Eric Solomon Selecons
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
On the following pages, please find some excing new summer whites from two of our favorite importers... Eric Solomon Selecons Growing up in Greensboro North Carolina, the son of clinical psycholo- gists, Eric Solomon’s early passion was not terroir, indigenous varie- es, nor unheralded wine growing regions but music – both classical and rock. This first love led him to London, where at 18, he was an understudy to the head percussionist of the London Symphony Orchestra. To make ends meet he took a job at his neighborhood wine bar and soon discovered that there was more to the world than Mahler and the Who. The owner of the wine bar, recognizing the enthusiasm and aptude of his newest employee encouraged his interest in wine eventually sponsoring him for the Instute of Masters of Wine. The Instute wasn’t sure what to make of this lanky, hard-rock yank, yet despite their inial skepcism, he proved an adept blind -taster and eloquent writer. While studying at the Instute Eric made his first visits to France, a country that would play an important part of his future. There he spent me working in the vineyards and cellars learning first hand all the eort that goes into making great wine. Eventually the desire to return to the States (and encouraged by the homeland department in the UK aer exhausng his student visas,) Eric returned to New York where he was hired as the Director of Fine Wines at a Fortune 100 wine and spirits company. While there, he quickly learned the intricacies of imporng and distribung wine in the United States yet his ever restless desire to find new and excing wines, many o the beaten track, was in conflict with the company’s more conservave reliance on Bordeaux and Burgundy. Being more comfortable in a cold damp cellar than in a boardroom and far happier in jeans than a suit, he le to found European Cellars in 1990. Eschewing convenonal wisdom, Eric built his porolio around unheralded regions and small producers rather than market categories. Through his eorts, once obscure regions have representaon on wine lists and retail shelves. Before there was a market for it, Eric was talking about the Cotes du Luberon, Ventoux, Pic St Loup, Cote Roannaise, Gaillac and the Roussillon. Eric frequently remarks that the first moo of the company was, "Unknown and Unsold!" Despite having founded the company on selecons from France he soon started receiveing samples from Spain. While many were not so good, a few were outstanding. It was "love before sight," as he is fond of saying. No beer example was a wine called Clos Erasmus which arrived as an unsolicited sample sent by winemaker Daphne Glorian to his Manhaan oce. It was literally, life-changing both professionally and ulmately personally! The discovery of the then unhearalded Priorat helped forge the path to discovery of many other hidden treasures in Spain. It also led to the marriage of Eric and Daphne. Locaon, locaon, locaon may be the tagline about real estate but it has always been the guiding principle for Eric. From a bole of inexpensive, vivacious Garnacha to a compellingly dense bole of old-vine Chateauneuf, if the wine does not speak of place, it’s not an Eric Solomon selecon. Jon-David Headrick Selecons The path from fried chicken and cornbread while growing up in Tennessee to imporng French wines was not an obvious one. While working in restaurants during college, Jon-David developed an interest in French wine and growing regions. Upon graduaon, he moved to Paris to work on an MBA and took every opportunity he had to travel to wine country. It wasn’t long unl it became clear that working with farmers made so much more sense than poring over spreadsheets, at least for him. Finding a job in the wine business was not easy work but in 2001, Eric Solomon took a chance on a young man with lile experience and made him his Director of Operaons. Before long, Jon-David was the General Manager of European Cellars. Aer a few years of close work with Eric, Jon-David struck o on his own and created a porolio of wines from the Loire Valley and Champagne, two regions with which he had long been intensely passionate. Perhaps it was desned from the start but in 2013, the two porolios came back together under the umbrella of European Cellars. His manifesto, which he wrote when he started the company in 2005, remains as true today as it did then. “Standing in a rocky, chalkcovered vineyard a few years ago, I listened as a winegrower friend talked about the current state of wine. “Fruit in a wine is easy”, he said. “Purity is elusive.” He was right, of