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Hello, and welcome to Samples for Monday, 06/22/2026, episode 25. One more episode to go until we are at the halfway point of a fifty two week season. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sampling. Thank you for picking up checks and selling wine.
Andy Pates:I hope everyone had a great weekend. Happy belated Father's Day to all the the dads out there. I hope you got the big piece of chicken. I hope you were able to spend some time. I mean, was kind of a rainy day, but, you know, maybe the day before and the day after were better.
Andy Pates:But, it was a great weekend. Some highlights for you. On Thursday, we had the Wincroft dinner, fifteenth anniversary of Au Tremont in Berwyn, and James Lester and Dawn were there. Their wines showed so well. The restaurant was completely packed.
Andy Pates:There were a lot of great stories, community sharing, and James, he did his best. No one could tell that he had some sort of like skin or hive situation that was going on and he was like very itchy, but he really was a warrior and just like muscled through and everyone had a great time. He touched every table, talked to everyone. The wine showed really, really well. He was signing bottles, kissing babies, selling wine.
Andy Pates:We got a residual order from the dinner and it was a big hit and the food was was outstanding. So shout out to our original Michigan, one of our original Michigan producers, the Papa Pino of Michigan, James Lester. So thank you for that. And then also on Friday, Friday, Juneteenth, happy Juneteenth, It was the, official opening of the Obama presidential center. And, actually, the we the days before, we do a little bit of business with Theaster Gates.
Andy Pates:He's the University of Chicago, professor. He has the Sony Arts building and project, and he had requested some wines for an event with some of the visitors for, the Obama presidential center, some of the festivities. And I talked to him on the phone and he said, I really like vermentino and Chenin Blanc. I like high acid white wines. And I said well, I I think you and I are gonna be friends.
Andy Pates:So we mixed up a great selection of wines for the visiting VIPs. So that made me really proud. It reminded me of when the Obamas were in Chicago running for president, came back to Chicago when Barack won the presidential election. And I remember Kristoff telling a story. First of all, two Obama stories.
Andy Pates:They used to dine at Topolabampo, which is the tasting menu, restaurant that is above Frontera Grill. So Rick Bayless, world famous chef, Chicago's own Rick Bayless. And they, Jill Gubesh told me that they really enjoyed the Eric Bordelais ciders in the tasting menu. And I told Eric that and, you know, he just about lost his mind. So what a full circle moment.
Andy Pates:And here we are so many years later still rocking the Bordeaux. Also, Bordeaux ciders, it looks like the Parallant Bordeaux ciders are a huge hit. I'm trying to see if we can get more. I know Roman, Eric's daughter who's managing, the global sales had said that they were sold out of Perlont for the season. So I'm pretty sure what we have is it, but I'll, update any of you.
Andy Pates:So live in the now on the Perlent delicious nonalcoholic pear and apple ciders in both three thirty milliliter, little bottles and then the seven fifties. But anyway, another story, I remember Christophe was when he was calling on Blackbird in the way back, he had to make a delivery. It was a special order, and Michelle Obama was actually having lunch at Blackbird with one of her besties, and they ended up shutting down the entire two blocks, two or four square blocks surrounding Blackbird, and Christophe has had to go through, secret service to do a salesperson delivery. That must have been one of his most memorable deliveries in the world of picking up checks, selling wine, delivering wine. And then my friend I took and he said that there were these big SUVs all around Blackbird and I told a friend of mine that and my friend said, oh, yeah.
Andy Pates:In the back of those SUVs is a general electric, Gatling gun, the most lethal, weapon that you can put in a in an all terrain vehicle. So just the level of security was just crazy. I don't know why I went, on the whole weaponry side of things, but I just thought that was also very interesting. But back to Friday, in addition to the opening of the Presidential Center, the celebration of the holiday of Juneteenth, the American USA men's soccer team won their second match and was able to go on, qualify to not only, go on to the knockout round, but to to, looks like, win the group. And so that's also very exciting.
Andy Pates:Watch the game at Lincoln Station, had a couple Guinness. And then prior to that was the, I don't know how to describe this. It was, it was a talk at Easy Does It. It was, an idea that Colin Moody of Vamboeden had with Abe Scherner of the Skolium Project who we used to represent. I mean, guys the longer you listen to this podcast, I think the the more you'll realize that we pretty much have, sold everything and worked with everybody.
Andy Pates:But yeah. So Abe was back in town with his, LA River wine, company and then the rebirth of the Scolium project, but they had wanted to do a talk on regenerative viticulture and they had invited Max, and certain Colin was really cool about it. He's like, hey, I wanted to get your ideas on this and, you know, out of professional courtesy, what do you think about, you know, Max participating? I'm saying, oh, I think this is a great idea. You should do it.
Andy Pates:And then I thought about it. Oh, shit. That means that I'm gonna have to go to the event, and that means that we're gonna have to, you know, hang out for a little bit, which was fine. I mean, I we're cool with Abe. He's cool with us.
Andy Pates:I think the general, overall theme of the talk was good. Max crushed it. He really is doing something very, very inspiring. So keeping the whole Michigan theme going with James Lester full circle where Max and Sid at Stranger actually bought, the Avonlea estate from James and Dawn, and then now so many years later in a relatively short period of time are farming it in a regenerative way to the point where they're not only getting, you know, fame in Chicago and Michigan, but I think now national attention. They really are hardworking driven people that do really, really well, both in the in the vineyard and the cellar.
