Archive

Last Friday, good friend and Bryant Fine Wine guru Brad came by with some samples that I hadn’t gotten to until later that weekend. Brad is one of those rare talents in this business, the kind you hope bleeds through to you by simple osmosis, kind of like when (Wine Advocate writer) David Schildknecht, who [...]

I could spend infinite amounts of time on the RNDC tasting, because they have a pretty expansive book, but the remainder of the wines I managed to taste in the short amount of time I had (the tasting part of the show lasted 3 hours, more than enough time for the amateurs to end up [...]

California is always on everyone’s mind at these trade shows, especially when you have a portfolio steeped in California love. While there were a lot to choose from at the show, I was pretty selective, tasting only ones I had either 1) not had in a very long time, or 2) wines that were completely [...]

Hey y’all, and welcome to the 21st Century. Tomorrow, we hold first DEPS Twitter Tasting, featuring the wines of Airfield Estates, and in setting up our first Twitter Tasting, we wanted to accomplish a few things: We wanted to open up a new arena for tasting wines with our customers, expanding into the ever-changing arena [...]

I’ve gotten pretty good at strategy when it comes to trade shows – having attended them for the past 13 years as either a buyer for restaurants or retailers, and the RNDC show was no exception. I had a long way to drive back so I wasn’t about to screw around or get hammered – [...]

I went down to the Republic-National Trade show, held in Louisville at the Galt House on the river, last Thursday (Shannon and her brother Chad went down earlier for the two seminars RNDC held, one involving McWilliams Wines and the other, a sake seminar conducted by the Mutual Trading Company). It’s kind of a long [...]

Last Wednesday, our new SWS Bluegrass rep and one of Shannon’s regular drinking buddies, Christy, along with her boss and extended DEPS family member Jim Schuler came by with something new and some old favorites: Crème de Lys Chardonnay California 2009. Grade=Outstanding. Pretty straightforward Chardonnay with a touch of Malvasia Bianca and Pinot Blanc blended [...]

Thursday we sort of experienced a wine tasting smackdown when our Seligman rep (i.e., the Budweiser house) and extended family member Abby came by to show us some of the new wines they picked up. So far, Budweiser hasn’t exactly piqued our interests with their wine ventures, but these were a really big surprise. We [...]

So it’s not too often that you find me eating a shit sandwich, unless you are my wife – I do that a lot at home – yet here I am with a big, heaping helping of bat guano, horse apples, and buffalo fritters, all piled high on a bun made of the finest dingleberry [...]

Today is one of those days I’d forget my own name if it wasn’t branded across my limbic region. Running around working on the perpetual mess that is our inventory tracking, I slipped and forgot good friend/Heidelberg rep Kymber was bringing by the wines of Marchesi di Barolo, a legendary producer that I hadn’t tried [...]