December 5th should be a National Holiday

Why should December 5th be remembered you ask! Yes, it is Joe’s birthday but it’s more important then that. I say it is more important then your anniversary, your husband or wife’s birthday, your mother’s birthday, maybe even more important then your own birthday…it is repeal day!

Repeal Day, repeal of what? On December 5th, 1933, Utah, the final state needed for a ¾ majority, ratified the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. This act restored the rights of “Joe Six-Pack” to purchase and enjoy a drink!

Prohibition was put into effect by the ratification of the 18th Amendment on January 16, 1919. It prohibited the manufacturing, sale, transportation, or exportation of “intoxicating liquors” in the United States and all of its territories.

Congress proposed the 21st Amendment on February 20, 1933. The Amendment was ratified by the required ¾ states majority on December 5, 1933.

It would be nice if, some time in my life, this date was celebrated in this country but for now I am content in informing the customers of the Hair O’ the Dog of its importance. The nice thing about this holiday is it only entails stopping by your local bar or HAIR O’ THE DOG, picking up your favorite “intoxicating liquors” and having a drink, just because you can! By the way, while you’re there wish Joe a happy birthday!

Nastrovia,
Brian (the beer guy)

Getting the Fun Back...

Call this a mea culpa, if you must. We've come to the painful realization that while we were out there trying to grow the empire, the Dog had become a less fun place to be. Some customers complained that our in-store service was sporadically snooty, snobbish and off-putting. This is totally unacceptable to us.

We started this business with the intention that it would always be a fun, clean, inviting place where folks would be comfortable hanging around, whether they were wine savants, beer enthusiasts, or someone who is just starting to discover the breadth and beauty of adult beverages.

So we've made some changes. Joe and I are back from the Crusades of Commerce, and we're directly managing in the stores again. Leeanne, who has graciously bounced from store to store for us, has become an accomplished wine buyer, and is developing a growing cult following.. The staff - Brian, Wendy, Shawn, Martha and Matt - are top notch. Ignore the fact that I'm writing this at 5:30 in the morning when I say that we don't lose a minute of sleep when they are taking care of you in the stores.

Today we are announcing a new partnership with Laurie Forster, better known as The Wine Coach. Sorry, Laurie, I can't make that cool (R) registered trademark symbol on the blog. Laurie is joining the Dog team with a title to-be-determined. We've bandied Lifestyle and Event Specialist, but I'm not sure that fits on a business card. In any case, Laurie is going to be helping us to make this place more funnerer, more customer-friendly, and better.

We've worked with Laurie occasionally for the past few years, and we've always appreciated her goal of de-mystifying wine. Many, many people are still intimidated by the supposed vast amount of knowledge necessary to understand wine, and Laurie's done a great job of lobbing a huge lawn dart of reason into the big balloon of bombast about wine. (It may be early, but my metaphor gland is apparently functioning.) We welcome her assistance.

We're also bringing back more store events, from Darting for Discounts this Friday night to more in-store tastings. We're working to expand The Poop and the web site. Soon we will also be cross-marketing events with Coffee East as well. More on that later.

Thanks for your business.

Status Report: The Big Sale

We're nearing the end of Day One of The Big Sale. It's been great to see everyone come out and get some tremendous deals on wine and spirits, all of which we're selling for 99 cents over our wholesale cost today and tomorrow. We estimate that customers have already saved nearly $10,000 with today's deep discounts.

A lot of people are interested in the question of why we do it. Every time we have the sale, some folks think that we're circling the drain. Umm, no. We have the sale (a) because it's fun; (b) to reward our fantastic customers for their support throughout the year; and (c) to blow out seasonal wine inventory so that we can replace it with new stock.

We only announce The Big Sale by email, which is reason enough to subscribe to The Poop, our extremely awe-inspiring monthly newsletter. In addition to stunning beverage revelations, hilarious high-brow humor, poorly-altered photos, and the occasional totally fictitious feature, you'll get coupons, advance warning of special events, and a healthy dose of savoir-faire.

Drinking Age to Back to 18?

An item in this morning's news: A group of college presidents are advocating a national debate on the merits of lowering the drinking age to 18. You might think that we'd be all in favor of this, as it would add hundreds of new potential Top Dogs to the marketplace. You might also think that we'd recoil in horror at the idea, so as not to offend the Puritans. The smarter money says that we should just shut up and see how it pans out.

However, this is a complex issue that deserves some debate. Proponents of lowering the drinking age are correct when they argue that since the law starts assigning adult responsibilities to us at 18, it should also convey adult rights. That's a good point. If 20-year old corporals climbing out of foxholes in Afghanistan don't deserve a beer, who does?

Proponents also argue that in most of the rest of the world - where the drinking age is 18 or even lower - youth alcohol abuse is not as big a problem as it is here. Another good point. By demonizing alcohol, it's possible that our society makes it more desireable to those to whom it is forbidden, sort of like getting some chemical strange.

On the other hand, we've got kids. We know how reckless they can be at 18, and that they're less so at 21. As a society, we're probably doing them a favor by asking them to wait until they're 21 to drink alcohol. While fake IDs and older friends certainly lead to a significant amount of underage drinking on college campuses, lowering the drinking age to 18 means that this action shifts from colleges to high schools, and that's just not a good thing.

So what's our position? As with any political issue, we'd be idiots to take one. We're a business, and the customers of many political stripes who buy from us are the ones enabling us to send our own kids to college. However, we'd like to see some consistency in how our society defines adulthood. Does it occur at 18, or at 21?

