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Being an artist I want to bring my artistic point-of-view to the table so to speak when I take photos and include them here in my written blogs where I also comment broadly on the specific events that occur weekly at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 , Tel : 202-363-4265 anthony.quinn@clevelandparkwines.com, also now on Facebook at : Cleveland Park Wines and on Twitter, too at : cpwinespirits.com ) that I have now managed the wine department for the last twelve-plus years in Cleveland Park N.W. Washington D.C. What a grand ride it has been for the most part. The last four months have been bumpy indeed. More about that perhaps at a later time.
Pictured above is one of my all-time favorite ( as well as of many of our customers ) salespeople Jody Jackman of Winebow Imports. Owner Leonardo Loscascio of Winebow Imports in my very humble opinion out to be rewarding her handsomely as she goes way beyond in doing her job and sharing her knowledge with many of our customers when she does her in-store wine-tastings on many a Friday from 5-8PM. Thanks Jody, you are the best. You are a big part of why I still give Winebow the business it gets from us. It's still very much a people business in my humble opinion once again and not simply about scores and points and numbers, boxes and clever labels and concepts created in advance before there was even the wine to put in the bottle.
It irks me greatly that the whole process of selling wine on a large scale has been completely turned around and starts with the results which are money and moving more boxes of wine. I support the smaller families that have a product first along with some part of a dream that want to sell what they make to stay in business and not add just some more money to what they already make like the corporate giants out there that live high up in buildings built of many floors and lots of shiny metal and glass. Harsh words I know but then again for me at least it's the truth that I do not like and wish to make many others aware of as they buy bottles of wine named CUPCAKE that again in my opinion started with a name and the wine was the last thing considered : money speaking loudly once again with the wine taking it's place but not center stage where it should always be.
On this occasion in the store when Jody came to taste some of her current releases I ended up quickly taking quite a few pictures as she both spoke and poured and filled Ean Bond and myself ( Anthony Quinn ) up on a series of wines that included a Dao Portuguese white and a German wine I believe as well? I will have to check my notes. These pictures are of two wines in particular : a dry red Portuguese blend from the Duoro region called PASSADOURO. It's from the 2009 vintage and I had asked Jody about some of her Portuguese wines and so this was timely indeed. We still do not have it on our shelves but I will check my notes and then with Jody and we will try and get some here in March.
I love watching the wines cascade down from the lip of the bottle into my awaiting Reidel Austrian wine-tasting glass and the picture above is a perfect example of that. If I can give people a visual stimulus to rush out and buy a bottle to try then I have done part of my job. I like adding these visual prompters to help people to decide to buy a wine : seeing the brilliant color and clarity and the light shining on or through it can do that as well, if not much better than just simply looking at the label. And when you combine that with seeing the color, the label, the glass and wine inside of it what better prompter could there ever be?!? I don't think many? I call it : adding to the equation - that's what I like to do, not copying the equation.
On top of all this seeing the wine tumble and pour from the glass like a magnificent waterfall reminds me of growing up in the wilds of Brazil and taking my camping trips as a very young little boy indeed and being there by waterfalls and witnessing the water do the same thing and being transfixed as I watched or even swam in the water itself of got close to the wall where the water was cascading down into the body of water below. It has stayed with me these images all of my life and I am forever grateful and thankful for that.
I ask your indulgence here as I have included many pictures that are quite similar but in fact different and they do reveal subtle variations and new things which can all add to the moment that Ean, Jody and I shared. Nice to be able to go back and relive a slice of this moment as it all happened so quickly as most things do and are all to often as quickly forgotten as if they never happened at all. Look at the lovely deep , rich colors of this Portuguese dry red above. They are beautiful and deserve our attention as well as their tastes do. WE often do not have the time to appreciate both color and clarity as we are so determined to get to the taste as quickly as we can. That also means that so often we do not have either the time or the desire to linger and to bask in the bouquet as well.
