Joe Dressner, Captain Tumor Man http://captaintumorman.com/ Sat, 04 Sep 2010 7:48:25 GMT Joe Dressner http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/8/27/516/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/8/27/516/ Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:56:49 GMT
Arnaud Erhart is celebrating a major birthday this weekend somewhere in the Loir-et-Cher. Lots of people in America talk about natural wine these days, people even write books, but it was Arnaud who really started the movement in America.



Arnaud is a native of Alsace, worked in various restaurants in France and New York and launched 360 in Red Hook some eight years ago. Its been closed now for three years and Arnaud has moved on to a new career in Oceanography based in Puerto Rico, partnering with Dr. Tania Puell (the niece of Dr. William Meyers of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego).

But we all sorely miss Arnaud. It wasn't so long ago that the only place to get a natural wine in an American restaurant was in Red Hook or in Fort Greene at ICI. Arnaud was the innovator who introduced a whole range of vigernons to America. More than that, he is a great friend, perhaps even a great human being.

This weekend's celebration is going to be a serious evaluation of the man and his work.



Rumor has it that many movers and shakers in the wine business will be attending:













posted by: Joe Dressner at 8/27/10 6:56 am]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/8/25/515/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/8/25/515/ Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:16:46 GMT

Stéphane Diderot and Gaston Laplace

Topics this year include:

Natural Wine: What is it Good For?

How to Become a Blogger

Using Facebook to Make Your Customers Think You do Nothing but Sit in Front of Your Computer

BTS or IUT -- Which One Fits You

How to Meet and Befriend a Marcel

Copinage -- Truth or Fiction

Jules Chauvet -- The Man Behind the Myth

How to Get a Wine Placement at Chambers Street Wines

How to Get a Wine Placement at Cave Augé

UBI France -- Get Money to Tour the World for Free on the Flimsy Pretext you are Promoting French Agriculture

Italians Making Great Wine -- Friends or Foes?


posted by: Joe Dressner at 8/25/10 10:16 am]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/8/12/514/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/8/12/514/ Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:35:53 GMT Farm Wine Imports has organized fabulous events that you won't want to miss.

Here's the schedule:



Sunday Aug 22nd
Tasting at Soif Wine Bar, Santa Cruz
105 Walnut Ave
3-5pm
$15/person, refundable with case purchase, reservations required. Light food will be served 831-423-2020

Dinner La Posta, Santa Cruz
538 Seabright Avenue
Time TBA
Reservations are required and may be made by calling La Posta at: (831)457-2782


Monday Aug 23rd
Tasting Enoteca La Storia, Los Gatos
416 North Santa Cruz Ave
6:30 - 8:30
$15 for the tasting, wine and olive oil


Tuesday Aug 24th
Dinner and Tasting 5-10pm
Farina Focaccia & Cucina Italiana
3560 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94110
T: 415 565 0360
www.farina-foods.com
Reservations recommended


Wednesday Aug 25th
Tasting Biondivino
1415 Green Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Call for details 415.673.2320


Thursday Aug 26
Tasting Terroir Wine Merchants
1116 Folsom Street
(415) 558-9946
6 to ????



posted by: Joe Dressner at 8/12/10 10:35 am]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/24/513/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/24/513/ Thu, 24 Jun 2010 22:01:13 GMT
This is a confusing subject and a lot of readers, wine drinkers and assorted personalities have asked for guidance.

Please go to this link:

The Definitive Guide to The Natural Wine Movement.



posted by: Joe Dressner at 6/24/10 5:01 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/23/512/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/23/512/ Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:39:21 GMT


posted by: Joe Dressner at 6/23/10 9:39 am]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/9/511/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/9/511/ Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:34:56 GMT This was originally posted on April 13, 2001. In those days, I didn't have cancer and we had a distributor in Maryland.

I'm writing this on the Metroliner returning from Baltimore to New York City. I have been in DC/Maryland/Virginia since Monday morning in an effort to promote Louis/Dressner Selections wines in this region. In the process, I have not only met a lot of Schnooks in the wine trade but have turned into a Schnook myself.

