My nephew Robert has had the amazing opportunity to spend a high school semester in Washington DC. Since the fall he has served Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle as a Senate Page. His lifestyle sure has changed. From a teenager attending a high school where the first period bell rings at about 8am to waking before the sunrises to be in school at 5am in Washington. By 10am he is in the Senate Chambers in our nations capitol serving the needs of Senate leaders. I was very excited when he called to tell me that he would visit and spend the holidays with me in California. With temperatures sub-freezing perhaps the incentive had more to do with good weather than anything else. But I'm sure a couple weeks with Uncle Allan would serve him well.
But when he called me on the way to the airport I was a bit concerned that he didn't remember his flight information nor did he have a printed copy of his itinerary. There are pros and cons to e-tickets. But for this young man perhaps e-tickes are just a bit too convenient.
His holiday travel story could rival many top ten lists of any 16 year old -- or anyone for that matter. I fielded no less than a dozen calls from Robert as he made his way across our great country. And with each ring of my phone the story got more bizarre, unbelievable and frankly, funny.
I'll let Robert my guest blogger share it in his own words. ANd if you have other stories, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and we'll post a follow up!
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Guest Blogger: Robert Karl
Home: Rapid City, SD
Age: 16
December 18 started off as a great day for traveling. My trip started out from McLean, VA at my Uncle Jon s house. When Jon dropped me off at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., my other uncle, Allan Karl, was on the phone telling me about my flight plan.
"Your first flight is number 617 to Chicago. That s the area code for Boston."
What? What is this crazy man talking about?
"The planes that hit the World Trade Center left from Boston." His voice had an oddly jovial tone to it. "Your second flight is number 1109 to Orange County. That s 9/11 backwards."
What an omen. "Have a good trip!" I shrugged off the conversation and went on with my journey.
My plane ride from Reagan to Chicago was uneventful. Flight 617 landed on time at Chicago O'Hare; the time was about 2:00. I had a few hours to kill. As it turned out, I spent about 6 hours in Illinois. Our plane was having "mechanical difficulties," so they suspended our flight indefinitely. I heard the attendants talking about a plane being diverted. What was the real problem? The world may never know. At this point I found a comfortable seat and bought some magazines.
Our plane finally left at 8:30. This presented another problem because of the curfew John Wayne Airport has at 11 PM. The flight from Chicago to Orange County takes about 3 hours.
One lady who boarded the plane in front of me was pregnant and on medication for contractions; she was shivering and covered with blankets. Her husband was desperately trying to convince the flight attendants to open John Wayne Airport, just as long as they needed until we could land. I realized I really couldn t feel too bad for myself. The pilot came on the intercom after we had been sitting at the gate for about half an hour, which is quite a long time for a plane trying to make a curfew. He informed us that the flight crew was trying to get a curfew extension until 11:20. If we couldn t make that, we would be diverted to Los Angeles and bussed down to Orange County.
At 11:45 PM we landed at LAX and the crew of flight 1109 told us to go to baggage claim 7-2, grab our luggage, and head to the curb where the bus would be waiting for us. I found baggage carousel 2 in an area vaguely marked 7. I saw people from my plane, so I settled down for a minute to wait for our baggage. After an hour, a short Hispanic looking man appeared and spoke to us.
"There was no baggage on the plane. We are sorry, you can fill out paperwork here or in Orange County."
That s great. A choice! Nobody is in Orange County, it s past curfew. And our luggage isn t even at LAX. At this point, I was feeling pretty tired. I just got on the bus after that announcement. When I got to Orange County, surely somebody else would be able to think for me.
Our bus left LAX at 1:30 AM. Finally, I was on the last leg home. I curled up on the back seat of the bus and tried to sleep. What a day I had been through. Weird flight numbers, lost luggage, diverted flights, 6 hour delays. What else could go wrong?
At about this point our driver slammed on the brakes. I felt a collision and was thrown against the seat in front of me. When I fully came back to reality, I looked out the window and saw a black BMW sitting in the middle of the highway, completely demolished. I remember seeing that the rear wheel was gone and the front was bent at a strange angle. A car streaked by and slammed into the car again. It looked like this second car was going about 40 or 50 miles per hour, that's not a fun collision. A few seconds later more cars sped by faster, maybe at 60 or 70 mph. They barely missed or just scraped the wreck that I could see. After a few minutes, cars stopped colliding and traffic was proceding past my vantage point in a slower, more orderly fashion.
