Frankly My Dear

A Note From Your Future Self

2012-02-09T21:48:00.000-05:00

This post is from the Frankly Wines newsletter. I think it's pretty funny, but I'm easy that way. This was inspired by a conversation with one of my sales reps. We were talking about how he was starting to put stuff away for future consumption. I give him some things to think about, but he was hesitatnt. I told him to just do it, that his future self would thank him. And from that conversation, this post was born. Of course it took me about a month to get around to actually writing it, but that's life with three kids and a wine shop!

On to the post: A NOTE FROM YOUR FUTURE SELF

(OK, this first part is from me. Your Future Self will chime in later…)

I've been in this industry for a fairly long time. And I've been drinking wine for an even longer time. And I firmly believe (because I've seen it happen many, many times) that if you drink wine often enough and long enough... and if you're open-minded enough to trust what you like rather than what gets the points, the scores, and the big swinging blessings, you'll eventually decide you're crazy for Cru Beaujolais.

So no matter what you're drinking right this very minute, if you're serious about wine (and I mean serious about drinking wine, not about treating it like a trophy and hoarding it away for the benefit of future auction buyers) than do your future self a favor and pick up some Cru Beaujolais now.

Now I'm not talking about Beaujolais Nouveau (which shouldn't age past the year it was bottled) - I'm talking about the very good stuff from villages such as Morgon, Brouilly, or Fleurie. These are wines that can be hard to resist straight out of the gate, but really start to show their stuff with a bit of bottle age.... say, about five years... which will be just about the time your Future Self will be craving them.

I could tell you all about these wines. How they manage to combine bright, lip-smacking fruit with sneaky mineral complexity. How they remain one of the wine world's great values. I could go on about the subtle differences between the various crus. But I don't need to.. because your Future Self already knows all about them. So don't listen to me. Listen to... you:

Dear Current Self,

Do me a favor. Buy some of these wines. Even better - buy some in magnum. If you don't, five years from now, you'll be wishing you had some, remembering this email and kicking yourself. Or myself. Or ourselves... or...whatever. Just buy the Beaujolais! Seriously, you'll thank you later.

Trust me,
Your Future Self

To buy, go to our WINES page, enter BEAUJOLAIS in the search box, hit enter and make your Future Self very happy.

Frankly Wines Five Questions - Meet the Sales Reps

2012-01-15T17:59:00.000-05:00

Frankly Wines has a Facebook page. Why? I’m not so sure why, but we have one. And when you have a Facebook page, one of the objectives is to get people to like it, pay attention to your posts, and comment on them.

If those are the objectives, than our two most successful posts in 2011 were:

Can I haz some Jura?*

1) A picture of a cat sitting next to a bottle of Puffeney Chardonnay
2) A picture of one of my sales reps holding a massive bottle of wine

Those results could lead me to just post links to the Lolcat site, but honestly, those cats sort of annoy me. And they don’t have much to do with wine. But the sales rep posts…that could be fun, relevant….and if done right, not require a lot of work.

And then the idea of the Frankly Wines Five Questions was born.

As background, this idea is based on the idea of the Proust Questionnaire, a sort of party game popular at the turn of century (the last century). Proust didn’t write the questions (which include queries about your favorite virtue, your heros, and how you would like to die) but his answers are some of the most famous. If you’re not exactly a student of 4,000 page novels or the parlor games of the Belle Epoque but this still sounds familiar, you many recognize the modern version that always runs on the final page of Vanity Fair magazine.

So the Frankly Wines version is five open-ended wine questions that we’ll put to the many wine reps that come through our doors. They answer the questions, pick out their favorite bottle in the store (that they don’t rep), we take a picture (and put it in the always-popular fish-eye view) and voila – a Facebook post.

There are some very cool people in the ranks of the wheelie-bag-pulling sales rep army. We know them well, but we thought it would be fun to introduce them to the rest of the world.

(And….it’s a really easy way to put together an entertaining post.)

On to the our guinea pig:

Clarke Boehling, Rosenthal Wine Merchant

1. Your idea of perfect wine happiness: A cellar full of wines that have personal resonance for me, in a house I designed myself, in which I have space and time to cook meals to pair my wines with.

