Espisode 24 - big ole' gruner veltliner, won't carry you too far away

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Andy: 00:00

Hello, and welcome to Samples for Monday, June 15. We are nearing the halfway point of the not James Beard award winning podcast sample. So thank you all for listening. Thank you for going on this wine journey with me, and thank you for everything you do for Cream. I wanted to also give a shout out to Angelica on her birthday.

Andy: 00:35

Happy birthday. And let's get into it. So this weekend, lots going on. Knicks in five, World Cup, James Beard visitors, stormy weather, beautiful weather, Chicago in the summertime. We are almost approaching the official start of summer, and I am just really loving these days.

Andy: 01:14

Wanted to let you know that this weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with Aldo Sam, who is the very famous sommelier of La Bernadette in New York and also his own wine bar, Sambar. We met at Avec River North. He's in town or was in town for the beards. He won an award for his book, and he was being part of the Saturday ceremonies that were more of the journalism event. So it was just great to meet him.

Andy: 01:58

Such a nice guy. Really just magnetic, charismatic, just a a sweet man, just born for hospitality, just a a very charming, knowledgeable, passionate man. So we met at Vivek River North for lunch, got to know each other. He talked more about his project, which is Sam and Crocker. And just so you know the origin story of that, that's imported by Schottsie.

Andy: 02:32

We have the Gruner in in Gruner Veltliner in liters in stock that were brought in. Part of it was brought in for Whole Foods, but it's certainly available to sell as an incredible buy the glass of retail value. And then he makes with Gerhard Crocker, his partner in this from the very famous Crocker family doing a lot of those incredible wines with residual sugar, botrytis from Neusiedlersee in Austria near the big Lake. They also have vineyards in the Weinwertle, which is really that wine producing idyllic countryside outside of Vienna and then also, Saint Georgian. And Saint Georgian is a little bit more limestone.

Andy: 03:27

It's, there's a little bit more elevation to it. So he makes different cuvets. We also have in stock the Lion Gruner Veltliner, which is the territory wine. So the Leader was made, you know, at the request of Kevin Pike of Shotzi because they had a lot of success with the Gruner, Veldtliner in liter format. I think it was Weber or Weber that Skurnick did really, really well with.

Andy: 03:57

So this was like the idea of of having something that's, you know, delicious, crushable in in that format. So go crazy. Sample that. Yes. I want you to sample that this week.

Andy: 04:08

But then also we brought in seven cases and there certainly is more available in New Jersey of the the territory wine, the lion. And that's just offering more venosity, more specificity, more of a regional terroir. And then we'll be bringing in later the Alta Rabin, which is more of like the village wine and then the the Saint Georgian, which would be more of a parcel selection. So, I want you to sample both of those wines this week. There is one bottle of the Lion that's in the cooler.

Andy: 04:42

First come, first serve on that. So please get out and show that. And then also speaking of Shotzi, we have the new less expensive Riesling, the Traken and the Fine Herb from Haus Rotenberg, and that's coming on ten days old. And I haven't seen any sampling on that, and I've posted about it. So I would like you all to sample that.

Andy: 05:13

We all know that lights will eventually be coming back in and that we will be direct with them. The prices may or may not be higher. I made a reservation of the the Dragonstone and the Magdalena, but I, you know, I do want to get House Rottenberg placed, get some action on that. The wines are delicious, very affordable, and it's important to our partner, Shotzi, which is no longer working with lights and that was a big hit for them. So, you know, this twenty five year old company is no stranger to a large supplier, a parting company with a large supplier and feeling that hit.

Andy: 05:52

So I think we need to be good partners to Kevin and Shotzi and help him launch this new, brand that's made by this producer that he's been working with. So I do wanna see some sample action on that. Also, I talked about the summer sale at the meeting on Friday. We are going to, have something official in print hopefully by the end of the week, but, I made all of my additions. So when you go to the sale list, the end of bin list from the list items view, things that are on sale, you'll see, a lot of new additions for for portfolios that are assigned to me.

Andy: 06:36

And then Aaron, John, Jenny, Christophe, and Tory will be doing the same. They will be designating things as discontinued, things that are on sale, sharpening the pencil on things that have been on sale since the Biden administration. You know, basically, let's get it out. Let's move. Clear the space.

Andy: 07:03

Prune to grow. And, of course, there's gonna be that one on five with the least expensive item being, the free item. So, I'm looking forward to an amazing summer sale, and we can refresh the set as they say. So, more on that to come. The other thing that I thought was interesting and that maybe we can talk a little bit more at another time is this week, Au Tramond in Berwyn, Illinois will be celebrating their fifteenth anniversary.

Andy: 07:43

And I think over those fifteen years, maybe a few of them, we actually did some business together, but, that's neither here nor there. We're starting back up again in a small way. But James Lester from Wyncroft is going to be the featured winemaker at their Thursday this week, fifteen year anniversary dinner. So I'm really proud that we're able to participate in that. And going back to Otrimont back in the day when we were really strong working with Eyre and they placed a lot more of an emphasis on natural wine, they placed more of an emphasis on the Zev portfolio, and actually Zev came in to do an event.

Andy: 08:25

Frank Cornelissen came in to do an event, and we had billed the event as delicious over dogma. I think like that, maybe we were ahead of our time with that sort of like marketing or that sort of way of talking about natural wine, but it's so true that, you know, we place an emphasis at cream. You know, whether it's natural or classic, we always wanna strive for authenticity, and we we really try and drink the person. And if they have a philosophy about working zero zero and the wines are delicious, all the better. If they decide that they want to farm in a more historical, you know, sorry, make wine in a more classical way honoring their heritage, their multigenerational heritage as long as it is, you know, done in a lower intervention way with respect not only to the environment, but respect to the people in their company and the village and just the wine business in general, then we want to work with them.

Andy: 09:30

So I just got a little bit nostalgic when thinking about that. So I want you guys to know that we're very selective on who we work with. I'm very proud of this portfolio, this, band of, of, misfits and miscreants and and, freaks and geeks and just overall just wonderful people. I'm glad that we're in a situation as we're approaching our twenty fifth year that we have, I think, item for item, one of the best portfolios in the history of American wine. I think that this also is a time when being a distributor, you know, with all of the gloom and doom in the market and people's drinking habits and drinking preferences and brand and category preferences changing, I think to be a distributor and be able to build and control a pipeline of accounts and business and the currency of relationships and these restaurants and stores that have been working with us and their acolytes and their people that they've mentored also working with us.

Andy: 10:55

It's really rewarding to see that. I think that we're in a position where through this network of relationships that we have, we can sell the items, the wines, spirits, sake, cider, beer, etcetera, the beverages, the non alcoholic beverages that we're excited about, but we can also adapt and adjust to the market. We can do that a lot more winery can with planted vineyards, at a distillery can with a focus that breweries can. We're in the driver's seat right now. We're in and I think we have the least amount of risk and we have the biggest amount of upshot to, weather the storm of this great reset of of, beverage.

Andy: 11:41

And I think that authenticity is going to win. Delicious over dogma is going to win. Drinking the person, those working with people that we love, and those relationships are going to win out. So I wish everyone a great week. I want you to sample those four Shotzi SKUs that I spoke of, and I will see you when I see you out there.

Andy: 12:05

Thank you. Picking up checks and selling wine. Picking up the checks and selling the wine. You know we do this all the time. Picking up checks, picking up checks, selling wine.

Andy: 12:25

You know we do this all the time.