As you can imagine, this was a huge hassle. I could see a helicopter with a searchlight circling. Cops took over the scene, fire trucks and ambulances arrived. The driver kept us updated with our situation. At 2:00, he told us the new bus would be at the scene in ten minutes. A police officer came onto the bus to take down the addresses of everyone who was on board. By 2:40, we were on our way in a second, more cramped, bus from the airport. Eventually I did arrive at John Wayne Airport. After dealing with major mechanical delays, lost luggage, bus accidents and curfews, little could have made for a worse day.
We started talking about it over a year ago. At first, it was just talk. You know -- big ideas but always with obstacles. People's schedules, availability of key items, location considerations. The whole gamut. But Al and I were committed to make it happen. After several broken dates and lapses of contact we agreed in late October to turn our dream into reality.
The dream? Quite simple. Get as many vintages of the "sine qua non" of California Cult Cabernet wines and drink them with good friends. The wine? Screaming Eagle. Its status? Legendary. Jean Phillips convinced her friend Heidi Barret to help here make cabernet sauvignon from a small vineyard plot in Oakville in California's Napa Valley. As they say, the rest is history.
The wine caught the attention of wine critic and seeming wine alchemist Robert Parker -- that is, anything he scores 95 points or larger disappears from wine shop shelves in days -- sometimes minutes. Funny thing is, many of these wines likely sit on the wine shop shelves for weeks or months with little or no sales activity. Then bam. Parker's newsletter, The Wine Advocate, hits subscriber mailboxes. Subscribers subsequently scan the ratings and buy anything he gives a huge score. Not quite the way to buy wine. Yet singlehandly this man has altered winemaking worldwide.
Sure. You think I'm kidding. But imagine if you sold a product at $35 and only had the ability to make 12,000 units annually. For years you struggle selling those 12,000 units. Then one day you wake up and find that overnight you were sold out. Why? Parker gave you 97 points. So next year you raise your price to $40. It still sells out and Parker still rates it in the stratosphere. Over the course of six years the price jumps to $150. You know have to allocate the number of units a single person can buy. And your demand is so strong you have to pass on selling it to retailers. Hell, going to direct you increase margin dramatically.
Robert Parker has affected dozens of wineries worldwide. So those who he hasn't graced with huge scores scramble to make a wine that he will like. In other words, they alter their winemaking technique for the sole purpose of getting a better score. True artisan winemakers will deny they would steep to such a low position. Others will gladly admit they are making a "parkerized" wine.
Is it fair that one man has so much influence over an industry? Perhaps. But to his credit it's important to note that Parker's Wine Advocate accepts no advertising. Yet, the People Magazine of the wine industry, The Wine Specator gladly accepts winery advertising. And an interesting analysis of those brands appearing on its Top 100 wines of the year with respect to advertising revenue generated from ads placed by the holding companies of those brands might raise questions. To be sure, The Wine Spectator's influence on the industry is a minute fraction of the aforementioned Parker. But its Wine of the Year always causes a rukus and results in inflated prices of that wine in the following year.
Case in point is the Chateau St. Jean Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonomo County. A few years ago the 1996 vintage claimed the top prize as Wine of the Year. At the time the wine retailed for less than $25. The following year the price balooned to $75. And it rested there for a few years. Though thankfully for consumers and perhaps to the chagrin of Foster's beer parent Wolf Blass who bought Chateau St. Jean as part of Beringer Holdings, the wine has crept down in price and is currently selling for $50 or less -- still a huge jump from its pre-wine of the year days. In fact, I have a bottle of the 1994 Cinq Cepages with a price tag still proudly exhibiting $13.99. Even California real estate in Orange County hasn't increased as much.
What's this all have to do with a yearlong dream and several failed attempts to realize such a dream? Screaming Eagle. The first vintage Jean and Heidi collaborated on was 1992. Every vintage Robert Parker has rated this wine 96 points or more. In most cases the wine attains scores of 98-100. And according to Parker, his 100 point wines are perfect.
So if you'd like to try what Robert Parker calls a "perfect" wine, you'd want to get your hands on a bottle of Jean and Heidi's Screaming Eagle or any of the handful of other wines he scores with such veracity. Problem is, until recently Jean only bottled about 300 cases of Screaming Eagle. And unless you had the chance to discover this wine about the same time Sir Robert Parker did and went throught the motions to get your name on Jean's mailing list (the list is closed and there are several thousand people on the waiting list -- which is also closed) you would be hard pressed to find a bottle of this wine.
