Mark Sommelier

Hey cg, Thanks and HAPPY HONEYMOON!!

Nicholas Joly has been practicing biodynamie for more than 10 years. I admire and enjoy Coulée de Serrant. Lalou's wines at Leroy and Domaine D'Auvenay are without peer. Dominique Leflaive makes some of Burgundy's best wines. There must be something to this.

Mike, HUSH! With 6 stools, that bar at Nectar is the best kept secret in town. All the bartenders are fun, nice guys. Plus, at the bar you can talk, drink, eat, laugh with the staff and smoke, too. As far as foie goes, get on the Lipitor train!

Luce is a great example of pricing set for marketing reasons only. They make over 100,000 bottles of Luce - it is not exactly a rarity. Luce is another example of the Mondavi pricing scheme. Opus One is another example. 20,000 cases a year hardly makes it a rare wine.

In the 60's, 1961 Chateau Cheval Blanc cost $6. I drank one last week that a friend had bought for that price.

In 1954, a case of 1947 Petrus cost $8 a case at Sherry-Lehmann in New York City.

What didn't you like about it? It was the first panini that required a steak knife that I ever had. Didn't taste good, either.

There is a long and interesting thread about this subject in the India folder. I am in the drink cold beer or cold water camp on this one. There is no long standing tradition in India of drinking western style wines with meals. Personal assessment: nothing goes with Vindaloo.

Had lunch there 3 weeks ago. Didn't care at all for the food.

ParK-N-Dine! ROFLMFGAO

Alex, THAT IS TOO DAMNED FUNNY. Maybe we could find some Hello Kitty stemware, too.

Darren, Sunday night at Timberlake's on Connecticut Avenue is "Three Dog Night". They feature 3 different good quality hot dog/sausages every week. Cool idea.

"Fat Bastard" is French. "Old Bastard" is Australian.

Well, Dick, but you are disparaging me. My friend is a noted winemaker and a world known microbiologist. The thing does have an effect on wine, and whether you believe it or not matters little to me. I saw it first hand. Other people saw it first hand. Please don't make assertions that you can't attest to from personal experience. And yes, I'm getting tired of this too.

Here's the update. My friend, the Noted UC Berkeley Professor ( I asked if I could reveal his name and he said "not yet") was in town this weekend. Over dinner at Citronelle, I brought out the Wine Clip. There were 3 people at the table, all wine professionals. My friend the NUCBP has read through some of the previous goings on here at eG about the Wine Clip. I told him that if anyone was qualified to research and test the Clip, it was him. I opened a bottle of wine, poured each person one glass without the clip, one with. Naturally, they were skeptical. The looks on their faces as they tasted made my night. They noticed a difference in the two glasses. NOT BETTER OR WORSE, JUST A DIFFERENCE. I then asked him if he thought double blind ABX tests and ANOVA were called for, and he said "hell no". We agreed that science can not quantify personal taste (sorry Member #1). I gave him the clip to take back to California where he said he would have it evaluated at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. I will keep you all posted on the developments.

mmmmmmmmm.......Scuppernong (Homer Simpson voice)

Marc, It's been too long since I had the pleasure of dining at your restaurant and have no idea what is on the a la carte menu. This sounds like a way to get a taste of Citronelle at a price I that is closer to my budget than the main restaurant. What do they offer? The lobster burger sounds amazing. I could use a great meal right about now. The lobster burger is made from knuckle meat, the brioche is house made, the accompanying French fries are cooked in clarified butter. Very satisying.

From the waiter's point of view, it is much more entertaining when you make the guests wear either fish hats or little cow horns on their heads.

The curtained part of Marcel's could easily hold 30, but, it is very expensive.

A little known secret is that the bar menu at Citronelle offers the downstairs fixed price menu items a la carte. Plus the lobster burgers. It is not a scene place. The bar at Marcel's is the same deal. Nectar bar is cool for singles. although, with 6 stools, it might be full. The bar at David Greggory has become my favorite for eating at. Good menu, nice ambiance, kitchen open till 12 on weekend nights. Then there is always Bistrot du Coin. Cool place, lots of action. Bright lighting is good for reading, plus, Timberlake's is next door.

Steve, How could you mention going out to VA on the orange line and leaving Hope Key out? The Lobster XO there rocks.

I love learning new words.

I am currently down on all the major familiar Champagne houses. They have all become pawns in a huge corporate takeover of the wine business. This includes Clicquot and Moet. These houses produce millions of cases of wine a year. The Terry Thiese suggestion is good. Most of these houses produce under 10,000 cases a year. I particularly like Pierre Peters Bl de Bl, the Billiot lineup and the Geoffroy and Vilmart Champagnes. Other artisinal Champagnes to look for that are delicious: Pierre Moncuit, Veuve Fourny Grande Reserve and Cuvee "R", Paul Bara Brut Reserve, Bollinger Grande Année 1995.

But, Zaytinya has that cool communal table in the middle of the restaurant. We had 25 there and it was great fun. Ceiba has a seperate dining room that will handle 30. Give them a call.

For those restaurateurs who care little about wine, local distributors here will let the salesman handle everything on the winelist. Of course, all the selections come from one house. Easy one stop shopping. The winelist I manage has 600 selections. I use almost 20 different distributors. The range goes from $20 bottles of Muscadet to $2200 bottles of 1955 Chateau Latour. I am obsessed with accuracy on the list. I reprint pages 5 days a week. This includes additions, deletions and vintage or price changes. It takes 5 minutes to print updated pages and 15 minutes to put them in the 15 winelists I keep around. I never have to apologize about being out of stock. I find it worth the time and effort.