There seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm that our full book is no going to be available in Los Angeles.
Its a great town and I enjoyed taking the Metro system to get around. They have a great rapid transit system.
I stayed in Beverly Hills and was discovered by an agent.
The people at the two tasting we did were very nice, polite and all owned automobiles.
What a town.
We're now in San Francisco where we have a terrifying schedule tomorrow.
Don't miss our trade tasting and the public tasting at Terroir.
That's right. Come meet Keven Clancy of Farm Wine Imports in Albany, California at Solano Wine Cellars. From 2 to 4 pm, Keven will be featuring a stellar range of Louis/Dressner Wines at this wonderful store specializing in small production quality wineries.
Unfortunately, I will be stuffed into an airplane returning to New York. I would love to have been able to attend this event!
The store not only has a great selection of wines but they are also cancer patient friendly.
The event costs $10.00 but $5.00 is deductible to your purchases. Mention my name and the Code "XWCKD3493" and I will personally donate $1.00 to Cancer Care for each mixed 6 pack of Louis/Dressner wines you buy.
Don't miss this event!
I'm being held prisoner in Beverly Hills!
The West Coast Wine Assault, or whatever we are calling it these days, has started.
My head is bald, my wit is sharp, I just stumbled over a chair in a café and I've been defending the ethics of Robert Parker all over the internet.
I'm ready to go!
It has gotten back to me that Cancer Care, the well-known organization, is circulating this blog. Shockingly, many of the cancer patients reading this space find my blog inspirational and courageous.
Let me make this clear -- this blog is the work of a small-minded, vindictive personality who is using the "cancer card" to pursue an agenda of hate, disgust and vitriol.
I've always wanted to use the word vitriol.
Just ask Dr. Barbara Hirsch, the famous Great Neck Endocrinology whiz, or my Brother Ira "Chakra" Dressner.
And Fuck You!
Denyse and I will soon be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. David Lillie, the famous retailer from Chambers Street, has agreed to officiate at the ceremony.
The guest list reads like a Who's Who of the wine industry.
Rumor has it that Mel Dick from Southern Wine and Spirits will be attending.
That's right, Actor Jake Webb who plays Joe Dubois, the loving husband of psychic Allison Dubois in NBC's hit drama series Medium.
I think he's a remarkably good-looking dude and I'm sick of looking like Joe Dressner, the oversized Wine Importer with cancer.
Furthermore, I would still marry Denyse Louis and not get involved with any member of the Arquette or the Davin family.
A lot of people tell you to join support groups.
It's not going to help you out.
The trick is to establish a support network before you know you have cancer. Once you have cancer, you get a lot of cheap sympathy but its too late. If you don't already have a strong network, you're fucked.
So, be nice to your real friends, your family, your loved ones and your pets and they will be there for you.
Thanks goodness, Denyse Louis is about to return to New York!
She's been away for nearly two weeks, leaving me to the loving care of my son Jules. That guy is awesome!
The flight is about to go over northernmost Canada.
Our partner, Kevin McKenna, is also on the plane!
Last night, I ordered Chicken Parmigiana from a local Albanian restaurant. After scoffing down my meal, I stood up and lost by footing and went flying. My giant right toe has a giant bruise this morning. Given that my right big toe is already gigantic, this makes for a one gigantic bruise.
18 producers of Real wine from all over Italy and France to attack LA, San Francisco and then New York!
No Ponzi Plans, No Scores, Just Farmers and their Wines.
Meet Captain Tumor Man as he Spreads Cancer from Coast to Coast!
They're already beginning to assemble. The following vignerons and vignaioli will be in America:
All the latest in Endocrinology can be found on this exciting site:
Barbara Blogs!
It is very nice for Dr. Hirsch to share links with my site, much as my brother Ira Dressner is doing these days.
Wouldn't it also be appropriate for Dr. Hirsch and Ira to link sites together?
My mother spent three weeks in the hospital and has not seen the celebrated Dr. Barbara Hirsch, the Great Neck Endocrinologist, for all that time.
Readers will recall that Dr. Hirsch wrote my parents a seven page letter 3 1/2 years ago condemning them for crimes against humanity, Hirschdom and her ego because my parents did not attend Dr. Hirsch's Thanksgiving dinner.
I have demanded a short apology and she refused to do so. My father spoke to me two days before his death about how hurt and injured he was by Barbara's absurd letter.
Barbara Hirsch, like many self-entitled suburban matrons, believes she is entitled to voice her feelings no matter what. No doubt, she saw a shrink who encouraged her to finally get our her feelings of resentment against my parents.
So, Dr. Hirsch's shrink encourages her to lash out against my parents to positively and openly deal with her decades of resentment. The important thing for healing is too get it out in the open, even if it hurts other people too old to defend themselves. Unfortunately, my parents were in their mid-80s and incapable of answering. Shortly afterward, they became ill.
