…always love it but thought the wine that I poured next to it was better, (Pierre Peters) but it was still lovely. Deeply roasted, tons of apple and a delicate mousse.
NV Pierre Peters, ($52.99) this wine can give me goosebumps. So savory and almost salty, sea-kissed, with little bits of citrus and toast. This wine begs for oysters and after a bottle of it with oysters…well begging is likely.
NV Bruno Gobillard, ($76.99) a wine that spun my head at a Champagne trade event and one that I was dying to wrap my palate around again. Subtle, very fine bead, delicate graham cracker, apple skin and cream…rich and supple but refined, think muscular legs beneath lace.
1999 Guy de Chassey, ($79.99) I had recently sent this bottle to someone whose palate I am dying to get to know, wanted their take on it, to see if it flipped their switch like it did mine, don’t think it did but putting the glass to my nose that night…flipped me again. I taste so much Champagne that when I taste one that is so different it just grabs me, this wine…well it shook me with both hands, and I dug it. Sexy as hell, full of fragrant white flowers, pears, green herbs and spice. The palate is long, really long and the wine just kept getting better and more expressive as it warmed I the glass. I went back at the end of the night to re-taste from the open, un-refrigerated bottle…damn, giving me little shivers just thinking about it.
NV RH Coutier Brut, ($39.99) I will confess a soft spot for this wine. The importer brought a bottle to dinner one night and asked me if he should consider bringing it in, um…flattering much?! Well I gave him a giant, “hells yeah” and now it’s here. I love the richness, texture and weight of this wine, and at this price…stoopid, it’s a stoopid value. Baked fruit, warm bread and butter with a long Pinot rich finish.
NV Camille Saves Carte Blanche, ($56.99) another Pinot rich bubbly, full of red fruit, toast and cream. Lovely weight and a long toasty finish. Powerful enough to hold up to food but pretty sublime all on its own.
NV Vve Fourny Brut Rose, ($45.99) you know, there is always one wine that gets trounced, this was it. I think after all those Pinot based, powerful wines this pretty “little” wine just got clobbered. Gentle wild strawberry on the nose with bits of pepper and a more cooked berry thing on the palate, very pretty, very clean and a perfect little starter wine.
NV H. Billiot Brut, ($56.99) um, love it. Always love it. Big cooked apple flavors, tons of toasted bread and a mouth feel that is rich and assertive. Slutty, I always call the wines from Billiot slutty and by that I mean there are no hidden corners, the wine is all out there in its curvy, sexy nakedness…rawr.
NV Rene Geoffroy Brut Rose, ($63.99) oaky, I’m fessing up here, I didn’t like this wine at all that night. I found it stinky, like someone just lit a match and the palate was completely shut down. Might just be a phase, I’ve had and adored this wine in the past but that night…
NV Camille Saves Brut Rose, ($72.99) sexy, this wine is ridiculously sexy. Palate staining texture, cooked black cherries and cream…drinks more like a Burgundy than Champagne but it has all those sassy little bubbles….damn.
We also poured the H. Billiot Cuvee Julie but seeing as I just wrote that up in my last post I will spare you the rerun….it still makes me want to do naughty things, still a remarkable wine, still delicious.
Thanks to all that attended, I think at least one of you read this silly blog. Thanks for the after tasting drinks, um…kisses and bites on my neck, you people are totally crazy and I adore you for it. Be prepared for a much different looking, (in terms of size) but still great tasting, Champagne event in the New Year.
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