2. Your idea of absolute wine misery: Doing an in-store tasting during which every single customer describes my wines as “tart”

3. Preferred method of wine sample transportation: Donkey. But, because that’s difficult in NYC, I stick to my red L.L. Bean bookbag from 8th grade

4. Dream dinner companion (living/or dead): David Lynch. (At his house.)

5. Wine pairing that blew your mind: 2005 Montbourgeau Savagnin and raw oysters. BRINE on BRINE! And not something that would have immediately occurred to me.

Frankly Wines Pick:
Domaine Macle Chateau-Chalone Vin Jaune 2003: Why this one? We forgot to make Clarke tell us why, but in this case, the wine speaks for itself! You don't see many bottles of this sitting around, so when you see it, you grab it!)

*That's Clarke's cat in the picture.

More Signs that I'm Not a Corporation

2012-01-12T13:42:00.001-05:00

I've posted before about the sad underbelly of "living the dream" of owning a wine store. One of the sad things is the lack of the big, fat corporate expense account... Or an account to buy shiny new computer equipment (or an IT department to set it up.) So when your old stuff moves into the scuffed-and-limping-along phase, you deal with it for as long as you need to.

So when you drop your phone two months after buying it...And the screen cracks...but the touch screen still works..and yeah, there are glass shards kind of sticking out but they're not actually drawing blood...and the kids can still play Angry Birds without inflicting harm on their little fingers...

When this happens, you stick with your sad sack phone for as long as you can, ideally until your contract resets. Which is what I did. And yes, I could have gone to any of the many "guys" that helpful customers knew that could fix me up. But that would require phone calls, and subway trips and time....and like I said - it's not like anyone's fingers were bleeding!

But...yesterday after over a year of using this cracked phone, my contract reset and I was able to justify getting a replacement. With the upgraded insurance. And the super protective outercase. And the new Siri feature (which frankly, is a little creepy, but it's even more entertaining than Angry Birds.)

So bye bye iPhone.
I'm sorry I dropped you...so many, many times.
But you served me well until the end.
RiP(hone)

Gift Idea #4: You Can't Beat Cute

2011-12-11T19:07:00.002-05:00

Little bottles = perfect stocking stuffers. As you can see from the picture above, the cute factor is tough to deny.
So what are these little vessels of adorableness? When they're this cute, who cares!
Alright, I'll tell.
The tall skinny one is a distilled white ale ($18.75 = $20 with tax)
The short round one is the Hudson Baby Bourbon ($38.99).
Both are too cute for words. And quite tasty.

Gift Idea #3: The Not-So-Classic Not-Champange Cocktail Kit

2011-12-09T11:29:00.001-05:00

I worked in marketing for many years before opening this store, so I know a thing or two about the theortical application of reach and frequency in the midst of major media clutter. But with the store, I'm living the reality. Every chance I get, I mention that we now sell spirits. It's in the newsletter. Every newsletter. For the last six months. We have a big sign at the store with a big arrow pointing at the spirits shelves. And those shelves happen to sit right next to the cash register, where there's usually a helpful Frankly Wines employee ready and willing to answer questions.

And one of those questions is often, "Is there a store around here that sells spirits."

Now from this position, if the person asking the question were to just turn their head a half click and focus, they would see several shelves filled with spirits. Actually, they probably did see the shelves. The just didn't SEE them. Such is the nature of our cluttered environment.

Anyhow, this is a long way of introducing some of the gift options we're most excited about this year Cocktail Kits!

Because they involve sprits.
Which we know sell.
Right up there by the cash register.
Right in front of your eyes.

The Not-So-Classic Not-Champagne Cocktail Kit: All boxed up and ready to go, this could be the perfect gift for your favorite budding mixologist, bar chef, or whatever they want to be called these days. Each kit includes everything you need to make Nick’s not-so-classic take on a classic Champagne cocktail. It’s the perfect accompaniment to brunch, with just a little sweetness, a hint of berry fruit notes from the cassis, and a lovely floral lift from the Elderflower Liqueur. And bonus – the bottles are really, really pretty.

Each kit includes 1 bottle each:

Pierre Chermette Crème de Cassis
Chase Elderflower Liqueur
Vullien Sparkling Vin de Savoie
+ a recipie card

Price: $65

Buy it here. (click and scroll down)

Gift Idea #2: The Gift That Keeps on Giving - Wine Clubs!