If it's 18, then let those young adults buy alcohol. If it's 21, then let's not let them sign up to climb into foxholes in Afghanistan until they're old enough both to appreciate the risk they're taking, and to have a beer when they climb out.

And while we're having the debate, can someone please explain to me why we allow 18-year olds to buy tobacco?

Well, here it is....

my first Blog O' The Dog.
I'm a beer guy, as most of the readers of this blog probably already know.

I brew my own beer, I try EVERY new beer I can find (Some I love, most I like, and only 1 I hated), I read as many books and magazines as I can find about beer, I visit a brewery just about every time I travel....and I still can not understand how some people NEVER try new things!

To me, it would be like saying I love peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches on white bread and never trying anything else for lunch, ever! Sure, some people might try 1 or 2 other beers but that's only like having that PB&J on toast or with strawberry jam.

The point I'm trying to get across here is there are 34 different brewpubs and microbreweries in Maryland alone (check out the list here; http://brewpubzone.com/States/Maryland.html). That link will give you the address, email, website, reviews, and even a map to all 34.
Check out them out. You never know - you might like a grilled Reuben for lunch every now and then!

Nastrovia,
Brian
aka-the beer guy

Fasten your seatbelts! ~ Philip Bernot

In what must be one of the most frequently misquoted lines from a classic movie, Bette Davis, as aging diva Margo Channing in "All about Eve", proclaims “Fasten your seatbelts, its going to be a bumpy ride!” The actual line is “bumpy night,” and no doubt ranks second to “Play it again, Sam” as the most famous line never said. All that aside, the message is correct-it is about to get a lot bumpier for wine enthusiasts everywhere. I just got word that one of my favorite importers is dropping two French producers due to large price increases. We have carried wines from each of these producers and loved them, but here is the real problem-these wines simply do not have substitutes. One producer makes a rich Chateaunuef-du-Pape, the other a sublime Condrieu. No offense intended, but I have yet to taste a wine from California or Australia that captures the rustic elegance and stony complexity of good Chateaunuef-du-Pape, and I see no indication that any producer outside of France is on the right track of producing Viognier up the quality of a good Condrieu. Sure, there are other producers of these wines, but I fear they too will be facing huge price increase.

So what, you say, I don’t drink that stuff anyway! Well try this on for size: I recently added a well-known sparkling wine from California to the line-up. Four weeks ago the wine was $34; yesterday I changed the price to $44. In four weeks! So what, you say again, the bubbles tickle my nose so I don’t drink that stuff either. How about the pleasant little white wine that went up 33% on the new vintage? No problem, you say again, though now a little testily, I drink beer in the summer anyway. If you do drink beer, chances are you have already seen the effects of this story from last November on NPR: “Worldwide hops shortage will make stouts, ales and other specialty microbrews more pricy in coming months. A triple whammy of bad weather in Europe, an increase in the price of barley and a decrease in hops production in the U.S. has lead to a price increase of 20 percent for the most widely grown varieties, to 80 percent for specialty hops. The shortage is particularly hitting microbreweries, since they use more hops than major brewers” Ouch! Inexpensive wine is becoming more expensive, expensive wine is becoming very expensive, and good beer now costs twelve bucks a six-pack!

So what is driving all this? Simply put - everything. I have to admit, a couple of years ago I was amazed out how undervalued wine was in the market place. It was just too cheap, and the price only had one place to go. Many people have suggested that California is the logical recipient of the increased prices of European wine, but that has not been my experience. California wine was always more expensive to begin with, and has been increasing in price just as rapidly as European wine, often more so.

We continue to try and find wines that offer great value, and there are still wonderful bottles under $20, but at the risk of using the most hackneyed phrase that has infiltrated our language in recent memory (excepting, of course, ‘a perfect storm’), thirteen bucks is the new nine, and twenty bucks is the new fifteen!

Good cheap wine

Recently the New York Times published an article on inexpensive Malbec wine from Argentina. The central message of the article is something that I have been ruminating on for some time and has nothing to do with the tasting notes on the Malbec. Much more interesting than the tasting notes is a concept I have always lived by, which basically comes down to “The best wine is not always the best wine for the occasion.” As a professional Sommeliere I always made a point to buy wines for my list that were drinking well right now, not twenty years from now. Invariably this meant buying vintages less heralded than what what the wine writers were gushing over. What’s the use of drinking the very best wine from the very best vintage if it is infanticide? Often a so called “off-vintage” provides a wonderful wine for current consumption. Similarly, I can’t tell you how many times I have tasted a lineup to find that I prefer the least expensive, or entry level wine, over the wineries “star.”

New York Times writer Eric Asimov puts it well when he says “I have a different theory of cheapness as it applies to wine: Often in New World regions and increasingly in the Old World, a producer’s most expensive red wines are also the most done up — spiffed and polished and reeking of oaken vanilla and chocolate like too much makeup or hair pomade . . . the wines are made from grapes so overripe that the prevailing flavors are of baked fruit and jam. Either way, creating a flavor profile to fit a preconceived notion of an expensive wine diminishes any sense of place and individuality. That’s why I’m often more interested in a producer’s less expensive wines. If you can dodge the minefields of oak substitutes and other winemaking tricks that are intended to imitate expensive wines you just might find some wines in which you can taste simple essences rather than fancy mock-ups.”

For a look at the whole article, here’s the link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/dining/reviews/11wine.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=malbec&st=nyt&oref=slogin