Next Up
It’s no secret that I have a passion for wine. Pictures of bottles, both past and present, appear regularly on my social media accounts. This blog will be no different. I consider myself a “wine enthusiast” as I appreciate drinking, buying, and collecting the fruit of the vine. In terms of knowledge and savvy, I know what I know and am always anxious to learn and taste more. One of my great pleasures is visiting domaines and hearing winemakers talk first hand about the process. If I had a dime for all the well-intended suggestions from family and friends to transition from the glamorous world of film to the equally glamorous wine trade, I would truly be able to retire. For all you out there, and you know who you are, as the kids would say “I appreciate YOU” but we are not quite there. (As a side note, typically I can hold my own at an organized tasting, usually spitting without anything dribbling down my chin a high percentage of the time.)
Since I moved to NYC in the summer of 1980, I have had the great fortune of becoming friends with a good number of people who make a living in the various facets of the wine business. I guess you could say I am “wine-profession adjacent.” Reading passages from the late, great Joe Dressner’s blog “a day in the life of a wine salesman,” he reflected on his toiling in the business as a salesman and later, one of the finest importers in the country. In the pantheon of wine importers, if you see “Louis/Dressner Selections” on the back of a bottle, you can be assured you are buying a high quality, interesting bottle. In his early days, Joe described himself as a sort of wine sherpa, toting around a rolling bag, packed to capacity with samples, to be tasted in a large part in small plastic cups (the kind popular for specimen samples in the doctor’s office) with independent store owners looking to stock their shelves. Not even separate cups for the white or red! This, to me, seemed an entirely unglamorous reality of the trade.
That brings us to the equally challenging area of retail sales. I love recommending wines to friends. So much so, that years ago, when people on set who knew I was wine-knowledgeable, I created a handwritten list of suggestions from many countries and in various price ranges, made photo copies and passed them out to anyone that showed interest. Nowadays, I’ve determined a better course of action is finding out where someone shops and visiting the store’s website, and proceeding from there. Welcome to the 21st century. As much as I enjoy doing this, the idea of working the floor at a retail establishment for total strangers doesn’t get my motor running. (Overheard at one friend’s store, the common customer refrain, “I want a really great bottle for under $15.”) I fear my affable nature and adept skills as I sell items from behind my table at the Stuyvesant Flea Market would not be transferable.
Why not be a “wine consultant,” helping people build collections? A fantastic idea as I would LOVE to do that, but it requires a friend, or friends of friends, who have disposable income and interest, minus the knowledge. Akin to that is owning and operating a retail establishment. Having two friends who own shops, a very admirable endeavor, that requires a lot of capital, or the aforementioned wealthy friends turned investors or partners AND business acumen which I am confident I do not possess. (This is where, in a fever dream, I relive Julie Haggard losing her and Albert Brook’s nest egg in the film “Lost in America.”) Sometimes the best intentions go awry.
So that leaves me quite pleasantly where I am, sitting on about 50 cases (all single bottles) of fine vintage wine, being stored properly, anxious to be shared with all my friends and family. I am indeed blessed. Cheers!
This post is dedicated to Joe Dresser, an icon in the business and one quirky dude.