I'm not grumpy all the time, but I think I do a good job of staying grumping most of the time. But, when good things happen, I get happy. Case in point:
We recently got an email from our friends Dana and Sandi Madsen, owners of Madsen Family Cellars. We have known Dana and Sandi since before they opened their winery and they have become good friends. We have even done some custom work for them since we have all the expensive toys and they were just beginning. They started the winery so Sandi could quit teaching and run the winery while Dana still worked in construction. We all know how construction is going what with Osama bin Obama stimulating the economy. (Finger f***ing might be a more appropriate description for stimulation.) (The newspapers report a rosy picture, but insiders say you bid a "shovel-ready" project at cost, subtract 20%, and you will come in third. The people creating "jobs" are losing money and eventually will lose their businesses. See, I can still be grumpy.) Short story: Sandi is still teaching.
Seems Dana and Sandy submitted their wines to the Wine Commission for the judging by Jay Miller for Bobby Parker's Wine Advocate. Bonair Winery had the same opportunity, but, being from Zillah Zillah, we knew we didn't have a snowball's chance. The Wine Commission would probably hide the bottles. They outwardly admitted, not all wines would be tasted. Duh, no wines from Zillah will ever be tasted by a national writer. They don't want to endanger the image of Washington wine.
Anyway, I hope Sandi doesn't mind me sharing part of her email. It is great!
"Dana and I find ourselves in another small puzzle. Last spring we received a mass email from the WWC inviting us to submit wines to some guy they'd come up with who was a reputable judge and who'd give some kind of feedback. It was free, and we thought, "Hey! we might get some useful input on our wines!" so we sent several wines off, and then time passed and we forgot all about it.
So Friday, we got an email from somebody in California wanting to know who our Florida distributor is, and we emailed back that we don't have one. And he emailed us and said he would like FOB on our entire portfolio (and what the heck does that mean?) and his interest was based on our recent review in Parker's 190 for the 07 Destiny Ridge Cab.
We thought ???????. What is Parker's 190? What's an FOB on our portfolio? Who IS this guy? So I googled Parker 190 and found out it was Robert Parker and issue 190 of the Wine Advocate. Yikes! Deeply curious as to what was said about our cab, we hopped into the car with the dogs and drove to Barnes and Noble, and Borders (first stopping to walk the dogs along the Percival Landing boardwalk bordering the marina) and of course, neither store carries the Wine Advocate.
So this morning, we betook ourselves to our winery and there we received an email from the Red Mountain grower who's selling us Cab Franc this year with our contract, but also congratulating us on our scores (plural)from Parker. Curiouser and curiouser.
So we've asked around and no one over here seems to be into Parker. We certainly don't want to subscribe either, but we would like to know what this reputable judge (who turns out to be named Miller, and apparently is Parker's reviewer here in the NW, but we wouldn't have recognized his name anyway)said about us. Probably would have been too intimidated to submit wines if we'd known who he was. I know you aren't into Parker either, but do you happen to know anybody over there who does follow him who might be persuaded to divulge what was said about us?
We're feeling a little Red Riding Hoodish right now--two dweebs out toddling in the woods, and who'd have thunk that that big wolf was lurking behind the tree? Dana in retrospect thinks maybe the Wine Advocate was mentioned but he thought Parker was the Wine Speculator. or Spectator. Or whatever. We didn't think we were submitting wines to be scored in a national magazine. Pretty scary. And kind of exciting."
Kind of exciting? It couldn't happen to nicer people. Oh, and where is their winery? Walla? Nope, Woodin'? Nope. It is in Olympia. I wonder if Paul Gregutt included them in his new book? (Love to hear from you Paul, I know you follow this blog.)
It is sooooo cooool when the small guy makes it big! Congratulations to Dana and Sandi! Today I am not grumpy! I am very happy. The little guys won!
Ps. I don't subscribe to the Wine Advocate either.
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