2011-12-08T22:31:00.000-05:00

I firmly believe the best way to learn about wine is to get out there and just drink it. Drink wines you're not familiar with. Made from grapes you've never heard of. Grown in regions you can't find on a map without aguide. You may not like everything you try, but you may also find something you absolutely love, that completely takes you by surprise.

And the best way to get these bottles of wine you never you needed?

Easy....join a Frankly Wines Wine Club!

(Full disclosure: I may be somewhat conncected to Frankly Wines. But if you didn't already know that, you really need to pay more attention.)

So...Wine Clubs. We have options…lots of them.

There’s our monthly Sampler, available in two different budget options. Or go for maximum impact with our Bubbling Over sparkling clubs.

All are available in 3-, 6-, and 12-month options. Or go on a month-by-month basis - just sign up and we’ll keep sending you wine (and charging you for it, we’re not THAT generous) until you tell us to stop.

Click here for details. (Please ignore the wonky formatting, it's still very readable and this time of year, there's not enough time to slow down and fix it.)

Gift Idea #1: A Really Good Bottle of Champange

2011-12-07T11:52:00.003-05:00

‘Tis the season to drink Champagne.
Is there really any more to say?

(Ok, there is more to say. Like that you shouldn’t wait until the holidays to drink Champagne. You should drink it year round. Whenever you want. And not just for big celebrations. Because champagne is “just” wine with bubbles. And it’s delicious!)

Now, on to the recommendation

Marie Noelle Ledru - outstanding in her field
(photo credit: Bonhomie Wine Imports)

If I could place a bet on which champagne is going to be the hottest thing going in the next couple years, I would bet on the bubbles of Marie Noëlle Ledru.

This is Grower Champagne produced in the tiniest of quantities. Ledru owns 6 hectares of vines – small enough as it is, but absolutely tiny when you consider she sells off half of that to bigger houses. She farms without chemicals or pesticides, minimizes sulfur additions, hand-disgorges each bottle, and does the riddling on her own.

Yes, all this attention to detail makes for good copy, but the wines speak for themselves. They’re a marvel of ripe fruit, firm minerality, earthy, salty, biscuity goodness. But what’s most amazing is the pricing. This bottle is $50 on the shelf. Certain perfectly-nice-but-but-definitely-not-hand-tended champagnes are pushing this price point.

But that $50 price tag may not last for long. As I mentioned, Ledru is poised on the edge of being the next big (well, not really big) thing. The people who talk about such things are quietly buzzing about these wines. Their charm, their deliciousness, their sheer value. The distributor has already removed any quantity deals…because what’s the point of a quantity deal when there’s not much quantity to sell.

So next year, when every single cool kid is going on about Ledru, you can say you drank it when.

Marie Noelle Ledru Grand Cru Ambonnay Brut NV Price: $49.99
Marie Noelle LeDru Grand Cru Ambonnay Brut NV (Magnum) Price: $99.99
Marie Noelle LeDru Grand Cru Brut 2002 Price: $74.99

Arriving soon: Extra Brut, Extra Brut Magnums, Rose

Yes, I clearly have a thing for these wines.

Buy them here. (Just type Ledru in the search box)

The Silly Season

2011-12-07T11:29:00.001-05:00

We're now in what I call the silly season, more commonly known as DECEMBER! As my 7 year-old would say, "In my imaginary world, I have a beautiful booklet laying out all my suggested gift options. Would you like one?"

But that's the imaginary world. In the real world, the autumn decorations are still in the windows, I'm still sorting out my Champagne buy, and there's no beautiful booklet anywhere in the near future.

But there will be blog posts. And facebook posts. And tweets. So stay tuned.

Thanksgiving Reco #6: For Those Who Want a Matched Set

2011-11-21T18:57:00.000-05:00

I have a thing for muscat-based wines….especially dry versions. Or ‘almost’ dry versions. Sales reps know this, so I’m an easy target. I already had signed up for the regular size bottles of this delicious, very-nearly dry Binner muscat, so my former-staffer-now-sales-guy knew I would be a sucker for the big magnum bottles.

Supercool, super-tall magnums.
Biodynamic/little-to-no-manipulation wine-making.
Yummy dry wine with the slightest bit of CO2 prickle….it was a clear case of muscat love-at-first-sight.

