dinwiddie

Like Don, I was at the screening at the Freer, and in fact was sitting right in front of Pierre Rovani. As he (Pierre) noted, Wine Spectator refused to have anything to do with the movie or to be involved in the panel discussions. While I did not think that it was a particularly good movie, too long, disjointed, and definitely onesided in its view, it was fun to watch the discussion. I can't agree with all of Pierre's points about the movie in his discussions on ebob, I think he makes some arguments that are not on point about globalization, especially the cheese anology, for the most point it was pretty accurate. However, Nossiter held his own, both in the discussion after the movie and in the subsequent mugging on ebob. He has his point of view and it is his movie. Like DCMark said, anything that can create such shock in the French wine community is worth viewing, if only to see what all the fuss was about. However, I hope he did some editing to make it more watchable.

Sourdough toast with some fresh butter and casis jelly that my son brought back for me from Paris. (the jelly, not the butter or sourdough)

We organize over on vinocellar.com. Look under wine events for topics with DC Crü in the topic line. Our next dinner will probably be in September, but we have not chosen a theme, restaurant, or date yet.

It wasn't only Glendening, good old Donald Schafer (I know I didn't spell that right) is also one of the major problems. MD actually passed a law that would have allowed out of state wineries to ship to consumers in MD, but Donald, in his capacity as Comptroler made the regulations and red tape so complex as to make it impossible. For example, if any of a winery's wine was sold thru a distributor in MD, that winery could only go thru a distributor. If the wine the customer wanted was a high end, limited production single vineyard wine that the distributor did not carry, too bad. I once asked Piere Rivoli why Rober Parker didn't put his influence behind getting MD laws changed since he is a MD resident. Piere's response was that Parker had, but his voice is meaningless against the millions and millions of dollars that the distributors put into political contributions and lobbying. The fact is undisputed that it is the wholesalers and distibutors who make a fortune in the three tier system who are the driving force behind keeping shipping laws from changing. They spend a bundle trying to influence the court decision. However, I think they are barking up the wrong tree. Allowing direct shipping from wineries will not hurt their business, distributors are just too important to wineries to do away with them. Allowing direct shipping from small wineries will only help the entire industry, and thus the distributors. As to Montgomery County; because the county is the only legal wholesaler, and they rigidly enforce the law that says that retailers and restaurants cannot sell alcohol that was not purchased thru the county wholesaler, prices for wine in the county are on the average about 35% higher than they should be. Yes, sometimes you can find a great deal in the county stores, but not often. To give you an example of the difference in prices, there is a wine store that has two stores, one in Montgomery County and one in Fairfax Co. A bottle of wine that costs $12 in the VA store costs $16 in MD. According to the owner, the difference is entirely because he has to purchase the wine thru the county wholesaler and he pays more than he has to pay for the same wine he gets from his wholesaler in VA.

There were eight bottles of wine in all. Mark did not mention the 2003 E. Guigal Condrieu that most of us had with the fois gras. My personal favorites, the Domaine Dumien-Serrette Cornas Vieilles Vignes 1999 and the 1998 Bosquet des Papes CNdP Grenache. However, all the wines were excellent and so was the meal and the service. (that's me with the server sneering over my sholder, he was great)

I can't see limiting myself to one store, except I'm trying to limit myself to just my allocation lists (it isn't working). I really enjoy the selection and service at McArthurs and Schneiders. Potomic Wine in Georgetown is where I go to get wine for Passover, and the Wine Specialist has some interesting things, but they are very pricy. However, one should never complain about prices in DC until they have tried to shop for fine wines in Montgomery County.

As one of the other "founding members" of the DC Cru (TJ, how do you make the umlat?) I might also add that you can also count on there being LOTS of great wine. We seem to have a habit of pulling out one more bottle with "I had this as my backup bottle, but we might as well . . ."

I belong to a group that gets together on vinocellar.com. We call ourselves the DC Cru and meet once a month at a restaurant in DC and all bring wine from our cellars. We have met at the following restaurants, all of which welcomed us and our wine, and a few (Corduroy, Aquarelle) which prepared a special menu to go with the wines just for us. Several times we have also purchased a bottle or two from the restaurant's list. Aquarelle (read MarkK's write up about this dinner in this forum) Corduroy (fantastic meal and great wine) The Caucaus Room (twice) Butterfield 9 (twice) Kaz Sushi Bistro Chef Geoff's Lavandeau (twice, free corkage on Mondays) Le Paradeu (with Siduri winemaker Adam Lee) Restaurant Kolumbia (the wine was better than the food) Gabriel (one of our more memorable gatherings) Bistro Au Coin Mendocino Grille (with Mark Neal and Grove Celio of Neal Family Wines) DC Coast Equinox (the first DC Cru dinner) Sesto Senso In addition, I've taken wine with me to dinner at: Zyatinya 15 ria Circle Bistro Adero Palena Bistro Bis Cafe 15 Taberna del Alabardero Galileo 701 Tosca Olives Orantique In each instance, we have made sure that the wine was not on the restaurant wine list, offered to share a glass or two with the server and the chef, and left large tips to make up for the fact that we did not buy from the list.