Neal Rosenthal, Lawyer, Wine Merchant, Writer, pt. 1
Ξ June 16th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ A Day at a Time, Interviews, Wine History, Wine News |
It is with great pleasure I offer this two-part interview with Neal Rosenthal of the Mad Rose Group, Ltd. Many will recall his insightful observations on terroir from his featured role in Jonathan Nossiter’s incisive Mondovino. For those wishing a greater familiarity with the gentleman there are three ways to better understand his life’s work, and not only in the wine trade. You might read this interview and explore other internet sources, including a quite wonderful Authors@Google video; you might read his fine book, Reflections of a Wine Merchant, or, what was my first introduction to the man, through the wines he selects for his portfolio. And I’ve had many of his selections. Indeed, his was one of the few names I began to look for on the back label. Of course, the recommendations of the wine retailer are always welcomed, but when left to my own devices, should I find one of Mr. Rosenthal’s discoveries, each a distillation of a palate and a philosophy honed for over 30 years, my purchasing decision would be that much simpler. And no Hallmark tasting notes, no idiotic scores.
I called him at his New York office. Enjoy.
Admin Good morning! How are you?
Neal Rosenthal I am very well. How are you?
I’m doing extraordinarily well. Thank you for agreeing to an interview. It’s very foggy here. What is the weather like there?
NR Well, it’s cool and overcast (6/11). We definitely needed the rain. So we’ve gotten it. Now we’ll probably get too much over the next three or four days!
As you may know, I live in Santa Cruz, but I missed your appearance at Soif some months ago…
NR Well, I wasn’t there. My West Coast rep. is the one who showed up at Soif. I make rare appearances on the West Coast. I haven’t been there in a while. In fact, I’ve never had the pleasure of going to Soif, and I hear wonderful things about it. I know they’ve been a very good client of ours. But no, you didn’t miss me.
Oh! Well, very good. So, what is it about the West Coast? Why so infrequent a visit?
NR You know, I’m just tired of traveling. (laughs) I’ve put on a lot of miles over the years. I have a really nice little situation at home so when I get chance to stay home I like to be there. We’re I to be in California, Santa Cruz would certainly be a favorite place. I haven’t been there in many, many years. In fact, I used to be there, I wouldn’t say frequently, but a couple of times a year when I first started in the business hunting around for good wines from California. I did some work in the Santa Cruz area with Ken Burnap up at Santa Cruz Mountains Vineyard.
You’re kidding me. I know the folks at Santa Cruz Mountains Vineyard very well.
NR Well, Ken is a great guy.
I’ve not yet met Ken, but Jeff Emery, who’s taken charge…
NR I don’t know Jeff. When I was working with Ken, we’re talking about many, many, many years ago, we worked on the ‘75, ‘76, ‘77, and ‘78 vintages. I distributed his wines in New York. We sold their wines in New York.
Amazing! Well, how did you hear about him?
NR Goodness. (laughs) I was prospecting out there. It was at the very beginning of my work. I don’t know how I stumbled upon Ken’s wine originally but it made a rather extraordinary impression on me. I think the first one was the ‘77 Durif. Maybe it was the ‘75 Pinot; then we had a two vintage blend, Pinots blended together, I think that was the ‘77 or ‘78. There was a ‘78 Bates Ranch Cabernet. Those were the days.
Yes, Bates Ranch is a magnificent producer. For many, many years.
NR They were wonderful wines. I remember Ken’s first attempt to make a Chardonnay, which he left in contact with the skins for a long time. It came out to be an orange wine. At that time it was rather shocking to everybody. It would probably be greeted with great huzzas now! But at that time it was pretty much a scandal.
So what was it about the Santa Cruz Mountains?
NR Well, I like the Santa Cruz Mountains very much. It was very much cutting edge at that time. I thought it had some great potential. It was certainly one of the more beautiful, savage areas in California that they were struggling to turn into vineyard lands. I remember times going up to Ken’s place the roads were completely washed out. You could hardly get there. So it rather courageous to plant vineyards up there.
And it remains, the vineyards, very small…
NR Thank goodness.
…and many are just eking out a living.
NR I haven’t been in touch with Ken, it’s probably been over 20 years. But I have fond memories of it.
What did you drink last night?
NR What did I drink last night? I was busy working out on the farm last night so I came in rather late…
Working on a farm?
NR We have our own little farm here in Upstate New York. I amuse myself by planting things.