I have been asking Barbara for an apology since the letter was written. I am shocked that she is so prideful that she cannot write a letter to my mother. She takes that arrogance and pride from her father's side, not the Abramson side of her mother. My Aunt Florence was lovely person who stood up for everyone in her family and adored her sister Irene and also loved me.
She would be ashamed of her daughter.
Barbara has much in common with my brother. The two of them are in a self-indulgent orgy of self-revelation and self-serving gratification. They can do whatever they like to anyone and there is no toll to pay.
The important thing is too get their feelings out in the open and then move on.
I'm on Chemo this week and have to take care of her, something I find more than stressful. It challenges my physical endurance and makes me feel ill.
Ira Dressner has opted out of seeing her or taking care of her because he is all about reducing stress. Having an ill elderly mother can be very stress-inducing.
My brother is now writing ridiculous articles about my father. He finds this very helpful in reducing his stress.
Ira Dressner Nostalgic Memories of My Father
By the way, please get a proofreader and fact checker!
Basically, the thrust of the article is that my father was an angry man who killed himself with cigarettes (although he did live to almost 89 and stopped smoking in 1964), could not control his anger, but who taught Ira to lick envelopes as parts of Ira's triumphant march to become a caricature of an entrepeneur.
As Ira will recall, he dealt with my father's death the same way he is now dealing with my mother's illness. He left everything to my mother and I and did not get involved in the period of acute illness or my father's death.
3 1/2 years later, Ira can write about my father and it is a beautiful experience for him. My mother will probably have to wait a similar period after her death for Ira's appreciative, destressful appreciations.
He's a sick guy!
Lately, I've been getting lots of sympathetic e-mail from people I don't know who admire my courageous battle with Cancer.
Fuck you all!
Please read this site a bit more carefully!
I'm tired and disoriented. I've spent a lot of time with my mother, who just got out of the hospital, and am now having strange hallucinations.
I just woke up in a sweat, after seeing the vaguely familiar guy pictured below:
Many people have written in to tell me how much they have enjoyed the stories of my Brother Ira Dressner and my cousin Barbara Hirsch.
There has been a popular demand to know more about the Dressner family and other wacky relatives I might have.
Recently, a Dressner made it into the wire services. The AP carried the following story:
MIDDLETOWN, Del. (AP) -- When 72-year-old Gladys Dressner saw two snakes in her new apartment last month, she froze. Days later, when an 8-inch snake crawled across her bed, she screamed. Finally, after stepping on a baby black rat snake, she moved. A Maryland exterminator killed six snakes that were captured in Dressner's Middletown apartment. Each was about 8 inches long and harmless. The exterminator suspects a previous tenant kept an adult snake as a pet. Dressner, who has high blood pressure, diabetes and a heart condition, wrote a letter to her property managers demanding to be moved to a new apartment. Property manager John Mastriana said she won't have to pay October's rent or moving costs.
It's hard to keep track!
The new site is called:
Energy Blueprint for Money
Ira always had a great sense of timing. With the economy in ruin because of crackpot and irresponsible money schemes, my brother is rallying the troops by offering wealth if they only send him money.
Ira's site appeals to women and explains how they often don't make enough money because they have "energy blocks." I suppose sexual discrimination is one of these "energy blocks" that women can transcend my sending my brother money. Ira will help them get over those energy blocks!
All this making money by selling a technique to other people to make money has kept my brother too busy to see my mother in the hospital. But it is all for the larger good. It is part of the Ira Dressner Bailout Plan.
A new twist on Ira's site is that it is now Customized by Distant Support Virtual Assistants (Philippines). Are there now workshops of underpaid Filipinos working to line Ira's pockets?
Don't miss this compelling site:
Ira Dressner, Entrepeneur
I was riding my bike to work, like in the old pre-cancer days, the past three nights.
It would be very nice to cycle again.
New York City is a horrible drag on foot, taxi, subway or bus.
I just read an excellent article on the Chemocare web site about dealing wtih Chemobrain. I don't think Chemobrain is an actual word, but I keep forgetting. That's one aspect of having Chemobrain or maybe Chemo brain.
The article suggests the following ways of dealing with Chemo-Brain:
I need to knock off a good 30 to 40 pounds.
Then I can sell one of our labels for 10 million dollars like all my colleagues in the trade seem to be doing these days.
I'm also considering hair implants.
Denyse Louis, Mrs. Captain Tumor Man, is about to arrive at the airport in Paris and then fly to Verona.
Wednesday is her birthday.
Happy Birthday Denyse!
All my love!
Mr. and Mrs. Captain Tumor Man will be celebrating 25 years of marriage soon by renewing our vows in early May.
Please send donations to the Wine Connections Rice and Vine Foundation in our names.