My Thursdayes salesmanship highlight, was trying to convince two dead men who buy wine for an important retailer in Maryland to buy the Clos Roche Blanche Sauvignon Blanc. Despite the numerous amusing anecdotes I told the dead men about the vignerons, they rejected the wine on the grounds it was too acidic. But they greatly enjoyed the Corbieres Chateau la Baronne Rouge 1999 and immediately ordered a large quantity that will be case stacked at their important store. The dead is a market segment I want to learn more about in the future, as I see my firm has enormous growth possibilities with this important group. On the other hand, we are not doing well amongst the far more numerous Schnooks.

The two dead men did not qualify as being Schnooks as Schnooks are genuinely among the living. Addtionally, the two dead men tasted with glassware, whereas Schnooks always taste using plastic cups that they either have stolen from their Dentists or that they have bought in massive quantities from dental supply companies.

That's right. You, the average wine geek out there, are bombarded with endless literature about Riedel stemware and fret over which stemware is more appropriate for Burgundy and which stemware is more appropriate for your Flowers Chardonnay. Curiously, the DC/Maryland/Virginia market is flooded with Flowers Chardonnay, a winery that I always assumed is an internet invention. Kind of like Kay Bixler.

Anyhow, in reality the Schnooks who are deciding which wines you will be able to buy at your local retailer are making buying decisions by tasting wines in plastic cups. Here is how it works:

(1) The Schnook Salespeople from Schnook Distributors arrive at stores all across America with samples of wines from Schnook Importers (such as myself) or Schnook Domestic Wineries.

(2) The Schnook Retailer then humiliates the Schnook Distributor Salesperson over some late delivery or billing error for the first 15 minutes of the encounter. Since the Schnook Retailer is secure in the knowledge that the Schnook Distributor Salesperson needs his business (as the salespeople are working on commission) they take particular sadistic delight in making the salesperson feel sullied, stupid and humiliated. The veteran Schnook Distributor Salesperson learns to ignore this tirade and not take it personally. If the salesperson is a man and the retailer is a man, the skilled Schnook Salesperson allows the tirade to come to a halt and then tells a particularly salty dirty joke, usually involving oral sex, to make the Schnook Retailer laugh and feel a sense of camraderie with the Schnook Distributor Salesperson. They then proceed directly to important business deals.

(3) There are two variants to this stage. In the simpler variant the Schnook Retailer takes out his plastic cup and tastes all the wine samples the Schnook Salesperson has brought with him. The Schnook Salesperson tries desperately to bombard the Schnook Retailer with all the scores the wine in the plastic cup has received in The Wine Advocate, The Wine Spectator, The Wine Enthusiast, The Paul Roberts Wine Monthly, or any other periodical that has mentioned the wine and that can be turned into a shop talker. This is a very important point: the wine needs a good score somewhere, anywhere, because the Schnool Retailer does not have the time to do "hand-sells." The Schnook Retailer has a difficult job during this phase of the ritual, having to smell, taste and spit (already made more difficult by the wine being in a Dentistes plastic cup) while listening to the Schnook Salesperson's passioned narrative of 89 points, 90 points and 87 points for each wine.

A subvariant of this process in the Schnook Retailer having a Designated Taster, a kind of sub-Schnook, who tastes all the wines in a designated plastic cup and decides which wines merit being tasted by The Main Schnook. This is something I have never seen outside of the Washington, DC area.

Regardless of whether it is the Designated Schnook or the Main Schnook there are now two fascinating rituals to observe. Some Retailers use one plastic cup for whites and another plastic cup for reds. Some use different plastic cups for each wine. I suppose this is often a function of the tasting budget alloted by each store. Because often the Retail Schnook Buyer is but an employee working within the budgetary limitations of a Boss who doesnet even bother coming into the store. I did observe during this trip that our wines were much better received by the Schnooks who change cups with each wine. They tend to be much serious wine tasters.

After evaluating the wines through any of the above methods, the Retail Schnook then tells you which wines they will order. This is prefaced by an interrogation where the Retail Schnook demands to know the name of every retail store in the immediate area who carries the wine and what they are charging per bottle. The Retail Schnooks especially like wines that are not carried by their competitors: normally they mark-up the wine 50%, but if no competing Schnooks carry the wine they can add another $1.00 to the bottle price. In general, the Distributor Salesperson Schnook blatantly lies at this point and assures the retailer that non one else in the continental United States will carry the wine if they take 5 cases and make a floor stacking.