So what happens. Greedy mailing list recipients and osbstinate collectors in search of the Rosetta Stone of wine have created a market where this wine fetches more than $2,000 a bottle at auction and sometimes $5,000 on wine lists in some of the finest restaurants in New York, Chicago or Las Vegas. Though recently the market broke on Screaming Eagle. So if you've got a hankering to try a bottle you might find one for $1,000 -- but no less.
I wrote to Jean in 1997 hoping to get my hands on Screaming Eagle. And I patiently waited until sometime in 2002 I received a letter offering me a few bottles of the 1998 vintage. Since then I've bought my "allocation" each year. Jean and Heidi were disappointed in their crop and overall the 2000 vintage in California that they decided not to bottle a 2000 Screaming Eagle.
Most people simply get their allocation and sell it. The 2001 vintage retailed to mailing list recipients for $250 per bottle. Hammer prices at wine auctions find this wine selling anywhere from $1300-$1900 per bottle. But rather than sell this wine, several friends and I set out to taste multiple vintages. The occasion? Why not. Sure, my birthday sounded like a good excuse. The holidays another. And the old adage "life is long" so enjoy it seemed well enough another.
The price of admission to this dinner held at one of Orange County's premier restaurants, Pinot Provence, was a bottle of Screaming Eagle. We did have a problem, however. My brother Jon who booked a flight from Washington DC to Orange County to taste these cult classics did not have a unique vintage. That is, we had duplicity. So we worked hard to find another vintage with the lofty goal of trading one of our duplicate vintages. But no luck. In the end, Jon and I agreed that we'd submit a worhty surrogate -- the 1995 Bryant Family Vineyard -- another cult classic that turned totally unattainable and priced out of sight by the simple words and scoring of Sir Robert Parker.
Sitting on the table was more than $6,000 of wine -- if you want to consider the current selling price (not restuarant price) of these wines. A bit decadnet? Yes. But to be fair, all of these wines came from personal cellars of my dinner guests and each of the guests hadn't opted to greedily sell their screaming eagles. All of us like minded souls interested in experiencing whatever magic Sir Robert Parker found in this small production Napa Valley wine.
But before we started into the big bad reds it was appropriate to start the eving with champagne and chardonnay. And to live up to the magnus level of red wines, we found it important to sample the recently released 1996 Dom Perignon Champagne(95 points) and perhaps the most sought after California chardaonnay the 2000 Marcassin Vineyard Chardonnay from Sonoma County (94 points) which as luscious, rich and viscous without the hindrance of oak or butter that plagues many over the top California Chardonnay. Nice hints of honey, butterscotch matched with bright acidity and notes of straw, honeysuckle and beauty.
The 1996 Screaming Eagle showed a bit of prune and raisin on the nose with mocha, sandlewood and earth on the palate finishing nicely with dried fruit and cherry, (92 points).
The 1998 Screaming Eagle went through several phases over the 3 hour dinner where at one point I thought it was wine of the night. But its true essence shines through and was the most disappointing of the bunch exhibiting asparagus round cores of dark fruit, oak and berry (90 points).
The 1999 Screaming Eagle was tight, backward and exhibiting a steely graphite nose with hints of herb, black cherry and anise. On the palate bold tannins and huge finish that settled as the night went on (95 points).
The 2001 Screamingn Eagle was tight, fruit forward and seductive and sensual. Chewy with sweet tannins and medium acidity. The wine sucked me in with cassis, black berry and coffee. Hmmm. (97 points).
For me the wine of the night ironically enough was the 1995 Bryant Family Vineyard. Clearly the nose was much brighter than the Eagles with cherry, black cherry, rasberry and sweet anise with dark chocolate trying to show through. On the palate pure black cherry and strawberry liocrice with tannins resolved and a finish that went on for over a minute. (99 points).
So was it fair to give the wine of the night to Bryant? Maybe not. 1995 was a vintage not represented here and perhaps a better Napa vintage than any of the Screaming Eagles. So my nod goes to 1999 and 2001 Screaming Eagle. Though if you have a 1995 Screaming Eagle and want to match it against a 1995 Bryant Family I do have another Bryant Family and welcome the tasting. That would be the only true test to see if Screaming Eagle does surpass the Bryant Family. So drop me a line and we'll taste together.
I guess I could go on and talk about the beet salad, roasted duck or even the Dom Perignon. But I won't. This was an amazing night. I can safely say that I doubt anyone else on the planet tasted 4 vintages of Screaming Eagle that night. And is it worth the price people pay on auction? No way. It is perhaps one of the finest and well crafted California wines and kudos to Jean and Heidi for an amazing effort. I'll always buy my allocation. And I'll always be willing to share it with friends, family and more. That's what wine is all about. Not ratings. Not trophys to stare at in your cellar. And not bragging rights. It's simply to share. Enjoy. And to live.
