Taken to Cask

Evidently there's tone deaf and then there's Bernard Rosenson. For last night I received an email which says the following:

Join us for fabulous wine tasting at Wine Cask of Calabasas - every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

4 - 7 pm

This week: (February 26th, 27th, 28th)

"Titans of Santa Barbara" Part I

Featuring:

Ojai Vineyard

The wines of Jim Clendenon

The wines of Fred Brander

Look, you don't close up a shop/restaurant that's been part of a town's community for over 40 years without warning, then not even mention that you've done so or make any public statement about the closing, and then keep using your email list like nothing's happened. First, you owe your customers some explanation. And it's not that I feel entitled to something since I've been thrilled to be able to be a Wine Cask shopper for years. I'm on record as calling the annual wine futures program "Christmas, Opening Day, and the world’s best President’s Day Sale wrapped up into one for lovers of the grape." Just from a business standpoint you need to explain, for why should anyone trust you at this point? I received an email from the Wine Cask mere days before they closed without warning trying to convince me to attend upcoming events at the now totally vacated Santa Barbara location.

Second, Wine Cask of Calabasas? For non-Santa Barbarans, that would be like someone starting a Rainbow Room of Poughkeepsie or an Old Bookbinder's of Camden or a Berghoff of Moline or a Locke Ober of Worcester (yeah, I know, two of those places don't really exist right now, but the world is poorer for it).

Third, if you're going to push tastings featuring the "Titans of Santa Barbara" (what, no Titans of Calabasas?), spell the titan's names correctly. That's Clendenen. After all, it's not like Jim Clendenen and his Au Bon Climat wines helped put Santa Barbara on the wine map in the first place.

When you run something like a wine shop, even more important than your inventory is your smarts. People need to know you know something, that you care about the wine, that you drink the wine, that you chat with the winemakers. If we want to buy wine from a business, there's always Von's.

Ozark! The Herald Present Zings

The other day Amy has to go home to take one of the dogs to one of his weekly vet appointments and so is there after the vet when a package comes. She emails me--"you've got a big box of wine." Yes, I have been known to order some wine (I loves me some litotes), but I have it shipped to work since it's good for your employers to know how much you drink you need an adult to sign for it, and although Mookie is 77 in human years, he can't hold a pen and barks at all delivery people, to boot. So it makes no sense to me there's wine shipped to our house. I ask for details. She says it's from Missouri. It's also from the wife of my now deceased dad.

Things begin to make some sense. I'm still fascinated, however, trying to figure out how a woman who doesn't drink wine and lives in New Jersey decides to order wine for a person who drinks lots of wine who lives in California. How does she get to that a-ha moment, "Why, yes, Missouri!" She's not on the internets--doesn't even own a computer. Does the St James Winery (whose website page is titled "Red Wines, White Wines, and Wine Accessories") advertise in AARP's magazine? Still, this Christmas gift choice isn't too far from sending the person living in Idaho potatoes from Alaska.

If nothing else, now I know that Chardonel is an actual grape and not some silly marketing term, not that I would come up with a daft neologism myself (OK, I'm still trying to trademark "diplomarama" as a synoym for graduation, so don't steal it). As for the red, I'm pretty sure it's called a Norton as my step mom didn't want to fork out the bucks to buy the more expensive Kramden. Seriously, Norton is a grape, too, proudly billed the "Cabernet of the Ozarks," which no doubt means its genetic parents were cousins.

Indeed, when I positively swill in these wines, if I close my eyes I can practically imagine I'm in the Tony Orlando Yellow Ribbon Music Theater in Branson. It's a rare Christmas gift that can be so transporting.