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by Putnam Weekley
  fter
meeting with Joe Dressner (right)
for more than 2 hours, I searched the shop I work in for the most
Dressner-like wine I could find. I wanted a drink while typing these
notes at home in
Detroit.
In retrospect it should have been a Jean Foillard 2001 Morgon
but I went with Remy-imported 2000 Perbacco from
Cantine Vietti.
It may have been an hallucination brought on by the
wine, but when I mentioned the now Kermit Lynch-imported
Foillard Joe smiled in approval and admitted to once handling it
himself. We didn't discuss Vietti, a brand imported by Kermit Lynch in
the 80s.
Louis/Dressner and
Kermit Lynch
compete fiercely for the portion of the American consumer market not
intimidated by the French language. Both sell a decent amount of Italian
wine too.
The $20, 2000 Vietti Perbacco is good,
maybe "better" than the legendary 1999, but it didn't quite hit the spot
that night. Sure, it was an agile, energetic copy of the mythical
$30-$50 Barolo model I keep filed in my head, but there was something
too earnest about it. The volume of acidity, tannin and fruit were
turned up just a bit higher than I wanted. It was clean and rectilinear,
like a billboard for wholesome, correct "Barolo," far above the soft,
cross-pollinated earth.
Joe Dressner moved easily from the topic of
Mondovino
to interstate shipping to
Detroit-made
Lafayette
Coney
Islands
smuggled to him in
New York by famed
Detroit-area retailer Elie (sounds like "Eli" as in Eli Whitney.) I had
no idea retailers could woo importers like that. I hope the wine shop I
work in scored points by treating Joe to a scordalia and
spanokopita from next door, but who knows? Then again, as he
testified, suppliers who accept meals and other such considerations from
their customers, rather than the other way
around, are swiftly ostracized by their peers. It's woven into the
fabric of the universe: when suppliers and buyers break bread, suppliers
pick up the tab. Breaking this code is treason.
It is inconceivable that anyone will hear about
it in this forum, so I share the tale of transgression with you. As far
as I can tell no one involved has been penalized yet.
Personally, I was infected with the Dressner
virus in 2000. Wholesale turf politics kept his wine out of our market
roughly from 2002 to 2005. Now I am desperate to join the ranks waiting
for Thomas-Labaille Sancerre, Cerdon Bugey, and at least
one Portuguese producer handled by Dressner and known to my friend
Albert. Macon
guru Henri Goyard retired, leaving the Roally
domaine to Gauthier Thevenet, son of
Jean. Now I regret selling 50 cases of 1995 Roally in
2000. Incidentally, why must wine sellers honor a return policy when we
have no right to seizure? Want to return a wine for any reason? Fine. I
want to take back any wine I sell you for any reason. How do you
like that?
So how were the new-edition
Louis/Dressner wines? Answer: weirdly retro-priced,
innocently beautiful, with soft, clean and integrated acidities, low
residual sugars, sane alcohol levels and diverse, expressive character.
If allowed by supply and supplier, the shop I work in will amply stock
14 out of 16 wines tasted. I'm sure that's some kind of record.
Domaine Pierre Breton 2003 Bourgueil
lieu dit "Galichets" was intensely tannic, and finely,
sweetly so. I'm eager to drink another bottle.
Maréchal, Catherine and Claude,
made a 2002
Bourgogne
Rouge Cuvee Gravel that insistently jumped off the upper palate with
sappy, vinous Pinot essences. I was impressed with its power and
persistence as it refused to occupy the mouth with any obscure tannins
or excessive alcoholic weight. It was amazing
Burgundy
for less than $25. It makes a Nicolas Potel 2002 Bourgogne taste
premeditated and foolish in comparison, even if thicker and darker.
Chateau d’Oupia pumped out a heretical
$6-$8 old-vine Carignan with quality and package that could decimate the
underground arts and beats scene in
Detroit.
It's called Les Heretiques 2004 VdP l'Herault. Imagine drinking
this from "incorrect" glassware at the Lager House on
Michigan Ave.
or Bleu on Woodward or at any variety of
Hamtramck
or Ferndale
night spots. Am I a freaking idealist? Can I have dark, appealing and
dry red wine when I go out? I wonder what black light would do to the
starry-night label image. Charge me $30 for this Nightclub Owner. I'm
begging you! Why must a taste for the night life require drinking
Rosemount Shiraz or vodka? The first Detroit-area bar, club or gallery
that offers this wine should be rewarded with immortal fame.
d’Oupia also packaged a
Minervois. The 2003 is tannic and juvenile still. I expect
it to swagger over the next year or so. Can you afford $9-$10 a
bottle?