I have started to take pictures looking up at the glass and the wine inside like the one above. I want to see what that gives us all as an image. I am still working on this and trusting always that at least in some of the pictures that I will get something that is worth our attention even with our terribly busy and stressed lives of today. Patience and believing have really carried me quite far down my artistic pursuit of life and things, people, places, moments and magic and wonder and a fair amount of joy and contentment, too.
This blog entry I must admit is turning out to be more an artsy one and so I hope you will indulge me here. I was glad to try these wines with Ean the other day in this early-as-yet 2012 year of ours. I will check my notes when back at the store about both this dry PASSADOURO 2009 Duoro red as well as the MORGAN 2008 Monterey, California Syrah. I am home now on Sunday typing this and trying to keep up with my wine blogs and all of my pictures as there are so very many of them. I cannot recollect exactly my thoughts on the PASSADOURO now. It's glorious outside with a wonderful baby blue and clear and brisk sky that is rendered quite cold once the wined wraps you up for long seconds in it's grasp and hold! Brrrr! It's now Sunday, March 4th, 2012 at 12:31PM here at home in northern Virginia on the day before my father's birthday as well as six day before my mother's! Glad I am remembering that. My wife reminded me about my mother's and I remembered about my father's. Life is wine and so many more enriching things for me. Certainly it's all entwined and each has it's special place and special importance to be enjoyed as a group and shared and treasured and wondered and marveled at as well.
I love this label above as seen through the glass of my Reidel wine-tasting glass.
I love all the reflections off the surfaces of labels and bottle glass and wine glass and even off the wooden surface of the table, too in many of these pictures. There's a glare, a glow, an intensity that draws one closer and also expels one. Works for me.
I also like very much the label as it stretches around almost the whole bottle glass surface that almost touches but does not quite, leaving a line of green glass from the start to the finish of the label. I also like very much the design of this PASSADOURO label, especially the drawing of the otter on it and it makes me want to know more? Was it put on there simply to draw one to it , for it's appeal as everyone loves animals? Or is there a story attached to the image? I will have to do some research on this and get back to you all later.
I love the deep red bright red color of the wine in the picture above. This makes me want to rush out and get a bottle and pour some and have a sip and then another and then another. That is as long as the wine is now ready to drink? It may need some food to help flesh it out? It may not? That depends on the spices and the levels of acids in the wine? As I said I cannot at this moment remember.
I also like this picture above because it makes me think that the otter on the label above is swimming in this liquid and in-motion ( as I swirl my glass ) red wine above. I quite like that.
I love the life of the red wine above : like theater, like dance, like the ocean and the blurring of the edges between air and water or wine in this case : the thread, the glue, the bond between the two.
I also love the color of the MORGAN 2008 Monterey, CA. Syrah and how it changes as I swirl it around my Reidel Austrian wine-tasting glass and how the light from the ceiling fixtures above that are so strong infiltrate, permeate and liven and add contrast and shading to the Syrah as it moves around the glass. Pretty magical, pretty electrical : energized. It's the Energizer Bunny become liquid wine.
I love seeing Jody's eyes and the one eye of the otter in the picture. They provide the transition necessary as well as they serve to ground the picture, too.
In this picture above there is the one eye of Jody and the one eye of the otter : lovely : they have bonded, they are now one. What more could anyone ask for?
It's now as both Jody and the otter as swimming together in a sea of liquid wine turbulence, excitement, energy, explosion of flavors, a wind of a bouquet and that Jody's eye is registering this as well as is the rest of her face. There is action and expression everywhere. I like it, I like it a whole lot. What do you all think?
The wine is swelling in the picture above as is Jody's smile. She's really warming up to this experience. I wonder if she has named the otter yet? Boy or girl?
