Cafes & Wineries

i’ve been a tad remiss in discussing oren’s latest coffees, so let me get started quickly here by noting the must haves:

• his c.o.e.-winning nicaragua - this came in second in the competition and is just a wonderful floral, bright, citrusy, caramel coffee, coming from just a few trees two sweet little farms. he sent me his yrg with which to compare - honestly, this is better. worth every penny. i mean it.
• his smooth-as-james-bond canterbury blend - charming in the morning
• his holiday blend - you have to do this in the chemex for best effect. seriously, otherwise its lemon-candy thing is overwhelming. but in the chemex, it’s great. and the aroma’s amazing, it will fill your house! well, it does mine.

Original post by fortune

Once upon a time, Italian wine importers tried desperately to sell their juice to America. They went to any length to sell wine. Once such effort was to make these decorative fired clay vessels shaped like donkeys and elephants and color them up real bright and perky and then hang a little thingie around the neck with the slogans, “Vote Republican” or “Vote Democratic.” The Italians were very good about making sure every party had a mascot filled with bright and sassy red wine, usually from Emilia-Romagna. Probably a Sangiovese or some high yield red wine that could be utilized for little or no cost. The clay figures now are worth more empty as a collectable, although some of the ones in my collection still have wine in them.

The donkey is a perky, happy-go-lucky character. He makes you think he might be your best friend who would never let you down.

The elephant is a little more self-reassured, standing on his hind legs for his pleasure, not yours, and deigning not to make eye contact. But he is an elephant decorated in such a strange way, almost like those Indian Ganesha statues that they put into the Ganges every year during the Hindu festivals.

These and many other characters were brought in by an importer who made a lot of money bringing in wine from Italy, first from Emilia-Romagna, then from Tuscany. Nowadays, we wouldn’t take an importer seriously if they tried to market Italian wines in this way. But you have to remember it was barely 15 years after a devastating war. Remember 1993? That doesn’t seem like so long ago, does it? Well in 1960 that was the situation and to make matters worse, Italy wasn’t taken seriously as a wine producer of any consequence. That was the purview of France. So what do the Italians, and their American importers do, they make some silly wine casks that represent the political parties in America and schlep them over filled with some inconsequential red wine. Very cute. But not very serious. And now so very kitsch.

Which leads me into my final political/wine reflection piece. This time it covers the influence and possible separated-at-birth coincidences of some of the frontrunners with various Italian winemakers and Italian film stars. Huh? Well not quite to the letter. There is kind of a maverick twist for the last one. You’ll see, don’t scan ahead, work with me, ok?

Bruna Giacosa and Cindy McCain, what is going on here? Is it deer in the headlights or maybe a little too much time under the sunlamp? I’m sure both of these women are loved by someone, if not just by their parents, both whom are alcohol industry giants in their own way. One in the beer business and the other in the Barolo business. These girls know their way around a curling iron and a blow dryer. The only question remaining: Do you go for “Drinkability” or “Age-ability?”

Joe Biden and Bruno Giacosa – both proud fathers. Joe, of course had to go it alone, with a little help from his remaining family. Bruno went about carving a neat little niche with his stable of mighty fine reds. Bruno has a daughter who is succeeding him in running the business. Joe has a son in politics, so there is a possibility of dueling dynasties. But aside from the vague resemblance and the serious demeanor, what else do these guys have in common? I’m not sure Joe has ever Jonesed for a Dolcetto. And I rather doubt Bruno craves commuting on Amtrak. So these gents are as polarized as most of the people in this country are from each other. The only remaining question is: Do you prefer single vineyard wines from Piedmont or a single payer health care system?

Sophia Loren and Eleanora Brown and Michelle Obama and Jill Biden – We’re doing a Two Women riff with this one. And while Michelle and Jill are not at all in the same predicament as Sophia (Cesira) and Eleanora (Rosetta), all the woman represent overcoming some kind of tragedy and rising above their circumstances to become more than they started out as. I know this seems like a bit of a stretch. The only remaining question is: How do you want your pizza, Margherita or Deep Dish?

