Another 3-Pack: Mediterranean Sparklers

Call us crazy, but we think nothing says summertime like a cold bottle of something sparkling. And since sparklers (the firecracker kind) are all the rage for Independence Day, we’re proudly declaring July Sparkling Wine Month at Frankly Wines. At the store, we'll be doing sparkling-oriented tastings every Wednesday and Friday from 5.30pm - 7.30pm.

For those not lucky enough to be in downtown Manhattan during the summer months (the garbage smells lovely when it finally heats up) you can still get in the fun with our latest 3-Pack featuring three nicely-priced sparkling wines from two Mediterranean-minded countries – Italy and Spain. All three are crisp and refreshing, but each is distinctly different. It's a great way to explore the diversity that bottles of bubbles can offer.

Althea Prosecco di Valdobbiadene NV (Veneto, Italy): Produced in the tank method, most Proseccos are lighter and fresher than their Champagne cousins. The Althea is no exception – it shows notes of crisp, green apples, peaches, pears and hints of citrus. It’s great on it’s own or paired with Sunday brunch. Bellini’s anyone?

Cantina Del Taburno Falanghina Spumante NV (Campanga, Italy): Like nothing you’ve ever tasted – we promise. Falanghina is a white grape indigenous to southern Italy, usually used in the production of non-bubbly wine. A sparkling version is a rare treat – so rare we didn’t know it even existed until a few weeks ago. The nose offers up apples and honey, but the palate is dry and refreshing, with the tell-tale smoky notes of a good Falanghina. Bitter lemon zest on the finish will make your mouth pucker for more. A bit more full-bodied than Prosecco, it’s great on its own, with a nice seafood dish, or with an Italian cheese plate.

Bodegas 1+1=3 Cava Brut NV (Penedes, Spain): This delicious little gem from Spain is produced in the Methode Champenoise, the same method used to make Champagne. It boasts aromas of apple, grapefruit, lemon zest, minerals, nuts and honey. Very fresh, dry and brisk, with lively citrus flavors and a Prosecco-like frothiness (and who doesn’t like a little froth). It’s a light, refreshing style that’s meant to be drunk early and often.

And of course, you can buy one at the fancy Frankly Wines web site for just $44.99, more than a 10% discount off the regular combined prices.

Random 4th of July Musings from Behind the Counter

Fireworks are really hard to draw. Tried to make the chalkboard all festive with a few fireworks and they turned out looking like spiders....to the point where I felt compelled to note that they're not spiders. Otherwise I'm sure we would have had more than one person come in and ask what spiders have to do with the 4th of July.

Not a big surprise, but everyone wants something inexpensive, white or rose. Or sparkling. To go with their 4th of July sparklers, perhaps?

More of a surprise...garbage services don't pick up the night before the 4th of July. Apparently it's a garbage holiday. They don't tell you this, but it's rather obvious when you come in the next day and all your carefully broken down boxes are still sitting there on the curb, carefully broken down and waiting to come back inside.

There are a lot of tourists in town. This is good. We like tourists because they all seem to like wine!

Sparkling Wine Month at Frankly Wines

It's Sparkling Wine month at Frankly Wines! If Hallmark can whip up a holiday whenever it feels like it, so can I. But it's much more fun to get a bottle of something than a card - especially if you're buying it for yourself.

Back in my corporate life, I spend a lot of time watching Champagne brand managers obsess over getting people beyond thinking that bubbles were only for New Years and a few other Special Occasions such as Weddings, Birthdays, and Anniversaries. And possibly Superbowl Victories. I think the statistic was average Champagne consumption in the US was barely a 1/2 bottle of Champagne per person per year. (The number could be wrong, but it was very very low.)

That statistic was for Champagne only - it didn't take into consideration the many other sparkling wines that don't come specifically from the (not so little) part of France called "Champagne". To a Champagne brand manager, the distinction mattered. As a store owner, I could care less. I just like to have bubbles on hand for people who want to celebrate Holidays, Occasions, or simply enjoy a nice glass of something that happens to sparkle.

So back to Sparkling Wine Month. It's July - it kicks off with sparklers of the fireworks kind. So we decided to just run with that theme and feature sparklers of the liquid kind. Everything from Prosecco, to Cava, to Lambrusco to Cremant d'This, Cremant d'That, Cerdon-Bugey, Sekt, Lambrusco, Asti spumante or frizzante - and even actual Champagne.

Check out our full schedule of tastings. These are all free, stop-in-for-a-sip-or-two sort of tastings. Nothing formal or fancy - we'll get to that later. But if you're in the neighborhood, or looking for an excuse to get to the neighborhood, we're happy to provide one. And we're happy to let you stand around, sip, and gab about sparkling wine as long as you like.

And just in case you can't kick the habit of thinking of bubbles as a gift - we'll even stuff some tissue paper into your bag to make it look festive.

Wine You Never Knew You Needed: Frappato

Frappato is one of those grapes you've probably never heard of. We hadn't until last summer when one of our sales reps came by with the winemaker and an open bottle of Valle dell'Acate "Il Frappato" 2008 (Sicilia, Italy). Given that the wine is a red from Sicily, we were expecting something big, full-bodied, typical of a hot island climate. But no - this Frappato was absolutely charming. Light red (but not quite into rose territory) with notes of bright fresh red berries and roses. It's perfect for summer days and can be drunk just a little bit chilled.

The several times we've had it open at the store, the overwhelming consensus has been "it's weird, but I really like it!" It's not really weird, it's just that most of us aren't used to drinking reds that are so light, fresh, and really, delightful. A red doesn't have to hit you over the head to be good.