It's also as if in this picture above Jody is getting to the same eye-level as the otter and the wine itself in which it is valiantly swimming? Is Jody trying to see things from both the perspective of the swimming otter as well as the flowing wine that is very much alive like the otter, Jody, Ean and I ? I like that thought, too. Becoming one with the wine, the others, the moment, the time and the place? These are all really important things and which can add so much to enjoyment, appreciation and hopefully also much less stress and worry.
Look at that smile above : the red translucent wine gives it a bit of extra warmth don't you think? And look at the grand swoop of Jody's eyebrow! Makes me want to ski and go over skiing over that swoop and land in a head dive right in the swirling red wine to later come back up and lay flat on my back and bask in the glow and the rush and the excitement, emotion, energy of the moment with a mouth full of delicious Portuguese PASSADOURO 2009 wine! Oh yeah! I know, I know, a bit of a stretch. But then that's what us artists do : we stretch reality and make fantasy and desire all come into our reality : at least that possible reality that exists inside all of us and which we choose to share or not depending. I choose to share as often as I can. I choose to live life as fully as I can and sometimes I do it with words and not as often with actions. it's fun to play, to imagine, to indulge ourselves : to feel alive. Cheers! We are all conscious or unconscious players in one another's lives and fantasies and dreams and desires. That's life, simple as that . Very primal still with lots of embellishments, frills and accessories but primal always at the core.
I love this picture above. It's one of my favorites because you can really see the color and the clarity, the brilliance and the spark of Jody's left eye. I have to thank my camera for this, as well as Jody : it all came together so clearly in this picture above.
In this picture, too. Just like in a play with different acts and scenes we have switched in these two pictures above from one scene to another? Or perhaps it's just the end of one scene in the picture above?
We pick up so quickly once again in the picture above. No rest for the weary. That's real life.
Ahhhh, there's a moment of discovery, or realization in the picture above? Jody has just though of something. heard something? The pieces of the puzzle of this Portuguese PASSADOURO 2009 dry red are all coming together - flashing before our eyes perhaps?
Once again I love the cascade of wine pouring from the lip of this bottle of MORGAN 2008 California Monterey Syrah. What a grand spectacle : magical, wondrous really. Thanks Jody. What thick and rich and bright deep colors it has. The lecherous wolf is perhaps also here talking to the young Goldilocks? My artistic and literary bent is running wild here : please indulge and forgive me. And I have not even had a sip of wine this early Sunday afternoon as I type all these words and my imagination and process of assimilating words and stories and feelings and thoughts all run wild and collide and ride and are expressed rather than suppressed ( as is so often our path in life today ) sadly. I was an English major in college at Randolph-Macon in Ashland , Virginia and I loved those four years of mine. Very fertile indeed.
I do not remember having especially liked this MORGAN 2008 Syrah from Monterey, California. As I vaguely remember telling Jody the high alcohol in the wine bothered me quite a bit? I will ask Jody and check my notes on this as I may be quite wrong so suspend recording this last observation until I can clear it up here this coming week. I know that I have often found many of the California Syrahs as tasting too much of alcohol and not enough of the bright and fresh and vibrant fruit from which they started? Perhaps if the wines were allowed to be lighter, brighter, with less wood and heft that indeed they would be more successful and become more popular that they are now? Syrah has been a problem in California for years in my humble opinion and perhaps if they tried different tactics like perhaps not putting them in new oak barrels and used carbonic maceration that they would have a great new success story on their hands? Have they already tried this approach and abandoned it because the results were so disappointing?
But hey I am an artist and not a wine-maker. I have ideas, though and perhaps someone might try what I have suggested to see what results? I am so tired of such high-level alcohols and I just read recently that the watering and irrigating of the vines can lead to higher alcohol levels? Is this true? If so why don't they water less and not add nutrients to the water and let nature take it's course for whatever results and then dealing with that? So many questions I know. Oh well.
