Dan,
At $40 or more a head they are very busy. As I was saying, the tasting rooms are morphing into event centers, where one can enjoy flight on wine , a winery tour, small bites of food paired to the wine flight and special attention from an Estate Ambassador. The cost reflects the fact the fewer people buy wines in the tasting room figuring they can but it for less at COSTCO. Tasting rooms are expensive to operate. When I worked at Concannon, the tasting room was expected to generate $100,000 a month in sales and our individual sales goals were something on the order of $100 an hour. The $20 per head tasting fee barely covered the labor costs to staff the room.
I have photos of our Christmas table full of cheese, and a video of the truffle sale. Post later today, I hope, as an edit to this, now no time ....
Here's the table ..... as usual people asked what they could bring so we said "an interesting cheese" .... they didn't disappoint!
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Also of interest is the machine in the next shot; it's a cheese scraper. It makes "florets" of cheese by sticking the spike through the centre of the cheese and then attaching the blade. Rotating the blade shaves off the cheese. It makes for an interesting display, and worked "straight out of the box", very simple.
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Next I have a short video of the truffle market ..... just tried to upload, but it is too big, I'll see if I can put it in my gallery, next post with explanation ......
Okay, after trimming the video I made it small enough to upload to my gallery.
It's a great bit of cultural exposition .....
The truffle sellers lay out their truffles for examination by the Chef de Truffe. All the buyers have to remain behind the rope which is held by an assistant of the Chef de Truffe.
When all has been examined and ready for sale the starter blows a horn and the rope is dropped .... game on.
At the same event, about 6 producers made their wines available for tasting. The cost is Euro2 to buy a glass and then it is free.
Enjoy the video
Very informative Chris, I had no idea and also never gave the economics due thought until I read this .
Cool stuff for cheeseheads Roboman, thanks for sharing ! As for the “ All the buyers have to remain behind the rope which is held by an assistant of the Chef de Truffe. “., that’s just a little too pompous and pretentious for my taste, but I’m sure there is a good reason for it ..
Hi Dan, ".... pompous ... " no not at all, but I guess you have to be there. I was in a hurry yesterday so didn't have time to explain things properly. "Chef de truffle/assistant" was my terminology, as the shorItest way to describe those involved. My apologies if it made the event out to be what it was not. My intent was to show that at this start point it is all very ordinary, I suspect the pretentious bit starts further up the chain when the truffles hit the menus. The horn and rope were just a matter of crowd control in an open space, giving the truffle sellers time to set up. This was a pretty standard farmers' market, with the addition that it is the start of truffle season. Nobody gets dressed up, no long announcements, all very amicable, just simple solutions to controlling the situation. The buyers come from all walks of life, we bought a ping pong sized piece for $30 to use over the next couple of days. I guess there were quality restauranteurs present, buying large quantities, but for the main it was just "everyday people".
As a matter of comparison the truffles were €1200/Kg, I've no idea of the restaurant/city prices.
Rap I had a couple of excellent meals this weekend but didn't summon the courage to say "I'll have your cheapest wine, thanks" .... Wimp eh
Consider it an adventure. I’ve not been disappointed. Don’t get me wrong though. We don’t do this all the time.
In retrospect, both words ( pompous and pretentious ) were overblown by me and after the follow up post they were also misappropriated. Aplologies, I read initial the post very quickly and immediately envisioned the truffle chef traveling around with an assistant who uses a velvet rope to keep out the riff raff carefully selecting only those buyers the chef instructs him to allow passage. ( somi was thinking something similar to the velvet rope guardians at Hollywood night clubs ..whom you must impress with your looks and/or attire if youre to be allowed in and spend $ 25 + for one cocktail ) Of course, unlike the dime-a-dozen clubs and bars, truffles are as rare as...truffles ! The price is pretty damn high and still everyone wants them, so I can imagine there must be some protocol and control in selling pure culinary gold like that .
Hey Dan, no worries, when I reread "chef de truffe" I thought pompous was quite deserving....but of me, not of the event. I hope you can see from the video that there's not a lot of velvet on display!
And I really wanted to talk about the "cheese scraper" as I'd never seen one until my wife bought it last week; I was really impressed that it worked "right out of the box". Not one of these usual appliances which promis the world but either fall apart or require a two year apprenticeship, this one is well designed. It was originally designed for tête de Moine (which means monk's head) but I suspect any firm homogenous cheese will do. Doubtless we shall experiment. Enough about cheese on this wine thread, but it's hard not to link the two!
Finally the wine tasting .... $2 to buy the glass, and then just wonder around talking to the producers and trying their wine ... a great way to pass a Saturday morning! I cannot think of when I have paid for tasting, even at Chateau Neuf it was gratis. However, I can see the logic/business sense of charging and then reimbursing against sales, though Chris' tasting room targets would require a lot of footfall.
Rap, thanks for the idea .... I think I'll open the conversation with "I don't do this all the time ...." I think that will lead me into asking for their cheapest wine..... It needs to be a restaurant that I don't mind not going back to!
