The following article appeared in ystrday's LocalFlavor magazine on Neal Rosenthal.
Tom
A Wine Merchant Reflects
As wine consumers faced with a staggering array of unknown wines, we're continually
seeking guidance on what to buy. In Santa Fe, we are blessed with some very knowledgeable
retailers to guide our choices. Susan Egan (Susan's Fine Wine & Spirits), Jim Cook
(Liquor Barn), Byron Rudolph (La Casa Sena), and Jim Stephens (Kokoman) are amongst the
best you can find anywhere...worth their weight in gold....or Chateau Latour.
Sadly, this personal service is not the norm. Shelf talkers, those vexing little tags
tacked beside a wine, trumpeting a Wine Spectator or Robert Parker 100-point score
in big type, maybe a few glowing words snippeted out of the review; all too often now stand in
for a live and present wine expert. It's a lazy way to retail wine. We usually ignore them,
or are sometimes amused by their florid prose.
This spreading trend of shelf talkers is one of wine importer Neal Rosenthal's pet peeves;
as laid out in his new book "Reflections Of A Wine Merchant". Rosenthal was in town for September's
SantaFe Wine & Chile Fiesta; serving on a panel discussing terroir in wines and doing
winemaker dinners at Amavi and La Casa Sena.
One of the things we've learned over the years, when we're contemplating the purchase
of an unfamiliar European wine, is to turn the bottle over and look for the name of the
importer. Good importers travel to Europe, poke around in the nooks and crannies of
various winegrowing regions to scout out producers who are unknown but making
distinctive wines. Names like Kermit Lynch, Eric Solomon, Louis/Dressner, Vineyard Brands
(Robert Haas), Hand Picked Selections (Dan Kravitz), Weygandt-Metzler, Jorge Ordonez, and
North Berkeley Imports are some we rely upon. One of our most trusted names is
Neal Rosenthal. When we stumble across some unknown wine and discover it carries that Rosenthal
moniker, it's immediately plopped into our shopping cart.
Rosenthal Wine Merchants
In 1977, attorney Neal Rosenthal said good-bye to the New York corporate world and opened a
small wine shop with his wife, Kerry Madigan. You can hardly say the business flourished. It
was an idiosyncratic shop that focused, as best it could, on lesser known wines and Neal's
firm belief in the importance of "terroir", establishing its own niche in the crowded New York
wine scene.
Frustrated by the endless stream of faceless wine reps through his front door, flogging
the same boring wines; Neal soon realized that to sell many of the wines he liked, he needed
to import them directly from their source in France and Italy. This idea was galvanized when
West Coast wine importer, Kermit Lynch, showed up on his doorstep one morning. He'd heard
of Neal's "different approach" to wine retailing and shared many of Neal's frustrations at his
Berkeley retail shop, spawning his own importing arm some eight years earlier.
Inspired by trips to France and California in the '79-'80 time frame to visit some of
his favorite producers and research new ones, Neal and Kerry launched the Mad Rose Group
a few years later, including a wine importing component. With semiannual trips to France and
Italy to uncover new growers and solidify ties with current growers; Neal has developed an
impressive 90-grower portfolio from France, Italy, Spain, and recently Switzerland. Although it
encompasses most of the famous regions, many of his growers are not particularly famous
names. In some cases, like Paola Bea of Montefalco, their presence in Neal's portfolio has
brought fame to them and their region.
Terroir Seminar
The recent SantaFe Wine & Chile Fiesta hosted a seminar on "terroir" in wines. Robert Haas
(Tablas Creek), Randall Grahm (Bonny Doon Vineyards) and Neal teamed up, facing a roomful of
eager "terroir" seminarists, in one of the most informative, freewheeling panels ever held at
this event. The wines poured were almost superfluous as the air crackled with the panelist's ideas
and concepts on terroir, eliciting spirited responses from the audience.