I am now on a reduced level of convulsion medication, but still feel very week on my feet. I'm a guy with no sense of balance.
Tomorrow, I see my oncologist and get another five pack of Chemotherapy. I'll take them through the weekend and then go on another 23 days of nonChemotherapy.
On Thursday, my mother will have a biopsy for kidney vasculitis.
Denyse, Kevin and Lee are all in Italy.
My son Jules, who was recently featured on Lyle Fass' excellent blog, is staying home with me.
Buster is around.
Help!
I've been out of things since I had a major seizure on November 10th and subsequently discovered I have cancer.
So I'm only first catching up on the Madoff story and find myself astonished that the Wine Industry has not drawn any lessons from two decades of speculation based on Parker/Wine Spectation scoring and notations. We've all allowed ourselves to be sucked into the same Ponzi scheme which has been running this country over the past 20 years and no one seems to want to call a stop to his insanity.
All of a sudden there are stocks of wines that are absolutely unsaleable because they were bought on a Ponzi Promise of points, easy money and quick sales. Madoff was not the exception, he was the norm.
Madoff got customers by appearing influential and important. We sell a lot of wines because they gets big scores somewhere making the purchase of that wine seem legitimate and important to everyone in the wine industry.
What nonsense! Why call them Parker Points, why not just call them Ponzi Points, even if that was not the intent of Mr. Parker. Functionally, that is what this style of wine marketing has become.
Our country has been trading worthless paper against worthless paper ever since the Ronald Reagan administration. The popular anticipation was that everyone could be rich, everyone could buy a home, everyone could send their kids to insanely expensive colleges if you just had the right piece of paper acquired from the right consultant. All this has collapsed into one horrible mess that threatens great human suffering throughout the world.
It was pure and simple greed which drove this country to tank out. Around this time, the wine industry became converted into yet another commodity based on points, scores and commodity exchange and speculation.
To look around the wine landscape is profoundly depressing -- you see people continuing to sell highly scored labels for millions of dollars. Labels that have no land, no value, no meaning. People who come out of nowhere to make wine that comes out of no place and tastes like nothing continue to ride a trend of money making with the same old worn out points on paper certifying their bottles can be taken directly to the bank.
This is not going to last. At Louis/Dressner, at Kermit Lynch, at Peter Weygandt, at Neal Rosenthal, at Jenny & François we offer wines that have never heard of Bernie Madoff. Some of the best regional importer/distributors (Polaner, Bowler, Chadderdon, Beaune Imports, Triage, Farm Wine Imports, to name a few) also specialize in real/natural wines that express history, pride, love, work and a future based on something real. The fruit of the earth.
It is a turning point for the wine trade. Lets bail out of the old style of riding some cynical consumer fad (Where have all the critters gone) based on Parker or some other fad and proudly sell the beauty of that rare intersection of time and place that only the vine can express. Madoff is in jail....let him rot and let us learn the lessons.
Yes, there are only a small amount of wines made this way, but there still remains plenty to sell, drink and enjoy. Lets not confuse all forms of fermented grapes as being in the same family.
It is time to draw some limits!
I'm fascinated by the Vine Connection people I met at the Polaner Tasting. For some inexplicable reason, they combine Argentine Wine and Sake. Why not call it the Vine and Rice Connection?
I'm totally confused about this company but they seem wildly successful. Great reviews, lots of attractive young people, wine industry excitement and partnering with such innovative wine/sake companies as Youngs Market.
I was just looking through their web site and came across the first producer listed and realized why they have so much success. Their producers are super qualified. No country bumpkins need apply.
Take the Ben Marco brand, for instance. According to the Vine Connection web site:
Owner/viticulturist Pedro Marchevsky has degrees in Agriculture & Enology and Agricultural Engineering, and is a Professor of Irrigation and Drainage at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. He has managed vineyards in Mendoza for almost 30 years as well as his own vineyard in the district of Los Campamentos in eastern Mendoza, and he is widely considered the top viticulturist in Argentina. His philosophy is a simple one gained from experience: using grapes farmed using
"precision viticulture", make wines that are true to their place. His wines express the wonderful, powerful fruit flavors, the ripe tannins, the incredible length and balance that can only come from this one place—Mendoza.
As far as I know, we don't work with viticulturists, let alone one who specializes in "precision viticulture." Why do you need a Professor of Irrigation and Drainage (I never knew this was an academic field!} to make wines that are "true to their place."
This is Madoffesque talk.
Thinking about Bernie Madoff invariably makes you think about the imbeciles who invested with him. In many ways, Madoff brings to the mind the old adage about Adolph Eichman, the banality of evil. As someone who also grew up in Queens, New York, let me assure there were no lack of contenders but very few winners.