I am always shocked by the sheer squeals of delight by Retail Schnooks when they find out their 5 case purchase will be an American exclusivity. Since I work for a fringe company, the Retail Schnooks assume that no one carries my wine anyhow and sometimes mark it up $2.00 for a an additional $120.00 profit on their 5 case purchase! If I am present, working with the Schnook Salesperson, the Schnook Retailer then tells me how he loves working with insignificant companies like Louis/Dressner Selections because our wines are so badly distributed and obscure that he can make enormous and objectionable profits from carrying our eproduct.i

What do we call this system? We in the wine and liquor trade call it eThe Three-Tier System.i

Of course, the entire market is not like this. There are fabulous retailers out there and great distributors with great salespeople. They truly do exist and eventually wine geeks figure out who they are and patronize them.

Despite being a schnook myself I have met many of these people. But even these people are obligated to carry Schnook wines along with the often excellent selections they sell. Ites a schnook world out there and everyone needs a schnook cash flow to stay in business.

And donet forget that without the Three-Tier Schnook System there would be nobody to warehouse, truck and get out wine to retailers and restaurants outside of a handful of major wine markets.

Yes, the Schnooks perform many useful functions.

posted by: Joe Dressner at 6/9/10 6:34 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/3/510/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/3/510/ Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:10:26 GMT
David McMillan was an incredibly gracious host and the meal was delicious. I haven't had succulent steamers (from Prince Edward Island) in so many years and drinking a Gras Mouton 2008 from Marc Ollivier with the steamers was a great treat.

This was a sentimental match for me. I have been friends with Marc Ollivier for twenty years and seeing his wines in Montréal is very gratifying. My father Sam, who died 3 1/2 years ago, used to love eating Steamers and we would often go to Paddy's Clam House on 34th Street in the Garment Center to eat. Another lost New York institution.

I haven't thought about eating steamers at Paddys with my father in over 20 years. But isn't that what great food and wine is all about? Being transported elsewhere, bringing back memories and feeling blessed and spoiled. That's when I know food and wine are working, when they make me dream, hope and feel lost in time.

I'm trying to be reasonable so I had John Doré as my main course in a beurre blanc, with the asparagus (in high season) and with delicious morrels swimming in the sauce.

Liverpool House, along with Joe Beef next door, have great wine lists and I thought I should ignore all the French wines I love and drink Canada. We drank a Norman Hardie County Pinot Noir 2008 from Prince Edward County (home of my good friend Jeff Connell). The wine was very pretty to my taste, at 11.5% Alcohol (!!!) and went great with the John Dory.

I had some smoked cheddar at the end of the meal. Joe Beef and Liverpool House have their own smoker and smoke their meats and other dishes. Lovely cheese.

David gave us a tour of the herb and vegetable gardens he has around Joe Beef and the Liverpool House. This is really taking local farming to the next extreme -- growing your own in an urban setting and serving from your own garden.

I only wish there were more places like this in New York! It is just so expensive to run a restaurant in that town and difficult to do everything with a chef's vision. Too often you need a PR Firm's vision to make it work and pay the bills. Things are changing in Brooklyn and slowly in Manhattan -- it doesn't take much -- great fish, meat, vegetables and natural wines!

Thanks again to David for a great evening.

David grew up in St-Henri and talked to us about how it was astonishing for him to return to where he was a kid and open three restaurants along with his partner Frédéric Morin. He remembers running around the alleys behind the restaurants as a 7-year-old making trouble for all his neighbors. St-Henri was always a tough neighborhood and still keeps some of its edge. Everyone always talks about gentrification here, but it is going very, very slowly. The neighborhood keeps its character.

Tonight, we're off to Les Trois Petits Bouchons with Québecs great wine importer Jean-Phillippe Lefebvre and the mysterious Genevieve Boucher.

I'm supposed to do a wine tasting in 40 minutes at the Georges Vanier Metro stop but may cancel it until tomorrow. I'm still not dressed.




posted by: Joe Dressner at 6/3/10 12:10 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/1/509/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/6/1/509/ Tue, 01 Jun 2010 24:41:34 GMT
The talk will be about matching natural wines with your summer barbecue needs.

Be sure to be there!