A vegetable garden?
NR It’s more than a garden, I would say. (laughs) It’s not on a commercial scale, but it is more than a garden. We planted nine different varieties of potato, we do our own garlic, and we do shallots, we do about nine different heirloom tomatoes, and we have about twenty-five fruit trees. I recently put in about a 100 melon plants. We have a lot going on here. I seed a good deal of our property with Buckwheat which is what I was doing last night. We produce Buckwheat honey.
I know you sell the Buckwheat honey on-line, but do you sell at local farmer’s markets?
NR We don’t appear at the Farmer markets. We have a nice little speciality cheese; we have a cheese monger up in Massachusetts that handles some of our produce, a couple of restaurants in New York City, they buy from us from time to time when we have enough to sell. And then we have some of the stuff available from our website.
Yes. Are you an enthusiastic reader of Michael Pollan?
NR Yes, absolutely. In fact I met Michael, I had dinner with him at a mutual friend’s house a couple of years back. Yeah, I’m an avid reader and admirer of his work. Good man. He’s brought a lot of major issues to the public’s attention which I think is really remarkable. He’s multi-talented, but his talent is gaining the kind of attention that others who’ve tried in the past and have failed to get that kind of public notice he’s attained. I give him great credit.
Before we go on could you tell me when you began Reign of Terroir?
It was about a year and a half ago. It began as a group of friends, and has developed far beyond my expectations. I have an interview with Clive Coates tomorrow, for example. How strange it’s all become! [My answer was more detailed but we needn't dwell.]
NR Well, good! I think this is a phenomenon that is going to be difficult to stop, and I don’t think it should be stopped. I think it fills an enormous void because it doesn’t have to be blatantly commercial. I think you can do some serious work if it’s done correctly. If it is a matter of throwing around rumors and exchanging opinions then maybe it’s less serviceable. If it is a question of ferreting out fact and interesting ideas, and of exploring ideas and philosophies, then I think it’s great.
I am curious about your take on American Viticultural Areas, the AVAs. How do you think they stack up vis-a-vis the concept of terroir?
NR There are a couple of ways to respond to that from my perspective. The first is that I’m not deeply involved in the sale and purchase of domestic wine. I’m probably not as up to date as I should be. That being said, I think it is a very noble effort. I think it is an important effort. If you do believe in terroir, as I believe, and I do clearly believe in terroir, I believe terroir exists everywhere. It is a question of finding the vehicles to express it, and of deciding whether you like that particular terroir. For people who claim that I, from my historical background, what I’ve done, that I’ve put the kibosh on the concept of terroir in California, that is very, very much not true. There is terroir everywhere, and I think the effort of finding proper places to plant the proper grape variety, what produces best, what expresses the particular terroir of a region, is very essential work.
On the other hand, I don’t think one can just jump into it and, after a handful of years, can think or can feel comfortable saying this is a terroir that clearly exists; and we can very specifically define what can be planted here, what is best grown in this particular area. I think that the proof of this has been the European model. And the European model took clearly hundreds of years to develop. So I don’t think we should be in a rush.
With respect to terroir, even a SuperFund site has a terroir.
NR Well, yeah. Every place has a terroir. It doesn’t relate just to wine.
Of course, but in marketing and PR departments there is a great resistance to this notion for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. They don’t wish to engage the topic at all, preferring to see it as yet another quaint concept that needs to set aside in order for the wine industry to grow up. I find that quite bizarre.
NR You mean the denial of terroir?
Yes.
NR I think it is foolish. But on the other hand, let’s just go back to the European model, and go to certain appellations in France where, for example, there are no premier crus or grand crus within a particular appellation. Let’s take Sancerre, for example. Everybody in Sancerre knows where there are better areas and there are less good areas in Sancerre. But the powers that be that have basically ruled that mini-world have never encouraged anybody to set forth very specific definition of where the better areas are. They don’t want to legalize it. A lot of that is because it is against the interests, it is not in the best interests of the people who have the most money at stake.
Of course, Champagne is a very good example of this…
NR Champagne is a classic example of it. The Champenoise have been hoisted on their own petard. Their commercial way of determining pricing essentially establish grand cru and premier cru vineyards. So, although you don’t see grand cru or premier cru noted on almost any label that is produced by one of the big negotiant houses, clearly what they pay for grapes when they’re buying grapes is based upon this general notion of which are the better areas; so that small growers now can label their wines if they come from grand cru and premier cru areas with those designations. It exists in Champagne though people don’t like to mention it. I mean the big guys don’t like to mention it. You don’t find grand cru on the label of Dom Pérignon, for example, just to give you the easiest hypothetical to cite.