I am an interested bystander and I have been in the wine-business since I started work at Rex Wines & Spirits back in Washington D.C. on Wisconsin Avenue N.W. way back when now owner and president Dan Kravitz of Hand Picked Selections was the wine-manager under Alan Sahm ( do I have that spelling correctly ? ). I worked there a year and told Alan that it was unpatriotic to have to work on the 4th of July as well as on other national holidays. I said it in front of all the store employees and did not make myself popular with Alan I am sure, I was young and naive and impressionable then just as I am today. Nothing has changed Alan! I also once asked Alan if I had any future at Rex Wines & Spirits and he said " no " and I was out of there before my year ended managing Colonial Liquors at the corner of 19th and M Streets N.W. in 1982. History, rich, lush, verdant history : mine. I do call this my " chat " wine blog.
I've always loved how I get the reflections of the necks of the bottles as well as the ceiling lights in the wines poured into my Reidel wine-tasting glass. There's a bit of the green of the bottle on the surface on my wine.
Look at the picture above and how clear the word MORGAN is on the label : it looks great doesn't it? I think so. Bravo.
I love this picture above : I love the way the ceiling light as it reflects off of my Reidel wine glass in the picture above cuts through Jody's face making it all look like pieces of a puzzle. Fun. Look at the beautiful color of the MORGAN 2008 Syrah above? That red infused with all the bright light from the ceiling lights above is quite spectacular.
Here in this picture above it happens all over again! I love the glare , the intensity : Ean's expression is great : so is the color once again of the MORGAN 2008 Monterey, California Syrah above : liquid bright, almost transparent wine-light-clarity-warmth-wonder and magic. Wow, I'm loving it, really I am.
The picture above : priceless! I'd love to hear again what you were saying Ean in the picture above? What expression.
I love what's happening in my Reidel glass above of the MORGAN 2008 Syrah. The way the light shines on the glass and with all the reflected, refracted, absorbed and transparencies : the sense of motion and drama and energy and the whites and the clearer more fluid reds : wow, this is another piece of a red wine dancing like two doing the tango. Can you hear the music, can you almost taste the wine? I can.
I can almost get a handle on the wine here. Like coming up from the depths of the wine, having swum inside of it, gasping for air. That deep pink that you often wear Jody is a great color for you. Bravo. Thanks for sharing these Winebow Imports wines with both Ean and me the other day. You do bring us some truly exciting wine selections, many of which we have sold and included in our ever-changing collection of offerings at any one particular time or other at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits.
The picture above of you Jody is another one that I really love. I love how the lights act as ribbons and slice through your face and highlight parts of it and give you and your expression more action as if you are up on a stage and in a play on Broadway. Or like you are in a great film that is playing across the street on one of the last great remaining " big screens " at our very own Uptown Movie House. In that picture above you are reacting to something said and it hits you hard. In the photo below the news is sinking in and you are getting a firmer grip on the impact of the news.
In the picture above you have responded to the news that you have received above. You are firm in your resolve.
Ean, Jody and I are all taking a moment to reflect quickly over the last few minutes shared in each other's company and we are giving thanks for that before moving on to our next tasks which I am sure that there were many on this particular day. Looking at Jody's watch in the picture above it looks as if it's 12:15Pm or perhaps 1:15PM? Love the bracelet Jody there and the contrast that the bracelet and the shiny metal of the watch make ( they both really stand out against the matted deep black of your vest ). You know being a painter I pick up on things like that. And just like Billy Cyrstal when he was on Saturday Night Live way back when I will sign off with a paraphrase from him : " You look absolutely marvelous! ". Cheers and thanks for the tasting. We will talk again soon about all of this. Anthony ( Alan ) Quinn
P.S. Hope you like my chatty approach to this blog entry. The wine was the vehicle for me to chat in this instance about it and many other things as you have read that are about the business of wine ( and it's enjoyment, too ) as well as about life and people and art and food and many things that for me as I wrote linked and threaded my thoughts together loosely from one thing to another. Cheers, TONY
