Friends or wine?

There comes a time in many journalists’ lives that writing is not all they want to do.

As an ex-entrepreneur (The Candy People, Fabulous Phil’s Gourmet Ice Cream and Board Stiff Snowboard and Skateboard Shop), I tend to look at assignments and meetings in a different way.

When I find a wine overseas or at a stateside tasting and learn the wine has no representation in this country, I often switch hats.

I know the market conditions and have a reasonably good take on the quality and price ratio of wines and cheeses. I have been involved, first-hand, in both businesses and have a broad knowledge base of cost and quality of wine and cheese.

As you would suspect, I like to broker these newly-found products, with hopes of helping the vineyard or farm with exposure in this country.

Samples, which are few, are stored in my refrigerator for safe-keeping. I have three small unopened samples of goat’s milk cheese from rural western Spain in the fridge.

I call this Phase One. In Phase One, you bring the item, often one piece of cheese or one bottle of wine, to a perspective buyer to consider adding this product to their portfolio.

Phase Two is when you have more samples and technical sheets than you need, so you can get the product to more than one possible importer.

Phase Three is having a complete refrigerator stored with samples plus a closet full of technical sheets and brochures.

Every phase is done in small steps until you can walk.

A lot of cost is involved in sending wine or refrigerated cheese to this country. Plus the FDA is often of no help and holds onto packages for weeks or months before releasing the contents.

This is what happened to me recently. I received one bottle of Pinot Gris from a New Zealand wine producer. The producer chose me to head his mission to find an importer. I was his only contact.

The producer was in the states on other business and planned to meet with me and the proposed importer, who I found, for lunch. I only had one sample and we were going to open this one bottle of wine to analyze the contents.

The bottle of Pinot Gris has a screw top cap, so a back-up was not necessary. There was no cork, as most wines from New Zealand follow that trend and little possibility of oxidation.

The situation: the bottle of Pinot Gris was stored in the refrigerator and somewhat hidden from view. We had guests for the weekend and had planned our yearly pilgrimage to the Tyringham Steak Roast that evening.

Somehow, one of the guests opened the fridge, found the bottle of Pinot Gris (we were in the living room) and poured three hefty glasses of wine from the bottle. Obviously, the guest did not know how important the bottle was to me and my business venture when he opened it.

As he came into the living room with the overflowing wine glasses, I asked, “Did you open the bottle of Pinot Gris?”

He replied enthusiastically, “Yes.”

Naturally, I reacted somewhat emotionally and nearly shed a tear because this bottle meant the world to me.

The unopened bottle was the only vehicle I had to show to the importer. On top of that, the producer was flying in to meet for the tasting and fateful judgment.

I sulked the remainder of the weekend, to my wife’s and guests’ disapproval. I mentioned, probably too often, “How can you open somebody’s refrigerator and open a bottle of wine without asking?”

I even had a bottle of Lafitte Rothchild in the fridge for storage. I wonder if that bottle would ever be safe again.

The end result of the Pinot Gris incident was devastating. The vineyard owner said I was not responsible and he was going to find another broker.

My wife says I acted like a baby and still talks about it. My friend does not return my emails.
My dream has vanished.

Imagine, all of this over one bottle of wine!

Posted by Phillip Kampe on September 6, 2012. Filed under Columns,Food,Opinion,Wine and Beyond. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry