Lucie, you caught me red-handed here taking your picture along with that of Rachel Martin of the BOXWOOD Winery : guilty as charged!
This is the art version of the blog seeing that I am a bit of a historian/storyteller and very much an artist that practices or live his art each and every day. I like this blog format because I can be more chatty and relaxed and include a vast and diverse bits and pieces of information that to me all tie together to tell the largest and most comprehensive picture leading to these particular moments as possible.
It may be more than you all want to know or to read but I like including them as the pieces are important to me and they help me relive or remember certain parts of my past that may or not be of interest to you. It is, however my blog and as I am not being paid to write it and write it more out of a love and a passion for what I do I guess I have the right to call the shots?
This may reduce them to curiosities I suppose as meanderings and of less interest or use as promotional values for those that I speak of? Oh well, c'est la vie n'est ce pas vrai?!? I do hope that you enjoy them anyway as they will most certainly lead you down certain paths that are serendipitous and hopefully entertaining at times as well as informational.
That's why this is in my art blog site at chatart.blogspot.com. For the more traditional approach go to : chatwine.blogspot.com and see the other set of the pictures that I took two evenings ago on Friday. November 20th, 2009.
We were very busy this evening and there were a lot of tastings occurring at the same time at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits where I manage the wine department along with the help of Mike Martin.
I wish that I had had more time to focus on taking these pictures as I had to do them periodically and very quickly as passing snap shots of certain moments in time. I do think that they tell an interesting story anyway, especially when you combine them all.
This is a story about the art of wine-making as well as vine-selection and vine-planting. Both are essential and inextricably intertwined. I value one as much as the other and of course one has to start with the vines and that's where the art of viticulturist Lucie Morton is paramount to the success of whatever wine that follows.
She was asked by Rachel Martin's family for her opinion and choice of the vines that they should plant there in Leesburg/Middleburg to get the wines that they wished for? Then once this was achieved and the vines planted and allowed to grow for four years or more ; then the magic of the wine-maker and the owners who paid for all of this to happen to finally begin to occur each and every year.
Of course this is the ideal scenario and one that occurs really never and is always prayed and hoped for and that lives in one's fantasies and one's dreams until reality comes crashing in to bring us back to real life and out of our reveries.
This is for example when a vine or row of vines gets sick and no one knows why? Things are tried and everyone becomes thoroughly exasperated as they muddle through and never get to the end of the tunnel and never see the day of light.
When all else fails then Lucie Morton viticulturist and doctor of vines and root stocks is called in and more often than not with hard-earned efforts and attention to every detail seen and not seen on the scene she prevails with her special and certain magic. Everyone sighs and life goes on and the cycle can continue to march forward until the next snag.
I understand that there are always daily and constant snags in Virginia at growing healthy vines and harvesting them and then making wine.
I heard from Lucie Friday night that BOXWOOX is the most eco-friendly winery in all of Virginia and that they do not use herbicides and pesticides? Is this what you said Lucie? Do I have this correct? Please let me know. You are as close to organic farming as you can be at BOXWOOD, correct? This is itself is an art and magic, too.
On this evening we tried the two red blends of the traditional Bordeaux grapes used to make both Right and Left Bank wines ( Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot ). One is called " Boxwood " and the other is called " Topiary ". I liked both very much for their polish and finesse but I liked better this Friday evening the " Topiary " as I think it is the readiest to drink now of the two. They both sell in our store for $28.99 and they both sold quite well this evening. This was a fun chance for our customers to get close to two equally important parts of the essential elements to making really fine and hopefully great wine.
Our customers would get their bottles signed by both Lucie and Rachel. Now that's a treasure especially as how both women are so gracious and nice as well as quite well-informed.
I have much more to say but will have to continue this later this evening. It's Sunday afternoon now at 12:11 PM here ( Nov. 22nd, 2009 ) in northern Virginia and I will continue this art/wine blog later as it's time to now clean our house for Thanksgiving and I promised that I would help accomplish this.
Cheers for now ; a bientot ... TONY
It was great to get to see Lucie Morton once again after around 25 years here at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel:202-363-4265 anthonyquinn@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ).