Marcello Mastroianni and Barack Obama. I doubt if they really have anything in common other than liking cigarettes and posing in a pensive manner with their hands on their heads. Mastroianni had a nickname, Snaporaz, and Obama’s nickname is Barry. I prefer Snaporaz.

What else? Best Reaganesque advice Snaporaz can give to Barry: “I don’t understand why these Americans have to suffer so much to identify with their characters. Me, I just get up there and act. It’s great fun. There’s no suffering in it.” What Barry learned from Snaporaz? “It’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.” The only remaining question is: Red wine with chili or white wine with linguine con vongole?

And finally, the pièce de résistance.

Don Corleone: Why did you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me first?
McCain: What do you want of me? Tell me anything, but do what I beg you to do.
Don Corleone: What is that?
[McCain gets up and whispers in the Don’s ear]
Don Corleone: That I cannot do.
McCain: I’ll give you anything you ask.
Don Corleone: We’ve known each other for many years but this is the first time you’ve ever come to me for counsel or for help. I can’t remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is Godmother to your only child. But, let’s be frank here. You never wanted my friendship and you were afraid to be in my debt.
McCain: I didn’t want to get into trouble.
Don Corleone: I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, made a good living, the police protected you and there were courts of law and you didn’t need a friend like me. But, now you come to me and you say “Don Corleone, give me justice.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my home on the day my daughter’s to be married and you ask me to fix an election.
McCain: I ask you for justice.
Don Corleone: That is not justice, your race to Washington is still alive.
McCain: Let them suffer then. As we suffer. How much shall I pay you?
Don Corleone: McCain. McCain. What have I ever done to make you to treat me so disrespectfully? If you had come to me in friendship then this scum that ruined your election chances would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies then they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you.
McCain: Be my friend… Godfather.
[kisses Don Corleone’s ring]
Don Corleone: Good. Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But, until that day, accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.
McCain: Grazie, Godfather.

Q : Guns? or Cannoli’s? Buonasera. Buonasera.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Coffee not only tastes good, it stimulates your brain. History tells us that coffee houses in 17th century England were known for their lively political discussions. HISTORY

I don′t frequent enough coffee houses to know if that tradition of political discussion is still followed, but there is a website you may visit that will stimulate your brain in a political sense, Nanny State.

Just be sure

Original post by Robert

Back in the 1980’s and 90’s I invested in a personal hedge fund. At the time there wasn’t any overriding strategy other than perhaps a hedonistic one. I started out with little investments here and there, and one thing led to another. A little trading, some long-term holdings, some quick-turn-around buys. All this over a period of the past 20 years.

In these days the market is in the tank, up and down like a yo-yo, heavily driven by an emotionalism I find too volatile to deal with. But along the way I have been lucky enough to dodge the important bullets and my hedge fund has grown. Now, what should I do about it?

Several cases of La Chapelle Hermitage from Paul Jaboulet, from 1985 and 1989. These have been the house wine for the past 15 or so Christmas dinners. Initial cost was about $20 a bottle. Current appx. street value $150-300 a bottle. But if I sold the remaining cases, how could I tell how an Hermitage will taste at 50 years of age? After all that was the reason, to buy a wine that everyone told me would age for 50 years. I have 30 years to go, which is just about how long I expect to last as well. Position:Hold and Drink

A magnum of the 1960 Vega Sicilia Unico Artist Series, bought a very long time ago for about $100. About now this bottle is going for appx. $1600-2500. I’ll probably keep it and open it when it is 50 years old, which is in two years. It’d also be great for anyone who was born or married in that year. Maybe there is a hedge fund manager who is swimming in dough and was born in 1960? I’m not married to the Vega Sicilia, but seeing as it represents an amount that I would never spend on a bottle of wine, maybe I’ll just open the damn thing for the hell of it. Position:Hold or Sell.

Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. I bought many different years of this wine because I liked to collect the labels, from 1982 to 1990. Now these wines represent a lot of capital, but none of which I really tied up. I think the most I paid for a bottle ( the 1990) was $50. And while I cannot sell them all and buy a Porsche Speedster, it really wouldn’t matter. I don’t want a Porsche Speedster again. I do like the Francis Bacon label, though. It reminds me of the time I did a tasting in Bordeaux at a famous negociant. They showed us a wall of first growths and told us how many millions of dollars it was worth. They neglected to say the triptych of Bacon’s that they had in the hallway leading to the wine vaults was worth about $50 million. Position:Hold for Now.

I’ve had my flirtations with Super Tuscans over the years. There still is a good stash of Sassicaia from 1979 to 1990 in my portfolio. The most I ever paid for a bottle was about $70.00. I remember actually selling the 1968 for about $28 to my clients. I had found a cache of the first bottling in a cellar in Florence in the early 1980’s. It wasn’t an easy sell. So I tended to keep the early wines, drinking a few here and there. I’m not as interested in Sassicaia these days (when they go for about $200), but the older ones still have a sense of place and lack of manipulation. Position:Hold or Drink.

I also dabbled with a little Solaia, the 1997. I am not sure if Doc Micro-Ox or if Miss Perverse Osmosis infected this wine. I traded it for 3 bottles of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva. Now it has a street value of about $400.Position: Sell.

A few years ago I traded a bottle of Mouton, a bottle of Sassicaia and a bottle of Tignanello for a Hasty-Bake wood barbeque grill. Now that was one of my better trades.

Back in the early 1990’s I walked into a river-bottom liquor store and they had 1988 Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco for $14.99. I bought all they had (and got a 10% discount). Today that wine is easily worth $150. So delicious and now just about ready. Position: Drink what is left. With pleasure.

Lastly, I bought a bunch of Port, thinking 1990-1994 would be good wines to drink when they are 20 years old. The oldest of that bunch are starting to get close. I am particularly fond of Quinta Vesuvio for several reasons. It was one of the quintas farthest up the Douro. I had probably the best bacala I have ever had there. And during crush one year we pressed the grapes, by our feet, in the ancient lagars. Truly a transcendental experience. Were talking Old-World, Old-School stuff here. Not some snotty California wine-camp-crush stuff. The real deal. So I love my Port and my hedge fund portfolio is weighted well in these long term holdings. Position: Hold.

There’s a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth in these days. It seems a lot of people are poorer on paper than they were a month ago. But really how poor are you, if your closet if filled with all these long-term high-return wines? I have been visiting my wine closet a bit more lately, if for no reason other than to reassure myself that even though I will need to work quite a few years more, there will be a continuous supply of great wine, bought at low prices, available for those lean years ahead.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

With all the signs that have been hovering about us lately you would have thought our collective unconscious would take the hint. But as it seems to be less collective and more unconscious, maybe this should be no surprise. The past few days in tastings and with encounters there are still people looking for that peak experience when it comes to drinking a wine. One such gent was regaling over his latest trip to Casanova di Neri, where he secured a stash of verticals of their single vineyard reds. Forget that there is a cloud over the whole of Montalcino. What was that old Jim Morrison line, “We want the world and we want it now?”

So as with everything else, it appears to be that way as well with wine. Big, bold, powerful, rich. Pre-recession fantasies craving for that in a wine which is just out of our grasp for other longings.

When was the last time you heard someone asking for a little housemaid of a wine, something inconspicuous and barely noticeable, a little fruit, no tannins, easy to forget? It just doesn′t appear we are wired to recognize the unremarkable. Why is that? Take cars for example. It seems that what so many people are looking for in a wine is akin to a Hummer H2. But those vehicles are sitting on car lots piling up. Meanwhile try and find a deal on a VW Jetta TDI. Not a spectacular car in terms of styling or sex appeal. But they are hard to find.

