May Days are now Over!

Well it sure has been a short year! Already at the end of May. I paid $5.25 a gallon today in San Francisco..that will sure drive you to drink!

Had a chance to visit in Dry Creek this week and stop at Michel-Schlumberger..wow what a great price and very solid wines! If your up for something different visit  the Healdsburg/Dry Creek area and try so many artisian wines including one of my other favorites, A Rafelleni!

Cory and I are off to New York for a week of meetings (www.catalystsf.com) and doing a 100 point dinner this Monday night with good friends Eric and Paul--will share details!

Make sure you grab a copy of the new FAST COMPANY with Alex Bogusky from Crispin, Porter, fascinating story on the agency.

Hope May has been a good month for you. I am going to end my month with a good bottle of Robert Mondavi Reserve Cab, 1998. Solid wine and will go well with a nice piece of protein!

Will also sneak in a bottle of William Deutz 1996 Champagne, a truly surprising good bottle of the bubbles!

Remember, let me me know some places that overcharge for wine! Still just pisses me off!

If you get a chance, check out  www.ebacchus.com.

Cheers!

i sure like this business!

it has been a good two weeks, reading and drinking good wines in both Austin, Texas at the iMedia Agency Summitt and in Las Vegas just enjoying a good Memorial Day weekend.

Reading some really good books that go with Rombaurer Chardonnay  (yummy to describe both!) Value Creation: The Power of Brand Equity by William Neal and Ron Strauss!

Good hefty reading might even take a hard bottle of Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill, any year!

Got to sample some of my friend Eric's favorite wines: Dominus, damm it is good!

Well look for some more reading and some great summer wines coming up! Remember champagne goes with anything, anytime, anywhere!

Some good reading!

Well along with some good wines, and if you in San Francisco, it sure needs to be a crisp, cool Sauvignon Blanc---there are so many good ones to choose, but if you can pick up Groth! what a fine bottle for the price--will go so well with some cheese and these books for the weekend or summer reading.

file:///Users/johndurham/Desktop/Books%5B1%5D.doc

Ok Who are the Big Offenders!

Looking for restaurants that overcharge their customers with wine pricing. please send to me via the blog or to my email: durham@catalystsf.com. i want to do a wine shame posting!

Eric Porres my wine buddy and political advertising partner in Pericles called me and wanted to send a bottle of champagne for someone's engagement. He was reading me the choices and their prices.

Veuve  Yellow label for 135 now that is bullshit. Dom for 310 (1999 vintage) please! and even my favorite Krug Grand Cuvee for 285. That is highway robbery and does nothing to encourage people to step up the the game and drink good wines

So send me who is really bad and if you got a good choice as well, do pass along. For the standard-bearer of who sets a good wine policy is  PLUMPJACK in San Francisco. Five dollars over retail---that will get you to drink better!

Ad Guys/ Big French night!

Always encourage you to drink your special bottles with friends--wine is to drink, yes cellar, but then open with friends and solve the business problems that we are all encountering in the digital advertising business.

I went deep with 2 bottles of Chateau DUCRU-BEAUCAILLOU 1970. Now that wine is 38 years old, (it was older than a couple of the people at the dinner). Decanted about 3 hours before everyone appeared!  WOW--rich, red and it was spectacular!  (remember the Seinfield episode!)

Rich bought a 1995 of the same vintage and for safety reasons I had a 2001 and 2004 of the same to open just in case all three were really bad.

As a side bar, the two 1970 bottles were open and decanted in their own decanters. It really begs the importance of the bottle is critical--

As for the food, real simple PIZZA, heavy meat lovers pizza--pizza so hit the spot, (picked this up at a Latour tasting in Paris!)

we solved many of the ad problems, like how much should a site sell for, how do we improve the ad seller/buyer relationship!

I enjoy wines with friends and good food and it is the elegant and simple approach that I recommend!

If you want to know who was there, and who we talked about, drop me a line! and if you can find the 1970 DuCru  buy it and drink it!

Fizz at your fingertips

Thought i would write a moment about my favorite subject: Champagne!  So easy for me to talk about this, some 1500 bottles I have of all different kinds, price and tastes. Champagne to me is one of these great wines that go with everything!

A great web site for you to peruse, ironically is from Australia. www.champagnegallery.com.au

This was found in Gourmet Traveller magazine.  It is a great site that can help you figure out some champagnes that you should try.

For the best to me it is KRUG  , duh! not even a close second.  But if you check my refrigrator, its the yellow label day in and day out. Veuve is such a great product as well. 

Good reading on champagne is the book: 4000 Champagnes by Richard Juhlin, should be on your reading and collecting.

I hope that you will try some great producers, Salon, Ruinart, Deutz are three that I call your attention too.

But if you really want to sample the special juice: Krug Rose. When I visited the Krug family many years ago, I had the rare priviledge to sample champagne with Renny Krug in the cellars and we drank a bottle of Rose and I have never been the same!  

For our wine group, which is a bunch of ad geeks drinking/no quaffing wine that we sample from around the world--I had a champagne only dinner and the food was Popeyes Fried Chicken and vintage champagnes. Check out the Comfort Winery  photo page for some of the best vintages and a special Napeleon sword dance!

Hope you send along a question or two about champagne and let me suggest several from $40 on--hard to find French champagne due to that damm Bush dollar anymore!

cheers!