Obviously I’m biased, but I do think this wine would be an objectively good match to the Thanksgiving dinner. You could drink it before, during, and after. And never mind the actual wine – the bottle is just damn cool. Be the hit of the party and pick up a big bottle. Or go all Goldilocks and get both small and large....together, they're just right

Domaine Binner Muscat Ca Gazouille 2008: $29.99
Domaine Binner Muscat Ca Gazouille 2008 Magnum 1.5 Liter: $52.99

Buy them here.

Thanksgiving Wine Reco #5: For Those Who Want to Drink What I'm Drinking

2011-11-20T20:49:00.002-05:00

La Clarine Farms Mourvedre 2010.

Natural deliciousness for less the $25.

Not going to say much more because there's not much to go around.

Thanksgiving Wine Reco #4: For Those Who Aren’t Afraid of a Good Cliché

2011-11-19T16:20:00.000-05:00

Yes, everyone suggests Beajolais Nouveau as a great Thanksgiving wine. It’s a pairing that doesn’t just verge on cliché…it is a cliché. But hey, it works. And despite it being extremely unfashionable among the wine geek crowd, I still love it, stock it, and drink it. Yes, it’s a cliché…but it’s also a bit of a tradition. So get over your cool kid self and drink some.

We have three on hand….choose your cliché wisely!

Paul Durdilly Beaujolais Nouveau 2010: The fruitiest of the bunch. Probably the closest to what people think of as “Nouveau” but without the banana nose. And definitely the most fun to say. (Say it now...durdilly!) Price: $10.99

Domaine de La Madone Beaujolais Nouveau 2011: Darker fruit + a little more structure…well structure of a Nouveau. Price: $11.99

Christophe Pacalet Beaujolais Nouveau 2011: Natural yeast, unfined, unfiltered, and this one will even be nice with a bit of age. (By age, we mean, it will still be tasty come, oh, January 1st. Which is a lot of age for a Beaujolais Nouveau.) Price: $12.99

Buy them here (yes, this is a link to franklywines.com)

Thanksgiving Wine Reco #3: For Those Who Need Neutrality

2011-11-16T02:52:00.000-05:00

In a wine store in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, you learn a lot about people’s families. You learn that a lot of people aren’t so keen on their families. And they really dread the prospect of an extended turkey-filled meal. It’s not like you can just sense this….they flat out tell you. Turkey Day wine requests usually go something like, “I need two bottles of white, two reds, and I really don’t want to spend the day with my over-bearing brother-in-law.” Or “I’m making oyster stuffing this year, do you have anything really strong that will drown out the annual argument between my mother and sister?”

OK, maybe they’re not all that explicit, but there’s definitely a lot of eye rolling, deep sighing, and general tension in the air.

So if you’re one of those customers in need of a little tableside harmony, there’s nothing more appropriate than a wine from Switzerland, that great bastion of neutrality (and cheese and cuckoo clocks.)

Our suggestion: either of Fabienne Cottagnoud’s two reds. Or both if you’re in need of serious peace brokering.Fabienne turns out a sexy, silky Pinot Noir that’s almost jewel-like. And for something a bit brawnier, her Humagne (that’s the grape’s name) is a stunner – something like a Northern Rhone Syrah crossed with a gust of Alpine air. These are beautiful, unique wines that will help you breathe more easily and forget about any turkey-time tensions hovering over your table. They’re not inexpensive, because apparently, neutrality has its price.

Caves des Tilleuls (Cottagnoud) Pinot Noir de Vertroz 2008:
$34.99

Caves des Tilleuls (Cottagnoud) Humagne Rouge de Vertoz 2009:
$44.99

Click here to buy.

Thanksgiving Wine Reco #2: For Those Who Really Trust Us

2011-11-11T21:19:00.000-05:00

It's true. I make this recomendation every year. But that's because it works. And because I really love the wine. And because maybe this year....you'll take me up on it!

Lopez de Heredia Tondonia Rosado Gran Reserva 2000 (Rioja, Spain): Imagine Thanksgiving dinner (the food, not your crazy uncle or your tispy cousin-three-times-removed.) The cranberry sauce, the turkey, the yams, the turkey, the stuffing, the turkey. It's a wine-pairing nightmare. But this is the wine that can handle it all. Delicate enough to handle the turkey (which let's face it, is pretty bland), a little fruit to deal with the cranberries and exotic enough to stand up to the stuffing, yams, and even pumpkin pie. It's perfect.
But it's not exactly your typical rosé - it has some of the tangy-ness you'll find in a good fino sherry, only a hint of fruit, and lovely exotic spices like cardamom and ginger. So if you're intrigued and looking for a little adventure pick up a bottle.