Yesterday at a wine store I was in during a 20% off sale, most of the people were asking for wines under $15. 90% of them wanted value and then a deal on top of that. They weren’t asking for the big old Amarone that will last for 20 years. It was selling for $70 ($56 after discount). Nope, they just wanted to talk about the big old bathing beauty red, but they were slipping the housemaid wines in the carts.

That same day I was invited to dinner at a “French” restaurant of some repute. Not many of those around these parts any more. I was asked to pick the wine. Now usually there is a token wine on the list for the wine lover who just doesn′t want to spring for Silver Oak or Corton. As I looked around the dining room, in an alto-borghese neighborhood, I noticed people were ordering wine as they were perusing the food menu. Odd, but not altogether unusual in a mid-western town on the Big Night Out. Cabernet was king in this room, even though the food was tempered to the tastes of a Burgundian or Loire or Rhone setting. After seven very difficult minutes the folks at my table were getting impatient with me. My inner Alice was fuming; there was nothing of interest on this wine list. Finally after some peer pressure, I ordered a (negociant) Beaune. A 2004. For $95. With some trepidation. Where was a Gigondas or a Crozes-Hermitage? Some wonderful Julienas or Chiroubles? Surely they are available; I see them on the printouts from the various distributors. Wine that would go so well with the fois gras or the duck or the veal or the scallops.

Just as the $250,000 Bentley was parked proudly in front of the establishment, so would it be expected that we would be plunking down $250 for a Caymus Special Select on our tables? After all, half the men in the room had parked their trophy wives (or goomadas) next to them in the plush velvety seats.

In these times, when so many of us are being compelled to look at some of the decisions we have made, as if we get another 10 or 15 minutes before reality sets in, we attempt to take one more shot at the titanic illusion. Subtlety is admission of defeat, bleacher seats, a used economy car. No, let’s take one more huff, one more puff, and see if we can blow our friends away with an outdated view of conspicuous consumption veiled as connoisseurship.

It’s like the captain of a luxury ship that is sinking, but he has promised to stay on board until the end. And then when everybody who can get off safely does and they are floating away in their lifeboats, while no one is noticing, on the other side of the doomed boat, a skiff is being prepared to deliver the schifo to a far and safe shore.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

In this article I present you the finest icons of the fuel of a lot of designers and students (and other people too) available on the web. I’ve just released my own coffee cup icon but this beverage seem to have inspired a lot of other beautiful icons especially on Mac OS X.

Now just get your next coffee, sit back and enjoy this little showcase. Just click on the images to get to the icon

Original post by Robert

Thursday, October 23, 2008
By China Millman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Great restaurants are great because of their attention to detail. Whether in Pittsburgh or Paris, they serve high-quality bread, use freshly squeezed juices in cocktails and make their desserts from scratch in house. Too many restaurants in Pittsburgh treat these elements of the meal as if they were only details, as if they

Original post by Robert

In keeping with my earlier post, The Joy of Selling, once I returned home there was a little surprise waiting for me. The dreaded semi-annual management meeting, a two day affair, with speakers, workshops, wining and dining ( that’s what we do) and some looking back or forward in this channel of the wine business we have found ourselves nestled within.  Miami

I read on the occasional blog about how misdirected the wholesale/distribution channel is. And there are many things that need addressing. But we are not evil people; in fact most of the folks I work around and with are good family people. Sure we might not all share the same political persuasion and we may look differently at the horizon of the wine future. But we are all in the boat together and we are rowing like hell to make a difference for our industry and our families. We are not the problem; perhaps those who look, from the outside in, do not know of our camaraderie or our devotion to this business. I am always humbled and impressed when I spend a day or two, sequestered with my peers. No, we definitely are not the problem. So let the whiners and the naysayers say whatever they like, we aren’t going away. In fact, we’re stronger than any dirt the toxic blogger or two can throw in our direction.