Andy Pates:And so it was cool to to to listen to that and to to talk a little bit about what they're doing and taste the wines afterwards. And it just got me thinking about, you know, producers that we worked with in the past and kind of like the older generation passing the torch onto the younger generation as is the case that I just mentioned in Michigan. But then also it was really good to see Abe and to see what he's doing. I gotta say, you know, I respect what he's doing and the wines, I thought were very interesting, but, you know, that was something that we had sold before and it was really cool to, see another importer distributor work with that, navigate that, try and sell that. I'm glad that we're, focusing on on other things and doing things, differently, but I am gonna check out Abe when I go next to Los Angeles to visit Sofia, my daughter, and I really wanna see his winery there because I do love Roadside Terroir.
Andy Pates:It's an amazing podcast with Brenna Quigley and some of the Wasserman brothers. I believe Paul is is more prominent in the podcast, but there was an episode at Abe's Winery that's really good. And he also is friends with Chiara Pepe and and so they do some, you know, he'll visit her and she'll visit him and pruning in the vineyards, etcetera. So it's just great. The wine world, there's so many connections.
Andy Pates:It's such a as Elisabetta would say, it's the it's the small it's the big family of the small planet, I believe she says. So I was thinking about people that we have worked with in the past and two sort of jumped out that not only do we work with them in the past, but we're working with them now in the future, and that's Randall Graham. And I guess, like, to some extent, you know, Randall Graham is one of these wine action figures, you know, bigger than life, you know, historical wine figures who's still in the game and still making wine. And he actually, when he was with Bonnie Doone, he actually fired us. And I think he fired us the week of Christmas.
Andy Pates:And so when he called, I thought he was actually calling to wish me and all of us Merry Christmas, but he had fired us because his national person didn't think we were selling enough SKUs or units or whatever lingo, spreadsheets and things like that. That's, you know, before Randall had sold the company and kinda seen the light to focus on Pope Le Choum to do his idyllic estate, but that's when he was you know making a lot of different types of wines and he ended up you know firing us. It was on relative good terms. We they just sort of like thought that they could outgrow us and it turns out that they didn't and they kind of bounced around. Bonnie Doone bought and sold bounced around from distributor distributor and really didn't.
Andy Pates:I think we probably had sold the most, you know, I think there was a steady decline of of those sales. But anyway, so we reconnected. We're working with Randall and Poplachum and he's there's been two producers at Cream that have fired us and we gave them second chances because, you know, the older I get, the more I do believe in second chances, and I do think that we should have an open mind to the wine community for a variety of reasons. The second is Charles Smith who we're working with with, Kay Witner's and House of Smith. And, you know, just go back and listen to a previous episode on the origin story of of of that rebirth.
Andy Pates:I forget what episode it was. But as far as Randall goes, we have a new wine of his in stock that I would like everyone to sample this week, and I like would like you to pull a set of some other Poplar Schum wines in presenting this lower hanging fruit of the Alagoutet. So the Alagoutet that is three days in our warehouse, we have 14 cases of it, very small production. It was a friend's vineyard, the Caleri vineyard in San Benito County. That's where San Juan Batista and the Poplar Shuma State are.
Andy Pates:It's Alagote Duree. I thought that alagote would be the theme, but then I looked at our inventory, and we don't really have a lot of other choices in alagote. I mean, we clearly have a little bit of the Ateneus Beru, which I think is, you know, goat status producer and the Ateneus pure jus negociant version. Alagote is very delicious. And then there's a Rosenthal, alagote.
Andy Pates:I wanna say it's from Carillon, but don't quote me on it. But I tasted a very delicious aligote that we should have bought from Joe Swick, and I just had the samples sit in our office. And it was the unfiltered, dare I say more natural version even though Joe Swick is adding a little bit of sulfur at bottling of all of his wines. And if he has a zero zero wine, it says zero point zero on the label. So this Aligote was absolutely delicious, and I'm kicking myself for not buying it.
Andy Pates:So the next time I see some Joe Swick aligote, I'm definitely gonna bring that in. But, this is an opportunity with the Pope Lashum Alagoutet for you to offer your clients a less expensive option. I believe it wholesales for $21 a bottle. It is a low production, less than 50 cases made. Cream is getting 14 cases of it, and it's an opportunity for you to show it side by side from the estate wines, the Pope de Chamblanc, and the, and the Pinot Noir.
Andy Pates:And Randall, his movie, the terroiriste that they were filming when we were actually out there working harvest, two summers ago that should be, released pretty soon and Randall is threatening to visit the market to do something at City Winery called Dinner and a Movie. He's friends with the owner owners of City Winery in New York and and Illinois. So hopefully that can be something that commercially brings attention to Pope Bouchum, and that's something that, you know, it would be amazing for the team to sit down and taste and talk with Randall. He is a treasure trove of knowledge, information, stories. Been Dune So Long is a book that he wrote that members of the team, all got signed copies when we're working with them.
Andy Pates:So, you know, this is a great second chance that Randall's getting both with cream, but but also just in making wine, moving from, you know, the Rhone Ranger to the brand factory into this, you know, Quayhouten Vineyard concept, this estate, called Popleshoun. So that's what I'd like you to sample this week and talk about, and then just, you know, be proud of our Michigan portfolio. Always be up for second chances with, you know, not only wineries, but with colleagues, former colleagues, clients, former clients. I think we need a lot of positive energy right now. I think we're looking for drinkers.
Andy Pates:We're not looking for enemies or haters, and I think everyone needs to keep an open mind. And and and, and I think for the most part, the wine community in general does that because we're all, for whatever reason, crazy enough to be in this business, and I think we need to pause and be grateful for all our relationships. So that's all I got. Have a great week, and I'll see you when I see you.