With respect to Americans’ reception to the concept of terroir, I think the PR people have hit upon odd notion: There is a kind of a fatigue on the consumer’s part that terroir is somehow associated with a ‘green’ concept. We hear routinely, for example, that our tennis shoes, even though they are the most comfortable shoes we’ve ever had are stitched by young children in South East Asia, or that our carpets are tied together by kids in India. We just hear so much of that that when terroir appears the PR people have cynically tapped into the reluctance on the part of the consumer to yet again think a value beyond the drink itself.
NR I think it has been treated as an elitist game, when I think it really is tied more closely to the natural world. There is this strong anti-intellectual bent here in the United States. That is something that is unfortunate. I think it serves us very poorly. Being smart about something, getting the details right, should be applauded rather than denigrated. In this case, terroir is just another way of trying to understand the natural world. Terroir is not simply a phenomenon related to wine. You can’t grow certain types of fruit or vegetables in certain areas because the climate isn’t right or the soil isn’t right. That’s the same idea, marrying a particular plant to its proper place on the planet! You can’t grow a banana tree in New England. You can’t do it.
If you want to eat bananas you’re not going to be able to grow them locally in most areas. It doesn’t make you any less a locovore. You have to accept what Nature dictates. Nature is what is telling us what is right and what is wrong. We can understand that by having a little introspection. People make terroir into something complicated, it becomes this elitist toy. I think that is a sad misunderstanding. Terroir is a very, very simple concept. With respect to wine specifically, a wine of terroir is a wine that expresses where it comes from. If it’s done properly, which starts, of course, with the work in the vineyard, it is almost exclusively the work in the vineyard, then the wine will tell you its unique place in the world.
What do you think is happening in France? The strange anti-drinking laws being promulgated, danger warnings prominently displayed in print advertisements, severe restrictions on alcohol adverts on television…?
NR I can’t fathom it. I don’t understand why they’ve become so anti-alcohol. I don’t get it. I don’t know what the motivation is. I don’t know what the economic interest is. I’m an economic determinist, if you will. I always find most of these rules to be the product of strong economic interests, for their protection, or their commercial benefit. And so I’m trying to figure out what it is, who it is, or which interest it is that is forcing this stuff on the French people.
With respect to the wineries you source from in Europe, would say they are largely sustainable, do some of them exercise biodynamic or organic principles?
NR Nobody is 100% biodynamic. Biodynamie is a very different and much more complicated, more encompassing concept. And unfortunately, I think that also is a term that has suffered some abuse. So I would say to you with respect to my group of about 90 different growers with whom I work, nobody is 100% biodynamic. Many like the idea, they follow many of the principles, but it’s not 100% and they are not certified.
I have very few who are quote ‘certified’ organic, although, let’s say, almost to an individual they are all clearly sustainable, all would very much like to be 100% organic were they to feel that would fit comfortably with their production. So they are all very, very conscientious with respect to how they take care of their vineyards. Frankly, quality relates, I mean, everything is about the vineyard.
The organic idea is wonderful. And I’m a believer. On the other hand, there are other practical elements of it that I know as a small producer myself of fruits and vegetables, how difficult it is to maintain a strict organic regime and at the end of the year have a good production. That is an enormous challenge.
I think alot of this is very much overdone because if you look at the way vineyards are laid out in France in many areas, not in all, but in many areas, very rare is the isolated vineyard. Let’s just take Burgundy as a classic example, where holdings are limited to maybe one or two or three rows of vines within a lieu-dit. You may be organic, you may be biodynamic, but what if your neighbor isn’t? How can you honestly turn to somebody and say ‘my grapes are 100% biodynamic’ if your neighbor, who has the row right next to you, is spraying?
There are no walls between these things. We’re not working in a nursery. We’re not working in a greenhouse. We’re working in the open air. It’s very, very difficult to accomplish that. I think the goal has to be, from my point of view, that the grower be conscientious, be dedicated to providing us with clean, healthy fruit. And that’s not just bringing in fruit that is fully ripe and not bringing you diseased fruit, but is not bringing you pesticides or herbicides either.
My growers are extremely conscientious that way.
End of Part 1 Link to Part 2.
Admin
