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cream team news
Alright. Here we are on a bears victory Monday. Bear down. Go bears. And then it's special RIP to Bob Weir of the grateful dad.
Speaker 1:A lot of emotions this weekend. Very happy to be getting ready for the Alpine appreciation tasting. This episode of samples is Monday, January 12. In keeping with Alpine appreciation, I think that we wouldn't have the portfolio that we have or the concentration of producers from this area. If it wasn't for Neil Rosenthal, the first wine that he imported was Ferrando from Carrema, and now he has ownership of that estate.
Speaker 1:But there's another lesser known importer that I think we all need to be aware of. He certainly is a great friend to cream. He's been a collaborator for a long time, but that's Francois Dufour. Francois Dufour, he owns Match Vino, and they're an Italian importer distributor. They're based in Massachusetts, but they do national importing around the country.
Speaker 1:They have a little bit of, I believe, ownership in the Colorado distributor that Jay and Carla run there. But Francois, he originally started he's Swiss living in Lugano in the Italian Alps. His family was in the candy business. So there's a brand of Swiss candy called Dufour that his family ran and maybe even continues to run really, really well, but he decided he did not wanna be in the candy business. He wanted to be in wine.
Speaker 1:He started a company called Dufour focusing on Swiss wines, northern Italian wines. He built that up with Bradley Groper, who was the national person at Domain Select. Prior to that, they ended up selling the business. Francois took a little bit of a reset, but he was a mentor to me when Cream was getting started on the direct import side. So we direct import through Match as an agency, Bolzano and Terra Gaia, but we also buy those two brands stateside if and when we need them.
Speaker 1:Recently, we've been needing them more stateside than paying tariffs on the DI. But, like, you know, Bolzano is gonna be shown at the Alpine Appreciation Tasting. And that really is I mean, as far as cooperatives in the Dolomites in Alto Adige, Northern Italy, near the town of Bolzano. They are considered to be one of the best, if not the best cooperatives in the area. There's Ferrari for sparkling wines.
Speaker 1:There's Coltarenzio. Both of those are in the market and they're with, you know, competitors. But Bolzano is, you know, definitely the cream of the crop. And Francois is one of the reasons why we work with them. So I visited Francois in Italy.
Speaker 1:He picked me up at the airport and he noticed I didn't have a bag. And he's like, Where's your bag? Do you have to go to baggage claim? I said, No, I actually left my bag at the gate in Chicago. I was spacing out and when they called the group to board the plane in Chicago at O'Hare, I walked in and left my roller carry on at the gates.
Speaker 1:After picking me up at Malpensa Milani, he took me to, which was essentially like an Italian, like Uniqlo, and I just got a bunch of clothes and he took me to the pharmacy and I got some toothpaste and a toothbrush. Then we just headed north. We went up to Mont Blanc through Piedmont, through the Alto Pimonte, through Carrema. This is pre Rosenthal. So this is probably like in the 2009, 2010 range.
Speaker 1:And he took us all the way up, took me up to Mounger, which is one of the last towns in Osta on the way up to Mont Blanc to Cabe Mounger La Salle that he was working with. And we were drinking Prix Ais Blanc sparkling still. It was kind of like an inspiration to what in the Rosenthal book, they have the Hermes Pavese, the Mourget, the Priest Blanc, which is very, very good. That was my first experience with Osta, and he was very kind and instrumental in introducing bee and cream to producers from this region. I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1:I think the smaller importers, the gentle giants need to be recognized. Francois Dufour, what he's doing with Matchvino, living in Lugano in Switzerland, but then also in Salem, Massachusetts. He's married to Stacy. Stacy and he run MatchVino, and they've just been incredible partners to us. So we're currently working with Boltano, Teragaya, Caro Monte, Cascina Praie, Barbican, that's another producer that'll be at the Alpine Appreciation Tasting, and that's heroic viticulture in Valtolina making Chivanasca, which is that local version of Nebbiolo.
Speaker 1:When the second time I had visited Francois, we were fortunate enough to visit some producers along the way. We went to Bolzano at the end of Vinitaly for their harvest tasting, And that's when Claus was working there. It was his second to last vintage before he retired. He's the general manager of Bolzano. At the time, we were all really happy.
Speaker 1:We went to this restaurant in Bolzano with all the workers after Vinitaly. They were celebrating, drinking a bunch of wines from around the world. Game of Thrones was popular at the time. We were saying, we're from Chicago. We're the kings of the North.
Speaker 1:Claus would say, we are the kings of Italy. We just had such a such a great time eating and drinking all these beautiful wines from Trentino and Alto Adige, but then also some some French wines, some great great Spanish wines. So just keep match Vino on your radar as far as who's important to cream. Francois is always able to help solve a problem. He's good about working with us on pricing and whether we wanna work DI or we can borrow some of his stateside stock.
Speaker 1:He's just been a a real mensch. And, you know, Gianpaolo Cherubin was working with him before he wound his business down. Some of you may remember Gianpaolo working with Francois on the market, but he's a guy. He's definitely Alpine. He's Italian Alps, Swiss Alps.
Speaker 1:He's an American half the year when he's living in Boston. He's just an overall good guy. So I would remind you that we work with one of the best and one of the nicest and kindest importers, Francois Dufour. In addition to that, I can let you all know that we made some decisions as far as focus items, far as what samples you're going to be putting in your bags. We have some of the latest.
Speaker 1:Whether or not there'll be any sort of boost is yet to be determined, but for Q1, for Selection Xelavigne, we're going to focus on the Vina Ellucian Red Rioja and also Albemar as a brand. And then repeated last week, the Mersal Jaffa Crush. On the spirit side, we're going to be focused on Antiga Torino. For sake, specifically Heiwa as a brand. Scribe as a brand.
Speaker 1:Cedar and Salmon as a brand. And then for Rare, following up on a record year, we're going keep it going. For q one, we'll be focusing on Altos De La Hoya, Palacios De Chirassas, Cuvee from Alvaro Palacios from Priyarat, The Tirassos, and from Rene Rostang, their Languidac project, Le Vessel Rouge. So Altos De La Hoya, Palacios, Tirassos, Rostang, Le Vessel Rouge. And there could be some more to be added in addition to the supplier goals that we have with Rosenthal and Rare, but this gives you wines to pull, sample, and present this week.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to seeing everyone tonight at the Alpine Appreciation. Thank you for listening, and have a great week.