Price: $23.99 Buy it here

Surely this is what Edith Piaf meant, non?

2011-11-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

Harold's Planet Daily Cartoon

Thanksgiving Wine Reco #1: For Those Who Need a Second Opinion

2011-11-09T15:03:00.002-05:00

It’s that time again! Time for the constant stream of articles and recommendations about What to Drink with Turkey!

Wine industry people love to roll their eyes at these seasonal, themed pieces (Bubbles on a Budget! Wines to Pair with Chocolate! You Get the Idea!) But my take is that we need to write these things. Because even though I know what to drink with turkey – and have been making recommendations for the past I’m-not-going-to-do-the-math,-but-it’s-been-plenty-of-years – this could be the year the YOU decide to give it a second thought.

So this is the first time you’ve given any attention to these recommendations. And you probably don’t realize I’m cutting and pasting this intro from last year’s Thanksgiving Day posts (actually, I’m not, but if I bothered to check, I’m sure they’d be eerily similar.)

So on with the recommendations. Which I actually like to write. Because the reality is….the real #1 recommendation is: IT REALLY DOESNT MATTER WHAT YOUR DRINK FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER!

OK, that’s not completely true. To revise slightly: It really doesn’t matter what you drink as long as what you drink is light enough and refreshing enough that you want to drink more of it. Which means I can write about almost anything I like. Because most everything I like qualifies.

So with that first rule in mind, here we go:

Thanksgiving Wine Reco #1: For Those Who Need a Second Opinion

Ravines Dry Riesling 2009 (Finger Lakes, New York): Ravines has been a Frankly Wines staple pretty much since I opened my doors four years ago. At one point, owner/operators Morten and Lisa Hallgren, were driving their own pickup truck down from the Finger Lakes to make deliveries. These days, they have an actual distributor who can make deliveries, which probably makes their lives a little easier….more time to focus on the wine!

I could tell you all about this wine…How it’s drinkable proof that not all Riesling is sweet. That “non-Riesling” drinkers always seem to like it. That it’s just the thing to liven up a turkey-induced Thanksgiving Day stupor. But don’t take my word for it. Get a second opinion: Eric Asimov and the New York Times crew deemed this the favorites white wine of their annual Thanksgiving wine panel.

Price: $15.99 buy it here

Things You Need to Know: How to Entertain a 5 Year Old in a Wine Shop

2011-10-24T01:35:00.000-04:00

This installment of Things You Need to Know doesn’t really apply to all potential wine store owners. Just the ones that think it would be a good idea to open a wine store six months or so before having a third kid. Because if you, then eventually there will be a day when your manager has the rare weekend off, your newest staffer has a delayed start date due a nasty bronchial infection, your backups all dare to have lives outside of being your backups…and one of your kids will have a birthday party in the wide-open space of a Brooklyn park that guarantees at least one of your other kids will wander off into the Brooklyn wilderness if your husband attempts to take all three of them to the party.

Which is a long way of saying that if you have three kids and a wine store, eventually you’ll wind up with one of them in the shop in need of a couple hours worth of entertainment. They want to have fun. You want to get some work done. But there’s only so much work that can get done when the kiddo can’t even reach the counter.

Here are some tips:

Stock the Bottles Game

Shocking how well this one works. Probably because the kids aren’t usually allowed to touch the bottles. But in this game, not only do they get to touch the bottles…they get to MOVE THEM! To play, each shelf section is assigned a letter (another use for the indispensable Post-It Note.) Then the grown up calls out “yellow tops, Section A” or green tops, Section C,” or whatever. The lucky kiddo gets to PICK UP and MOVE THE BOTTLES from the wherever they’ve been piled to the assigned section. Once all the bottles are lined up, the lucky kiddo gets to yet again, PICK UP THE BOTTLES and HAND THEM to the grown up who puts them on the shelf. And if the kid is very, very lucky, he may even get to PUT BOTTLES ON THE SHEFL ALL BY HIMSELF! (Unless you’re 3 – 7 years old, you probably can’t imagine how exciting this is.)