The event is being sponsored Dépanneur Yo Yo at 3951 Rue Saint-Antoine Ouest.


posted by: Joe Dressner at 6/1/10 7:41 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/19/508/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/19/508/ Wed, 19 May 2010 21:01:59 GMT
I change, the weather changes, the wine changes, my mood changes, my brain tumor acts up, I'm tired, I'm happy, I'm alert, I'm angry, the wine is having a bad day, I've eaten something that goes great with the wine, I've eaten something that destroys the wine, I'm with my wife and kids or I'm with some horrible blogger who makes definitive judgements about wine categories.

Who is against bottle variation. The Tea Party people!

posted by: Joe Dressner at 5/19/10 4:01 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/16/507/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/16/507/ Sun, 16 May 2010 25:56:11 GMT
Where the hell did they all come from?

Weren't they supposed to stay in Williamsburg?

They've crossed over the bridge and are moving uptown!

Don't they realize how boring and monotonous it all looks? I can't imagine anything so conventional and unhip.

Please buy new clothing.



posted by: Joe Dressner at 5/16/10 8:56 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/14/506/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/14/506/ Fri, 14 May 2010 24:25:41 GMT
Amazing stuff!

posted by: Joe Dressner at 5/14/10 7:25 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/14/505/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/14/505/ Fri, 14 May 2010 24:23:25 GMT
Instead, I'll do anything for a gag.

It turns out, this puts off the glum, the worried and the image conscious.

It's a minor miracle that Jean Manciat has stayed with us all these years.

posted by: Joe Dressner at 5/14/10 7:23 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/11/503/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/11/503/ Tue, 11 May 2010 20:18:16 GMT
I want to retire there but Denyse thinks it is too cold.

Denyse and I will be there in the beginning of June. I will be giving a seminar at the Georges Vanier Metro station. We plan on eating the Pluteau du Pluteau at PDC, spending time with our lovely daughter Nancy and meeting friends.



posted by: Joe Dressner at 5/11/10 3:18 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/5/502/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/5/502/ Wed, 05 May 2010 16:37:37 GMT
It always amuses me when people say they are raising money for cancer or some other disease. My parents used to go to fundraising events for Leukemia when I was a child. I used to ask myself: what sort of sadistic parents do I have who would raise money to spread Leukemia. My brother never got over the trauma of what turns out was a simple misunderstanding.

I'm starting a fundraising campaign for cancer victims like myself. Here is it how it works: you give money to Partners in Health to help Haitians in much more need than people like me in the richest country in the world seeing the best doctors money can find. This way, our struggle against cancer goes to help the needy, not the randomly ill.

Wealthy right-wing Republicans get cancer and they are going to continue to give loads of money for research and treatment. No one really cares about the Haitians.

So, let's get the cancer community -- the victims, families, friends and caregivers -- to rally around people who are truly fucked in every sense.


posted by: Joe Dressner at 5/5/10 11:37 am]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/4/501/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/5/4/501/ Tue, 04 May 2010 27:58:30 GMT
Hearty congratulations to Mark Firth, Andrew Tarlow and everyone associated with the Big Brooklyn Triumverate of Roman's, Diner and Marlow!

Jeremy Parzan one again won for wine journalism. He's a shoe-in next year as he and the noble Terlato clan will be fighting to put Greek wine on your table through social media.

Once again, Louis/Dressner won The Best Buffet at a Wine Industry Trade Event Award, even though Executive Chef Kevin McKenna did not supervise this year.

In other highlights, Danny Meyer won The Best Restaurant Service Award for the 17th consecutive year.




posted by: Joe Dressner at 5/4/10 10:58 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/23/500/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/23/500/ Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:31:16 GMT
posted by: Joe Dressner at 4/23/10 3:31 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/21/499/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/21/499/ Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:29:46 GMT somm at tomorrow's New York tasting will be immediately ejected from the event.

The word is sommelier.

CU Tomm

posted by: Joe Dressner at 4/21/10 3:29 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/21/498/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/21/498/ Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:34:04 GMT
Franck Peillot is on this flight.

posted by: Joe Dressner at 4/21/10 12:34 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/21/497/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/21/497/ Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:33:57 GMT
Franck Peillot is on this flight.

posted by: Joe Dressner at 4/21/10 12:33 pm]]> http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/20/496/ http://captaintumorman.com/date/2010/4/20/496/ Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:48:55 GMT
Franck and his sister rented a car and drove to San Francisco, arriving this morning!



posted by: Joe Dressner at 4/20/10 1:48 pm]]>