If it sounds like I’m drawing a line in the sand with the direct marketers, I’m not. Let them try to dismantle the last 75 years of this industry. And if they can build a better framework, so be it. But as a past president of India, Radhakrishnan, once said, it is easier to destroy than to create. Much easier to talk about how corrupt and outdated the wine industry is rather than pitch in an actually do the heavy lifting of raising the tide for all boats.

There are reports and studies that postulate how important this industry is. I don’t need to read every one of them. All I need to do is look in the eyes of my colleagues to know this is a vital and necessary business for now.

Over those two days last week, we took a break from meeting and piled into two buses, 79 of us. Our group represents the state management for a large wholesaler here in Texas. With about 2,700 employees, our mission is to provide leadership and direction, along with making money and building brands. And while there are plenty of essential employees up and down the org-chart, we are tasked with steering the ship. It’s a big ship, one in which on any given day, over 150,000 cases of product are being delivered. That’s about 1,200 40-foot containers. Amazon can’t handle that, nor can USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL or any number of delivery companies. Physically improbable.

Our buses took us to the Milestone/Viking center, where we were broken into 9 groups (8-9 people per group) for an “Iron Chef” burger cook-off. We had a set time to assemble a burger. There were three essential segments of this contest; 1) the idea of the burger, what it was conceptually, 2) Selling it to the judge (the pitch), and 3) what it tasted like. Our group, made up of folks from their late 20’s to their late 60’s, got together and we moved pretty fast through the concept of the burger. Assembling it, along with eighth other groups, took a good deal of teamwork and co-ordination, along with making sure we didn’t “overwork” the idea of the burger. It all flowed pretty well. Meanwhile the other teams were brainstorming and trying to come up with their idea of the perfect burger.

Hey, it could have been anything, but the burger was the fulcrum upon which the teams directed their attention. The idea was to transfer some of that energy, in the days to come, with other projects and working outside of our normal groups.

Through the process I snapped shots of the other teams, people I have known, some for as long as 25 or more years. People I admire, but because we are all so darn busy and directed in our tasks, we seldom get the opportunity to hang out and do these kinds of exercises. Remember there are 2,700 people whom we usually are directing out attentions to.

I know this sounds real Pollyanna and I am sorry, I cant help it, but I was really stoked about getting to be involved in an exercise in which when it was all said and done we sat down and ate what we dreamt up along with a glass of wine or a nice pale ale.

Folks seemed to really light up over this event, lots of laughing and great, great memories.

The next day, we went back to the conference room and continued with our workshops and discussions, back to business. But as if to put icing on the cake, we took a short break to recognize one of our peers who was turning 70 that day.

As the cake rolled up and we all sang “Happy Birthday” to him, I saw a colleague who was not only surprised but also very pleased that we not only celebrated his birthday, but a birthday, that in many industries the person would already have been retired and celebrating it quietly. Not so in the wine and spirits business. No, we’re a spirited bunch and we need all hands on deck, from 24 to 70 and counting. That bodes well for some of us other silverbacks in the pack, who just want to swing from the trees and make a little difference in the world we have found ourselves in.

So, folks looking on the outside in want to call what we do, and who we are, wicked? I call it the home team, and am very proud to be on it.

Feng Shui Coffee Company Introduces Functional Coffees with Herbal Benefits

PITTSBURGH, Pa., Oct 16, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Feng Shui Coffee Company opened a new category of coffee that expands the benefits of one of the world’s most popular beverages. Using ancient Chinese principles of Feng Shui, the company has blended 100% organic Arabica coffee with natural medicinal herbs and minerals to

Original post by Robert

The Wollersheim Winery of Prairie du Sac released its 2007 vintage Ice Wine this week. Created from Wollersheim’s estate-grown, winter-hardy St. Pepin grapes, ice wine is unique because the thick-skinned grapes are harvested in winter after they have had repeated cycles of freezing and thawing, which increases the grapes’ sugar content. Wollersheim’s ice wine harvest last December netted about …

Original post by Yahoo! News Search Results for Cafes