Make a Display Game

First, you need to explain that a “display” is something you set up to be eye catching so people will stop as they walk by and want to learn more. Then you let the kiddo loose with various, often forbidden goodies, in this case, corks, plastic cups, flower pots (from the actual spring window display, fake autumn leaves, and yes….BOTTLES!

Photo Shoot

Give him the phone. Let him take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Delete as needed. (Although some may turn out to be sort of cool, in an abstract impressionist sort of way.)

Last Resort
Let Angry Birds and Red Remover get you through the home stretch.

Today, we actually didn’t need to get to the Last Resort phase. The plastic dinos came out of the rolly bag (yes, we packed a rolly bag even through the apartment is right round the corner.) They took over a few wine boxes and the husband and other two kiddos returned just as they were about to annex the Australia section.

There's a New Bandol in Town!

2011-10-19T08:11:00.002-04:00

We had a good, long run working through our stash of Jean-Pierre Gaussen 2001 Bandol. We loved this wine for its classic, rustic only-in-Bandol blend of dark, brambly fruit, firm meatiness, and undercurrent of sunbaked herbs. And we loved that it was at the absolutely ready to drink – right off the shelf – when most other traditional Bandol’s on the market were new releases, in need of some serious aging. But save for a few magnums, the wine is now completely sold through.

Now when I sell through a favorite wine like this, I usually go into a mourning period for the old bottle, mooning over samples and price lists and bemoaning that I will never find a replacement bottle as good, at just the right price. And I did that for a couple weeks. But this time, the gods of wine (I guess that would be Bacchus) smiled on my and sent me a replacement very quickly.

So here’s the true story of our new Bandol…

*** WARNING ***

If you think wine buying is all about romantic travels through vineyards and cellars of little backroad town, then stop reading now. Your illusions are about to be shattered.

…So, on with the story: I run into one of my sales reps in Astor Place. He’s on his way from the Mud Truck and I’m on my way to the Mud Truck. (It’s a four-distributor tasting kind of day. Caffeineation is required.)

Me: Hey, they were out of the 2004 Bandol at the tasting. Could you get me a sample soon? I need a Bandol with some age on it.

Him: Let me check (pulls out some spreadsheet reports.) We actually have two cases of the La Bastide Blanche Bandol "Cuvee Estagnol" 1997. You interested?

Me (in my head): I really hate to buy wine without tasting it. But I really liked the 2008. Too young to really drink easily, but it has the bones I like in my Bandol. And the 2004 was poured off a couple hours before the end of the tasting, which is always a good sign that it was showing well and drawing some excitement. And two cases isn’t a lot and there aren’t many older Bandol vintages kicking around the market and I really don’t like not having an older Bandol on my shelf so…..

Me (out loud): Ship them next Tuesday.

Deal done. Off to get coffee and hop the subway to get to another tasting. So much for wine romance.

Anyhow, the wine arrives and it’s time to open a bottle and try it. And happily, it tastes exactly as it should. Grapes for this cuvee are grown on clay-limestone soil, so this wine is a wee bit less beefy than the Gaussen. But we’re not talking elegant here – this is classic Bandol, Powerful and meaty, with firm tannins and a core of baked, dark fruit that recalls the sun-baked slopes of Provence. Perfect for autumn weather and richer, wintery foods. Think stews, lamb, game (hunting season is just around the corner.)

Buy it now, drink it within a year. If you’re a Bandol fan, you won’t be disappointed (unless you wait around until it’s all sold out….remember….we bought the last 2 cases and have already opened a bottle!)

Price : $44.99

You Really Do Learn Something Every Day...

2011-10-15T12:03:00.002-04:00

A while back, I shared a quick tip on how to remove slow pours from a wine bottles. Or rather, how to remove a slow pour from a wine bottle without breaking a nail or slicing your finger off.

Now if you don’t already know (and haven’t already guessed) what a slow pour is, then here’s the definition: it’s a little plastic device that allows you to pour wine s-l-o-w-l-y. Without looking stingy. Which is especially important at big, fancy tastings where you want to give lots of people a little taste of wine but are too cheap to run through more than a bottle or two.

These are geezers

So the other day, I’m talking with one of my sales reps to coordinate an upcoming tasting at the store. What time to arrive, which wines, what order – the usual – when he asks if I have any geezers he could borrow. This is a strange question, so I ask for a little clarification.