So if you're in the mood for something different - give this a try - we all need a little weird yet likable in our lives. Click here to buy. Price: $18.99

I'm Lazy and This is Funny

I have always wanted to do a post on the top Google searches that find my web site, either the Frankly Wines store site or this blog. I think Terry over at Mondosapore did a post on this a long time ago, but as it says in the title, I'm lazy (at least right this moment) and don't feel like looking it up. And just the other day, Lyle Fass at Rockss and Fruit posted his site's Top 10 oddest search words, so I decided to just be a lazy copy cat and finally do my own post.

Sadly, it's not very exciting. There are lots of search terms on wooden boxes due to my apparently highly popular post on the phases of wooden box lust, respect, and contempt.

There's a search on "stats geek - why?" which seems like an odd question to ask. Really, why not? Or who cares? Or, huh?

The only slightly interesting, truly odd search is "promiscuous wine". That one speaks for itself.

The Paying of Bills

One of my daily chores is to pay my distributor bills. This involves sitting down with a big check book, writing actual checks (today's are $26.68, $45.00, and $400), addressing actual envelopes, and affixing them with actual stamps. Then the challenge is remembering to take them out of my bag and put them in an actual mailbox at some point during the day (because this is New York and no one has an actual mailbox of their own to put letters in for postpeople to pick up.)

Now I can already hear some of you asking, "Why don't you just do this electronically. It seems a little silly to be wasting real checks and real stamps when you can just pay your bills electronically."

And I would answer that yes, it's a little silly, but that's just the way it is in the wild world of New York wine.

"Why's that?" you ask. (Even if you don't ask, I'm going to tell you.)

In New York, as everywhere, wine sales are highly regulated by the state. In the case of payment terms, every retailer and restaurateur is given 30 day terms. So if the wine is delivered on June 1st, the distributor has to get your check for that delivery by July 1st. If they don't get it by that day, there's a 5 day grace period and then the distributor has to report you to the State. (The "State" being the State Liquor Authority, aka the SLA). Not unlike in high school, you're put on the delinquent list. And detention takes the form of COD status - Cash on Delivery.

COD status means big truck drivers will stand in your store, tapping their feet, waiting for you to write a check before giving you your wine. (Or something like that...I've never actually given one of them a check.) And you're not on COD status for just the one distributor. You're on COD status for EVERYONE!

This is a very bad thing because paying for your wine the day it's delivered is a much different situation that paying for it 30 days later (when you've had an entire month to sell it and get the cash to pay for it.) So nobody likes to be on COD.

But nobody wants to pay their bills before they have to. I don't want the distributor to get my cash one day before it's due. In some cases I don't have it the day before it's due, but generally, I'm just inclined to want to keep my money in the bank as long as possible.

So back to why I'm still using checks, stamps, envelopes rather than a snazzy electronic payment system.

Well, only 1 of the approximately 50 distributors I work with offers any sort of automated payment system. And it's not really automated - I have to call the customer service line, listen to at least 5 minutes of inane music and canned liquor commercials, give them a check number, invoice number, and check amount.

But I can still use my bank's automated payment system right? Which I started to do once I had started to build a little bit of cash in the bank. It was great - I'd just go online, set everything up and revel in no more stamps! No more envelopes! No more last minute treks to the post office because it took me 3 days to remember to take the envelopes out of my purse! Great!!!!

Not so much. Almost immediately, I started getting calls from my distributors asking where my usually timely checks were. I was about to become a delinquent!

With a little investigation, I learned that the automated payment process isn't so automated. I was really just "automatically" asking my bank to have someone stick a check in an envelope and mail it from somewhere else. And this somewhere else was in Nebraska. And sometimes it could take up to 5 days to get the check into an envelope. And then another 5 days for the envelope to get to the distributor in New York. So 10 days total. And of course, the bank takes the money out of my account the day I process the payment, 10 days earlier.

Bottom line, I would have to pay my bills at least 10 days before their due date, hope nothing goes wrong in Nebraska (mad cow stampede?), and still could possibly wind up reported as a delinquent to every distributor in the state. And even worse - I would be a delinquent for non-payment of money that had already been removed from my account!!

I think I'll stick to stamps.

Scooping the New York Times: Vaona Valpolicella

Apparently, I never actually published this. Bummer - such a waste of a good scoop! As I type, we have indeed moved into the 2008, but rest assured, it's still good wine and well worth a try.

Follow me while we go back in time, to May, when it was still raining, just like today:

In this week's "Wines of the Times" column, Eric Asimov and Co. chose the Vaona Valpolicella Classico as their #1 pick out of 25 different Valpolicellas.

We've had this wine on the Frankly Wine shelves since February, when one of our sales reps brought a bottle, winemaker in tow, for us to taste. I remember it was a cold, natsy day, but the wine was fresh and vibrant, medium-bodied, but full of flavor - berries, floral notes, minerality, It wasn't trying to be an Amarone or anything particularly "serious." It was just a really well-made, very enjoyable, highly drinkable wine - exactly what a Valopolicella should be.

As often seems to be the case, the article specifically mentions one vintage....just as a new one is about to arrive. As I type, we have 6 bottles of the 2007 left and the new 2008 is on a boat about to dock at a port somewhere in New Jersey. So buy the 2007 now, wait for the 2008 later, or forever hold your peace! Read more about the Vaona in the New York Times piece or in Eric Asimov's blog, The Pour.

Back to the present....buy the 2008 right here. Price: $18.99