Mas des Chimères Coteaux du Languedoc 2002
was grown in volcanic soil with these "amazing veins of iron," according
to Joe. I tasted voluptuous tannins, almost as if they were breaking
down slightly - or was that just yielding, living flesh? - and loads
of black fruit and black licorice. Less than $15? Didn't Dressner get
the memo? This kind of wine is supposed to be $25-$35.
I expect these notes to be dismissed by skeptics,
but if they alienate narcissists from such engaging, compassionately
crafted treasures, so much the better. More for me.
The Montesecondo 2003 IGT Toscana was set
to become a Chianti Classico, only the authorities declared that it
needed more color. What's more, they prescribed a specific remedy: color
adjunct! You've got to give credit to a grower who disregards his
regional regulators rather than succumb to damaging and ludicrous rules.
Its tannins were deep and thorough, though fine. A ruby red -- hazed
with tawny -- corresponded to flavors of baked berry syrup. Less than
$15? This is a joke, right?
A biodynamic 2004 Gavi, Cascina degli Ulivi,
Novi
Ligure, for less than $15 came next - a Gavi that actually smelled
like something: musk, honey and fatty nuts... Here's a
fair
treatment of the wine by a Dressner convert working at MSNBC.
Then the stunner: Domaine
Pepiere 2004
Muscadet. This is perhaps the only hand-harvested Muscadet
available within 1000 miles of our store. It sauntered from the glass
with fat, obscenely ripe white fruit aromas, gyrating its vinous hips
irresistibly. On the palate it was energetic, in and out, leaving a
trail of liquefied granite flavor. This kind of quality is scarcely
available for $20, never mind the ~$10 it claims to be. The store I work
in will require at least two dozen cases of this.
From the Muscadet it was on to
a Cheverny (2004, Francois Cazin) and a
Touraine
Sauvignon (2004, Clos Roche Blanche), both of which beckoned to be
studied further, both closer to $10 than $15. A 2003 Sancerre (Fernand
Girard) dropped a core of round, integrated, lemon jelly flavor into
a surround of clear, mineral extraction - it was less than $20. Less
than $20 for an original Sancerre, one that doesn't have
grapefruit-flavored esters imposed on it by laboratory yeast!
The new bottling of Quinta do Infantado Tawny
(N/18442) was, as advertised, dry and fascinating. If the prices
were reversed, I'd still rather drink this over any major 10, 20 or 30
year tawny bottled and shipped to
Michigan,
or any Madiera under $50 for that matter. It runs $15-ish.
I told my rookie colleagues
Chris and Terry that they would meet 100 zombie-like wine corp.
operatives before they met another Joe Dressner. Actually, now that I
think about it, there are lots of honest people in this business; it's
just that many of them are trained to bite their tongues. Not Joe. Joe
is argumentative, and he backs it up with a crystal clear understanding
of what makes wine good. "This isn't a 'style,'" he said. "It isn't
designed. It is what it is." While he tried to take attention away from
how they tasted, they tasted delicious. All Dressner products are
hand-harvested. None undergo the kind of manipulation that is routine in
whole regions of the wine world: acid adjustment, chaptalization,
inoculated yeasts and heavy sulfur dioxide use.
But don't believe I am some kind of Kool-Aid
drinking Dressner groupie. We've had our disputes. For example, he still
claims I never returned a luggage cart that he left with me after the
meeting in 2000. Unprompted my wife just asked, "is he the guy who we
mailed that luggage cart to?" You see, Joe left it in my car, I dropped
it off at the wholesaler's warehouse, the wholesaler never returned it
to him, so, in November 2003, I retrieved it from the wholesaler,
packaged it and sent it to Joe's NY address. Maybe he never got it, but
at least I have corroborating testimony that I did not steal it. The
fact that he still mentions this issue irritates me a little, but that's
not what matters now. What matters is that Joe Dressner's evident
stubbornness translates into a zeal for wine quality that may, if you
allow it, appear right in your own glass.
Toy with the classical, Roman fragrances of
Europe.
Hey Joe, welcome back to
Michigan.
We missed you.
Links:
Louis/Dressner
Joe's
Blog
Joe's masterpiece of wine trade satire,
The Three Tier Schnook System.
Previously in Putnam's Monthly:
Free Trade:
I Know It When I See It
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