Well, apparently ‘geezers’ are his name for slow pour - which makes perfect sense since geezers stereotypically move more slowly than the average person – especially if that person is a New York City wine sales rep. ‘Geezer’ also implies a certain crankiness, which is usually how the person pouring the wine feels when stuck behind a table dealing with clinkers, anti-spiters, and the general sloppiness that is a big, fancy tasting*

There are also geezers...
but you can't keep them in a box

So we’ve started to call them geezers at the store. It’s especially fun to yell down the basement – “bring me some geezers – they’re in that box under the stairs!” Just as long as no one from the AARP is in ear shot.

*Not to be confused with the good time that is pouring at a cool, little Frankly Wines in-store tasting, where the pourers get to stand in front of the table.

Photo credit: Plastic geezers: Christy Frank. Geezer sign: rileyroxx

Start Spreading the News....

2011-10-14T03:48:00.000-04:00

New York wines hit the big time! Specifically wines from the Finger Lakes region, which got a big Eric Asimov write up in the New York Times this week. And as happened maybe once or twice (or more) before, we already have a few of the mentioned producers in stock. Old favorites like Hermann J Wiemer and Ravines that have been around since I opened, along with more recent finds like Bloomer Creek.

These Finger Lakes wines (FLX for the acronymicly inclined), along with a couple Long Island producers (hello Shinn…another NYT favorite) have colonized enough shelf space that we decided to put together a New York sampler case.

Now this is not a bandwagon thing – we decided to expand the New York state section back in February. And this sampler case has been on the to-do list since, oh….May.

Time flies when you’re selling wine.

Early Signs of Autumn

2011-09-12T08:17:00.000-04:00

It's autumn! Time to think about new wine to put on the shelves! Cider for crisp fall days! Champange for the holidays! Jura whites! Gift packs and dessert wines and higher end bottles for gifting! Right?

Wrong.

It's time to master the logistical challenge of getting three kids to/from three schools with introductory phase-ins, sorting out the store schedule, training a newbie, attempting to attend as many trade tastings in a day as physically possible, and trying really really hard not to forget anyone's lunch. Yes, there’s a husband and a babystitter and even grandparents flown in for the first couple week but still…everyone needs to know who’s picking up whom and packing what.

So the spreadsheets to the right are the essential tool to make all this happen. At least I get to put my highlighters to good use.

Because nothing says autumn like a nice, new highlighter....

Or that first call from the school asking who’s picking up your kid....

Or that first time you get to a locked store at noon…and realize you were the one that was supposed to open it an hour earlier....

OK, that last thing hasn’t really happened.

Hurricane Prepardness - An Exercise in Vagueness

2011-08-27T18:34:00.001-04:00

I’m from Ohio, so I’m used to tornados. Or at least tornado warnings. You sort of know one might be coming, but there’s not much warning. In school, we spent a lot of time practicing tornado drills, just in case a giant funnel cloud suddenly descended from the sky. Our high school mascot was even a tornado. So I get tornados.

But we didn’t see many hurricanes in Ohio. Hurricane Irene is my first one. And so far, as we sit here waiting for the storm to hit, my first impression is that hurricanes involve a lot of, well, waiting. And preparation. And then more waiting.

Since we don’t really know what we’re getting until it gets here…and since I live just around the corner from the shop, and just around the corner from the evacuation zone, determining opening hours has been an exercise in playing it by ear.

The plan: stay at the shop until one of three things happened:

Customers stopped coming in the door
Wind and rain started to threaten a safe trip home
My husband called in need of backup to deal with three building-bound kiddos

How to communicate this to those hunkering down and needing wine? The old school Door Sign + Chalkboard Method worked pretty well.

The Chalkboard

The Door Sign

And...in case you're wondering. I shut down around 4.30PM. And the kiddos had nothing to do with it!

Hurricane Prepardness - Don't Forget the Wine

2011-08-26T00:17:00.002-04:00

If you haven’t heard, there’s a hurricane on the way. Everyone here is busy putting together their emergency preparedness kits (except me, I’m putting together this blog post.)

The National Hurricane Center recommends the following: Batteries, water, insurance papers (in a zip lock bag), tools, full tanks of gas, pet car items, a traditional telephone (you know, the sort that plugs directly into the wall) a radio (who has a radio??), canned food, prescription drugs…..on and on.

