A Conversation with Neal Rosenthal - Part 3

This is the final post about my conversation with Neal Rosenthal. It was a great experience for me to spend time with him, and I hope that you've enjoyed reading about it.

We talked a bit more as we finished our lunch.

BG: So if you don't do trade tastings, how do you get the word out about your wines? How do you grow your business?

NR: The best publicity is word of mouth and longevity. I've been doing this for over 30 years and I've hung around by doing a really good job, and by respecting the customer, by the quality of service that I offer. I've been able to make a nice living doing something that I adore, and without compromising my principles.

BG: Aren't there a load of new restaurants opening all the time, places with local and artisinal sensibilities? How do you draw new venues into the fold?

NR: That's why we added Clarke (Boehling), the first new sales rep I've hired in seven years. We realized that we wanted to get everywhere that we should be, and Clarke is helping us do that.

BG: I don't know how anyone can keep up with all of the changes.

NR: You know, I think that young consumers and young people in the wine trade have been cheated out of opportunities to drink old wine. I remember when the great old restaurants in the city like Lutece and La Caravelle would buy their bottles of Bordeaux, and they would put it directly into their cellars. They bought the wine but they had no intention of selling it for years. They wouldn't even put it on the list! That's not happening anymore and it's really a shame. And it's part of why wine is made differently now. Wine is made to drink young now, to gobble down. They relax the tannins, keep the acids low, bring the fruit forward. There's no point in aging those wines, and now it's hard to find old wine that's been stored properly.

BG: Do you keep old bottles of your wines?

NR: Yeah, we can go down and have a look in my cellar in a little while.

BG: (Wiping drool from mouth) That would be awesome. So have you ever had experiences where you like a wine and want to import it, but you think that people won't buy it?

NR: Of course, but I usually buy the wines anyway. You go out and find an audience for the wine. Especially now that my customers are so savvy, so experienced. My Swiss wines, for example. It's hard to sell a $30 bottle of Swiss wine. How many Swiss restaurants are there to sell it to?

BG: Are you successful with those wines?

NR: Not yet, but we will be. It's exciting to work with a group of people growing those grapes and making those unique wines. Eventually people will drink them and find joy in them. And listen, you can have convictions, and still be wrong. I believe in these wines and I enjoy the challenge, so I do it.

BG: I want to ask your opinion on a few hot-button issues, of late. What's your take on the Natural Wine phenomenon?

NR: To become obsessive is bad. What point does it make when you open a Lapierre Morgon without sulfur and the wine is undrinkable? What's the purpose of that? If my sense is that the vineyards are taken care of, if I know the person who grows the grapes and I like them, I'm satisfied. You can go too far with these things...

BG: What about the debate over shipping wines over state lines?

NR: I think it's a phony issue. There is a viability to the three-tier system. Distributors have a role to play because they get out on the street. They're the ones who open the wines for potential customers, they make sure the wines are placed, they take the re-order.

BG: But if I were to move to a state that doesn't allow out of state shipping, I couldn't buy your wines, for example.

NR: Yes, there should be a more open market, but access to wines happens because one person in Memphis demands a wine, other people too, and then a distributor buys the wines.

BG: I guess so. What are the things that you still want to accomplish in your business?

NR: Hmmm. (Thinks for a moment). I'd like to fine tune the portfolio, to ensure that our growers are making wine the way we're used to, that they're not compromising.

And with that, we started walking through the house to the stairs that lead to Neal's underground personal wine cellar.

ND: By the way, what are your hobbies outside of wine?

NR: I'm a long distance runner and I'm quite serious about it. I'm an age-group winner in a half-marathon and I've run several marathons. I've been politically involved, but I'm giving that up in frustration. I still love to write, and farming - I spend a lot of time on that now. And I love to follow my daughter's career, she's the editor of the National Interest journal. Her name is Justine Rosenthal.

BG: How did you get into beekeeping?

NR: Some of the winemakers I work with keep bees and I always found it fascinating. A few years ago I decided to try it myself.

BG: What's your take on the mass bee die-off a few years ago?

NR: There are lots of scientific theories about that, but I think it's pretty simple, actually. Here's what's actually happening with the bees. There are people who keep bees and they travel around the country with the seasons, and sell their services to farms all along the way. We are overworking them, plain and simple. They travel all the time and work all the time, and that's not the way it was meant to be. The more they work, the weaker they become, and the more susceptible to disease.

We walked into the wine cellar, a large room with two aisles, gravel floors, and cement slabs for shelves. there are boxes piled up and piles of wine in the shelves. It's a beautiful thing. And it is not temperature controlled - Neal says that because it's underground, it's not necessary to regulate the temperature.

BG: Oh, so those are just some magnums of Carillon Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet.

NR: That's very good wine.

BG: Man, nice Gaudichots!

NR: Do you know about Gaudichots? It was part of La Tâche, but then DRC bought most of it up and had it re-classified as Grand Cru. Gaudichots is a great vineyard.

BG: It must be so much fun to have a cellar like this.

NR: Yes, it really is.

Thanks for reading.