Terroir is a French concept that has no direct translation into English. It roughly means
the impact of the soil and the climate on a wine. As Robert Haas noted, sixty years ago, "gout de
terroir" was a term bearing negative connotations...the taste of earth in a wine.
Nowadays, terroir has morphed into a positive concept, as every winemaker asserts that the
sanctity of his terroir makes his wines unique in the world. Wine geeks love to debate
the many nuances of terroir, making pronouncements with the profundity of Talmudic
scholars. These endless discussions can become rather boring and tedious at times, not unlike "how
many angels DO dance on the head of a pin??"
In his book, Neal extends the concept of terroir to include both the grape variety and,
"perhaps, human history." During the panel discussion, he amplified that idea to include
"traditional winemaking styles." That's an interesting extension that many "terroirists" would
dispute, arguing that ANY influence of the winemaking serves only to obscure terroir in a wine.
One wine he selected for the tasting illustrated his point very well. It was a Domaine Montbourgeau
Chardonnay from the Jura. Traditionally, white wines from the Jura are made in a rather oxidative
style, from incomplete topping of the barrels. Many in the audience didn't understand this wine and
found it "badly" oxidized, akin to a fino sherry. We found the wine loaded with interesting, nuanced
character. One can visualize sitting down in a green mountain pasture, high in the Juras, with a
bottle of this Chardonnay and a big chunk of Comte Gruyere (one of the Jura's glorious contributions
to the cheese world), with the cow's warm breath nuzzling your neck. That's the magic of terroir.
Browse Neal's web site (http://www.MadRose.com) for his take on this nebulous concept.
Reflections Of A Wine Merchant
Earlier this year, Neal published his first book, describing his evolution as a wine
merchant. It's an absolutely fascinating read; one of the most well-written and entertaining
wine reads we've had this year. Much of it beguiles as a traveler's tale as Neal serendipitously
follows his nose and sketchy leads to track down unrepresented fine wines. His mountain trek
searching for "Ping" (Signor Clerino), high in the nearly vertical vineyards of the majestic
Italian Alps above Carema, is a story that had our feet itching to join him.
As unlikely as it may sound, we found this book about the wine business a real "page turner".
We were hooked on the cast of characters and eager to hear the "rest of the story"....the ups and
downs of succession when his growers die and responsibility falls into unproved or passionless
hands.
The book is long on opinions, but short on polemics; a sharp contrast to some recent wine
books. He mentions famed wine critic Robert Parker only once...at least by name. Neal's opinions
may not be universally held, but they are well thought out and passionately expressed.
Neal's book opened our eyes to a number of unfamiliar wines. One can't read his vignettes about
the classy, formidable Jeanne Ferret or the down-to-earth Luigi Ferrando without developing a thirst
to seek out their wines from Pouilly-Fuisse and Carema. Neal's description of Ferret's encounter
with a "famous wine critic" is absolutely priceless!!
Neal writes with an endearing turn of phrase that makes the book a very enjoyable read. He
describes some modern-style Nebbiolos as "...this is like making a prima ballerina do the Charleston.
It may be fun to watch, but the performance is not as layered and challenging as Swan Lake." Well
said and entirely apt.
So...the next time you're browsing the shelves of one of Santa Fe's better wine shops
and spot a label with an unfamiliar name or provenance, look on the back side of the bottle.
If it sports the easily recognizable Rosenthal Wine Merchants, consider the source...and try it.
That trusting approach has led us to discover the glories of Jacques Puffney's Poulsard and Bruno
Verdi's Sangue di Giuda from the Oltrepo Pavese (an amazing match with the Fra'Mani salamis
from Whole Foods).
As Neal says, "the finest of wines pave the path to memory". His book and his wines will
do exactly that for you.
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The La Casa Sena Wine Shop has autographed copies of Neal Rosenthal's book for sale. Neal's
web site (http://www.MadRose.com) also offers imported olive oils and honey, as well as Neal's own
estate honey from his ranch in Upstate New York.