Trying to pick up the pace on the Digital Tavern, but I've been focusing on a rather large project that I'll fill you in on sometime in January. Patience and focus. Two of what have become my ubiquitous phrases when offering advice (solicited or not) to clients and friends.
So the Dr. tells me I've got to control my cholesterol. Good god. I'm committed to doing all I can to avoid medication. Chances are it may not work. Most of this stuff is hereditary. But here I am devouring the oatmeal in the morning, taking long walks, slamming red yeast rice and going in for good doses of Omega-3 and doing my daily intake of psyllium husk. Ahhhh. You gotta love the fiber.
And no. This is not the focus nor patience I'm talking about. But as a pure lamb loving carnivore who jumps at every wine dinner opportunity he can get, this author has cut way back.
But tonight I opened a wine that perhaps I shoulda unleashed years ago: a 1994 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Napa Valley Merlot. I'll admit my expectations were low. Especially given the poor showing a 1994 Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon gave just hours before Tim and I boarded our flight to Portugal a few months back. I won't bore you with the notes. But if you've got that Montelena in your cellar, take my advice and send it to auction.
On the contrary, this 1994 Merlot surprised me. To be sure, Merlot is the grape varietal everyone likes to make fun of -- dis, so to speak (that would be colloquially speaking, of course). The nose exhibited an abundance of dried cherry, sandlewood and a hint of asparagus and dried sage. On the palate it tasted ripe showing good acidity and nicely resolved tannins. Full-bodied, round and a respectable finish. Certainly, not the tired cedar, cigar box and leather disappointment I expected. So naturally, I give this wine a well-deserved score of 90 points. Not sure if there is any other bottle in existence as I write this. And I wonder why it lasted so long in my cellar. I can only speculate that I was visionary in my storage strategy. That is, I kept it so I'd have something to drink and write about tonight. I should note the price tag is still on the bottle. At $24.99 in 1995, this wine was not cheap back then -- especially for a Merlot. But then again I question Dean's assessment and unfortunate decanting of the same wine only ten years older (1974) tasted just a few months ago. But what a menu.
So Bob Dylan had his 5 minutes on 60 minutes last Sunday. Okay. Maybe it was more, but it only felt like 5 minutes. Unlike the 1994 SLWC Merlot, the Dylan interview was a huge disappointment. I can only imagine that there was just no great material and Dylan was a total bore as an interviewee. I mean editors can work wonders even with the most media challenged talent. But Dylan? Good god. Keep him off television. See him in concert. Listen to him on his records and maybe (just maybe) read his new book -- I haven't so I will not speak to his prosaic or storytelling capabilities.
It's the holiday season. My birthday is just a few days away. And to celebrate a few bodies and I are getting together to see what all the fuss is about with Screaming Eagle Cabernet. Screaming Eagle is arguably the most sought after and highest priced Napa Valley Cabernet in history. I guess we'll all find out if it's worth the hype or the price when we pop open four vintages next week. My brother Jon and singer-songwriter legend Al Stewart will join me and others on this historical evening. I'll be sure to report back.
I see Joi is globetrotting again. Been meaning to connect with him. But our schedules are just not syncing yet -- I'm anxious to give him a heads up on the aforementioned project I'm working on.
Docquotes one of my marketing mentors, Al Ries, regarding the lack of focus airline marketers exhibit and why they are getting hammered by my favorite airline to hate: Southwest Airlines.
I hear that Liz may find herself in Southern California early next year. Hope we have a chance to connect. As a closet MT transitional blogger I'm hoping to gain some insight and choke down a few tips over great wine and food.
I've been out of it (blogging) for awhile, but recently I've noticed a lot of activity and pointers to 43 Folders. What's up with that? I mean I haven't been THAT much out of it.
Microsoft CEO tells Detroit Press columnist Mike Wendland that "Blogging is huge." And that's why Microsoft hopes to take advantage of its popularity by launching MSN Spaces. Seems Microsoft is always playing catch up, but then again I never accused the Redmond behemoth of being innovative. Microsoft has tried to capture dollars and clicks from the successes of both Apple's iTunes Music Store and the ubiquitous Google.
The price of admission to this dinner held at one of Orange County's premier restaurants, Pinot Provence, was a bottle of Screaming Eagle. We did have a problem, however. My brother Jon who booked a flight from Washington DC to Orange County to taste these 