course, but I’d never really thought about it in such stark terms. He connued, “Purity comes from hardship. It comes from the struggle of the vine’s roots through the rocks it is planted on, it comes from the fight against every other plant vying for the same water and nutrients, and it comes from the plant learning to fight for itself and not having man fight its bales.” In creang this porolio, I was looking for these kinds of wines, and I found them planted on a massive swath of chalk and slate that runs from the Atlanc Ocean through the Loire river valley and into Champagne. This “chalk line” produces wines of extraordinary purity, minerality, and soul and represents the heart of my porolio. The properes with which I work are con sumed with making true wines – wines that are true to where they come from, true to the earth, and true to the winemaker’s obsession with quality. The vast majority of the properes with which we work pracce organic or biodynamic viculture and we wholly support winemakers who harvest by hand, use indigenous yeasts, and who vinify with lile intervenon. All are leaders in their appellaons and harvest at dramacally lower yields than their neighbors. Above all else, they are farmers. In selecng properes for this porolio, I seek purity first, eschewing heavyhanded usage of oak and opng instead for wines with excellent ripeness, minerality, and above all, balance. The presence of balancing acidity is absolutely crucial in my view to worldclass wine and I’m not afraid to represent wines that have startling acidity if there is fruit to support it.” Founded in 2005, Jon-David Headrick Selecons was named “Best New Specialist Importer” by Wine & Spirits magazine as well as a “Wine Importer You Can Trust” by Slate magazine. Headrick’s work has been featured in French media outlets such as Radio France, La Nouvelle Republique, and TV Tours as well as American publicaons such as the Washington Post, Food & Wine magazine, and many others. In 2010, the government of France announced that Jon-David Headrick would be appointed a Chevalier dans l’Ordre du Merite Agricole, one of the highest civilian awards given by the government of France. The rank of chevalier (knight) is a lifeme appointment and is given to acknowledge outstanding service to French agriculture. DOMAINE DE LA FRUITIÈRE Folle Blanche Granite rock was used for centuries to build the massive fortresses that dot the landscape of Muscadet. Its density and structure were rarely breached by arrow, cannonball, or the good ‘ole medieval siege. Because of its density and the fact that it is everywhere in Muscadet, its unclear why anyone would think that this was the place to plant hectares and hectares of vines. That’s what riverbeds are for, right? Well, the Romans might have gotten a few things wrong in France (see the 1st century BC through the 5th century AD for reference) but they did get something right: they planted a ton of grapevines on this lunar rock of a landscape. Today, this area is called Muscadet and is home to over 8,000 ORIGIN hectares of vines of Melon de Bourgogne. France Domaine de la Fruitière farms over 40 hectares of this and produces APPELLATION both Muscadet Sèvre et Maine as well as Vin de Pays from grapes such as Gros Plant du Pays Nantais Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Regardless of the varietal, the vines SOIL Granite, sand the roots have to bury for meters for any hydric source. The vines, and the wines, are fed by water that is awash in wet rock. It’s not a big shock that AGE OF VINES 50 Combine this with the cold Atlantic breezes and you’ve got an amazing cool climate, high cut, precise bottle of white wine. ELEVATION 40 meters The Lieubeau family owns the domaine and takes great care to vinify the wines according to exposition, density of granite, and harvest date. VARIETIES Folle Blanche keeps yields as low as possible to produce wines that express the varietal and not just acid. These are delicious, vibrant wines that are easily among FARMING the best values in the portfolio. Sustainable FERMENTATION Fermented in tank AGING 4 months in tank on lees DOMAINE DE LA NOBLAIE Chinon Blanc Domaine de Noblaie is home base for four generations (grand-mère usually holds court in the living room while holding her new iPad.) It is Jerome Billard, the son of Francois and Madeleine Billard, who leads the property now. Jerome was fortunate to earn an internship at Chateau Petrus in Bordeaux while still in school and then to earn a spot at Dominus in California. I met Jerome in Chinon just days after his return to Chinon from California in 2003 and saw enormous potential.