But they make no mention of a really important thing: WINE

Highly recommended in hurricane situations: BOX WINE

Box wines are ideal for upping your hurricane preparedness. One 3 Liter box includes the equivalent of four bottles, but in a much lighter format. And each box usually come with a handle, which makes them especially easy to evacuate. And a bonus: the bag-in-the-box can be used as a pillow. So you have one less thing to pack.

Given all this, I fully expect to see box wines included in the next version of the National Hurricane Center’s official preparedness list!

NOTE: Thank you to Jeanna for making the initial recommendation to include a box or two in your kit.

Chalkboard Project: Good Vibrations

2011-08-24T08:24:00.000-04:00

So I missed yesterday’s earthquake. I was on an airplane, descending into LaGuardia with 2 out of 3 Frank kids, when it happened. The taxi driver into the city was very excited about the whole thing, but we felt nothing. Back at the shop, I was told the bottles jingled a bit but nothing fell of the shelves. We appear to be much better at breaking bottles than an earthquake, at least a 5.9 earthquake.

But always quick to turn topical events into chalkboard fodder, this appeared in front of the store:

Apparently it was a big hit – several dozen photos snapped in the first two hours it was outside. Could be our most popular effort to date!

Wooden Boxes - Maybe They're Not So Bad

2011-08-19T12:24:00.000-04:00

One of my most popular posts ever was a rant on wooden wine boxes. I had a theory that while most people start out thinking these boxes are the coolest things going, the longer you work in retail, the more you grow to loath them.

I arrived at the 'Utter Contempt' phase years ago, so these days my enjoyment of wooden boxes is limited to putting them out on the sidewalk and doing a staff poll on how long they’ll stick around. It’s not long – usually under five minutes. Once, we had two boxes sit on the sidewalk for an entire 20 minutes – but that was because monsoon-type wine started to pour the minute we put them outside. The second the rain stoped, the boxes, waterlogged and all, disappeared.

So yes, I am not a big fan of wooden wine boxes….until yesterday. Some of the love came back when I spotted this urban box garden in front of a nearby restaurant. It’s cool enough – and simple enough – that I may go back to keeping the boxes for myself.

Frankly Wines box scavengers, be warned – the glory days may be over!

THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT WHITE BORDEAUX CONTINUES

2011-07-28T09:57:00.001-04:00

Yes, yes, yes, this is a direct cut and paste job from yesterday's newsletter. And it's pretty much the same as the blurb that's on the web site. But I would bet money that there aren't more than three people in the world who read my newsletter, this blog, and the store web site. And two of those people are probably my parents (who will most likely be sending me an email this evening that says "hey, you mentioned us in your blog!)

So in the name of reach and frequencey, here's a little Control-C / Control-V for your reading pleasure:

It’s possible that white Bordeaux is the least fashionable wine out there. But I don’t care. I love it and am continually on the quest for good ones. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: a really good, aged Bordeaux Blanc can offer up the perfect balance of rich creaminess, zesty acidity, zippy citrus and subtle herbal notes, combined with the nutty complexity that comes with a bit of bottle age. It’s wonderful with cream sauces, sauces involving fresh herbs, many veggie dishes, and grilled fish.

My quest for the delicious but unfashionable finally landed me in a very happy place. I managed to round up some very good, very nicely aged Bordeaux Blanc at a very, very, very nice price. Apparently, loving an out-of-fashion wines can have its perks!

So here’s the story: the wine is L’Esprit de Chevalier. It’s the second label of Domaine de Chavalier, which is one of the region’s most classic, most proper producers of white Bordeaux. We have both 1999 and 2000 on hand. The 2000 is drinking wonderfully right now, right out of the bottle. The 1999 is a bit tighter and more structured at this point in it's life. I loved it on day 2, so it’s one to enjoy over a couple days, decant, or sock away for another couple years. And the price (drum roll, please) - $29.99/bottle.

Not to get all infomercial on you, but this is a really, really good deal. If you’re at all intrigued, my recommendation is to buy one of each vintage, invite some friends over, grill up some fish and drink them side by side. I've put together some special pricing to make this even more intriguing!

Go ahead, be fashionably unfashionable and click to learn more.