Madoff's particular genius seems to have been to trade into the same popular sentiment that makes people imagine they are living out a Shalom Alechem folk story when they drive their BMWs to the synagogue on Saturdays.
I came across an insightful article in Vanity Fair on the Madoff phenomena. They author, Marie Brenner, writes:
Great con men always understand the vulnerabilities of their victims. Madoff's clients trusted the fact that he invested money not only for such important Jewish institutions as Hadassah but also for his closest friends. "If you had asked me, 'Do you want to invest with the guy who makes the money for Yeshiva University and Steven Spielberg's foundation,' would I have signed up in a heartbeat?" a friend of mine said. "You bet I would." Madoff's history as a scrappy, rags-to-riches success struck so deeply into the psyche of many of his Jewish victims that they put aside their common sense for him. No computer access to an account? No chance to ask a question about due diligence? Oh, fine. Someone close to one hedge-fund manager who lost a billion dollars believed that Madoff had reminded his friend of his father. "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations," many of his investors had been told as children. The essence of Madoff's genius was his ability to invoke the romance of grandparents and great-grandparents coming to America and making good. Madoff tapped into his clients' innocence and their grandiosity. A not inconsiderable part of his victim pool came from a group who thought of money with a complex tangle of shame and attraction, as if they believed that understanding money would drag them back into the stereotyping of their immigrant roots.
We'll be in Los Angeles and San Francisco and maybe Fresno in April.
The full schedule will be coming out soon. Participants include:
Christine and Eric Nicolas - Domaine Bellivière - Jasnières and Coteaux du Loir
Catherine and Claude Maréchal - Bligny lès Beaune
Jean-Paul Brun - Terres Dorées - Beaujolais
Franck Peillot - Bugey
Pierre Luneau - Luneau-Papin - Muscadet
Eric Texier - Rhone
Mauro Vergano - Chinati
François Pinon - Vouvray
Christian Chaussard - Domaine Briseau - Touraine
Brad Kane -- Arbois
Alessandra Bera - Vittorio Bera - Asti
Arianna Occhipinti - Sicily
Silvio Messana - Montesecondo - Chianti Classico
Cristiano Guttarolo - Puglia
Francesca Padovani - Campi di Fonterenza - Montalcino
Claude-Emmanuelle Desvignes - Morgon
My mother has some unforseen complications and will undergo more medical testing.
She wants to see Dr. Hirch, the famous Great Neck Endocrinologist, and is suffering over Dr. Hirsch's boycott of my mother.
Isn't this the time for Dr. Hirsch to apologize publicly for the way she has treated my dead father and my ailing mother.
As a public service, I would gladly print Dr. Hirsch's apologize in this space and then cease making fun of her. Optionally, I would read the apology and not print it here.
I'd like to move from Dr. Hirsch to making fun of Bernie Madoff, idiots who invested in Bernie Madoff, people in the Wine Industry who act like Bernie Madoff, and a lengthy analysis of what sort of sick society let the Bernie Madoffs of the world take charge of our economy.
I'd also like my mother to get better or at least not feel so lonely.
Try to understand, dear Cousin Barbara -- My mother is the last of five children, she's 88-years-old, her husband (your Uncle Sam) died, my brother is busy shaking chakras in Las Vegas, my mother's lifelong friends are gone and there is so little time less. I know cardiology is not your specialty, but do you have no heart?
Why can't you swallow your pride and make a simple apology for acting so disrespectful of your Aunt and Uncle who did so much for you for 50 years?
Daniel S. Duick, MD, FACP, FACE and the President of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists would be proud of you.
So would I.
None. As far as I can tell.
The Vine Connection specializes in high scoring Argentine wines and high scoring Sake. They are also going into high scoring Californian wines.
This dynamic company has been quick to jump on the burgeoning Argentine/Sake market. I'm such a lousy businessman, I just don't see the connection!
How long will it take Vine Connections to jump on the endocrinology bandwagon? What better way to capture this market than partnering with my cousin Dr. Barbara Hirsch?
It would be a project.
According to Jay Miller:
While it's way too soon to put K Vintners on the same level as a Domaine Leroy or Domaine Zind-Humbrecht, the experience you get tasting in the cellar is much the same as in those legendary wineries, brilliantly made wines reflecting the terroir but also a winemaking signature that makes it totally clear which winery made the wine.
I have to agree with Dr. Miller. I have tasted the K Vintners wines three times and each time it has been "totally clear which winery made the wine."
A friend in Walla Walla wrote me that Mr. Smith's hair is totally natural and grows without the aid or intervention of a hair stylist.
My sincere apologies.
The next round of Charles Smith Wines "BOOM BOOM! SYRAH" is on me!
This wine is deep purple, complex, rich and explosive. Think blackberry, violets, lavender and earth. So smooth. THIS WINE ROCKS!