Gentlemen I'm probably signing off until the new year. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and new year, and thank you for welcome to this forum, your conversation and enjoyable banter.
Wishing you good health and a great time!
Robert
Raise a glass. Merry Christmas to all!
Cheers !! Merry-happy-joyful FESTIVUS ( which covers not just “the rest of us” but is now all inclusive ! ) Happy new year as well !
Buon Natale
It has been a year full of changes for my wife and I. Now that we are more settled we look forward to an in depth exploration of the Oregon wine scene.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and wishing you all a good and prosperous new year.
Hi guys, I hope Christmas and the new year treated you well. I scored what is probably going to be the best champagne I will ever taste ... Roederer Christal 2008, only released in 2018. We got a Parisian friend out of trouble when the original venue for his marriage next summer backed out. My wife volunteered our courtyard and to do some decorating, and the next day he popped around with this ....
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Very kind but totally unnecessary as we were happy to help, now we need an oppropriate occasion on which to drink it??
Christal is about as good as it gets. Champagne, or sparkling wine as we are required to call it in the US, definitely benefits from bottle age. One of my favorite American Sparkling Wines is produced by J Wine Company. They produce vintage dated sparkling wine, which I have kept in my cellar for years. We drank a 2008 Late Disgorged from J Wine over the Holidays and it was extraordinary. If you store it properly, it should last for ages.
I’ve never been a fan of champagne, but yes, if you must drink the bubbly , that’s indeed as good as it gets .
Both of you have been reading my mind .....
Dan, I'm not entirely a fan of champagne either, and when we do buy it in we get fairly standard stuff at around $25-$40 a bottle. So part of me is very happy to have this gift, but I'm also a little saddened that I'm undoubtedly not going to appreciate it as I should. I guess some time in the future we need to get a standard bottle and drink that as "entree" and then drink the Christal as comparison .... and then need to remember it all on the following day!
Chris .... "store it properly" is a challenge. My cellar is on the bottom floor of our house and away from sunlight, but the temperature does change slowly with the seasons. Outside temp ranges from zero to 40C, whereas the cave moves slowly between 10C - 25C. My understanding is that slow temp change is tolerable to wine, though I also understand the warmer temp accelerates the maturing process. I have a standard fridge in my garage in which I store beer/whites ... if I just store it there will that be too cold long term?
Some things to remember about wine storage. Ideal cellar temperature is said to be 55 degrees F. Wine stored at a higher temperature will age faster. You don't want wild temperature swings and direct sunlight. Storing sparkling wine in a refrigerator at 40 degrees will no doubt minimize aging. Your Champagne is now more than10 years old, so there might some additional aging that would benefit the wine, but if it were mine I'd drink it with a meal. Champagne has a lot of front end acidity which makes it an ideal pairing with a rich meal. I like champagne, usually a Blanc de Noir with the traditional American Thanksgiving Roast Turkey. It works really well with a ribeye steak, braised short ribs, shell fish such as lobster or scallops. I drank my Late Disgorged J with my Tuscan Christmas Dinner that consisted of Butternut Squash Ravioli dressed with Brown Sage Butter, Arista which is bone in Pork Loin Roast served with a dried fig vermouth reduction, rosemary potatoes, Tuscan green beans blanched and salted with pancetta. A very rich meal that the champagne cut right through.
Champagne is often drunk with charcuterie, but I prefer a lower alcohol Prosecco. Don't want my dinner quests drunk before dinner is served.
For me, there’s nothing better than a pilsner-type beer to cut through a rich meal ( particularly if a lot of sauces are involved ) , not sure champagne would do the trick for me ..but I have had it with sushi once and perhaps surprisingly, it worked remarkably well . I prefer prosecco also, as does my wife, but again not a big fan of champagne although I will drink a little if offered, out of politeness. Particularly “pink” champagne ( is that called rose’ ? ) with some dark chocolate..
Guys I'm putting on weight just reading this thread!!
Thank you for the advice. I guess I'm trying to work out how not to waste such a gift and such an opportunity.
Yes pink =rose = rosé
Cheers, Robert
On the topic of good wine ..top end restaurants around these parts are now charging absurd fees for corkage ( $ 200 is the highest Ive heard of, but there are a handful which have been charging anywhere from $ 150 to $ 175 for a couple of years now .. ) . Thats per bottle, of course, and some are limiting what you can bring in to just one bottle, no matter how many people in your party . To add insult to injury, the same restaurants impose a minimum 20 % gratuity to your bill , for parties as few as 4 ( used to be parties of 6 or more ) which incredibly is also applied to that corkage fee ! I guess the $300 prix fixed per person tab is not sufficient, so if you want to bring your own special bottle of wine, and dare not order from the restaurants $ 500 and above list , you gotta pay for that privilege .
Im wondering if there a threshold where diners are going to say enough is enough and just stop patronizing these onerous establishments ? So far, this does not seem to be the case because with as many restaurants as are closing an at alarming rate here due to the extraordinary cost of maintaining a business in this area, the prestige restaurants are still booked solid, typically months in advance.