Layne’s Wine Gig
GIDDY WITH EVENTS
By Layne V. Witherell
There are so many events. Mindboggling. There’s Beer Week, Wine Week, Restaurant Week, Lobster Week, Portland Seaweed Week (my personal favorite), and don’t forget the Tequila and Taco Crawl (that is, if you remember what you did). Oyster Week. The Maine Donut Tour (I am not making this up). There is the unofficial return of the Snowbirds Week (if it is warm enough for their arrival). The “I just moved here from New York and want to start a restaurant” week. Not to forget the vast number of adorable, ongoing multi-course restaurant wine pairing dinners that can shred that little strip off your credit card.
PORTLAND SEAWEED WEEK (April 22-May 1) Seaweedweek.org
If you missed it, shame on you. Of course, our “mini me” paper, the Boston Globe praised this one. Several venues in Maine offered special seaweed forward bites and sips, as well as seaweed identification walks and educational opportunities in partnership with the Maine Sea Grant and Heritage Seaweed. To be a camp follower/reenactor, just head to the classic store Heritage Seaweed: “Your friendly neighborhood seaweed store,” featuring everything seaweed (wedding favors-yes!), at 61 India Street, Portland. Get your seaweed on. A mindboggling array of food, gifts, and merch, ah, merch.
Our favorite festival events this year included:
LUKE’S LOBSTER, 60 Portland Pier, Portland
Their bartender Kai Parrott-Wolfe put together a multi-layered and balanced seaweed Cosmo featuring Barrens Sugar Kelp vodka that was perfectly paired with the smashed Atlantic Sea Farms’ Sea Veggie kelp burger. The calamari are light on breading and actually tasted like they are supposed to. Their delicious offerings combined with the killer view of Casco Bay – made for a special meal.
SOPO SEAFOOD, 171 Ocean St., South Portland
They did an entire “dog and pony show” with a killer little kelp infused martini, sides of caviar, oyster shooters, rice bowls, and salads all featuring seaweed ingredients. (A little birdie said the kelp martini was destined to be a regular offering at the raw bar.) Oh, and a talk… Love a talk. Uber that one home. Don’t forget them next year for this annual event or anytime to stock up on seafood and all the fixings including seaweed.
PORTLAND WINE WEEK (June 13-19th) Portlandwineweek.me
This is Portland Wine Week and I thought it could contain an unofficial, commemorative piece celebrating some of the illustrious women I have known in my countless decades in all aspects of the biz. There is an irresistible pull to join the biz. Some are viewed through wearing the hats that I have worn as a distributor, retailer, winery manager. But mostly it is through my visor as a wine journalist.
Dr. RACHEL R. STARR (1944-2005), Newberg & Portland, Oregon
RETAILER/ WINERY OWNER/VINTNER
There is a mischievous notion today that the wine biz has always been a male dominated “good old boys club.” You should have met Rachel Starr. In the early 1980’s I was V.P. of Sales for a famed fine wine distributor in Portland, Oregon. The job description centered on frantic phone calls from my beleaguered reps whose customers were the biggest and toughest retailers and restaurants in the state. I was their backup 911 call. She was the penultimate 911 call.
Rachel created and owned a store called Great Wine Buys on NE Broadway in Portland, Oregon. Built like a fireplug, endowed with the fiery temperament of Gertrude Stein, she was the absolute ruler of her little domain. And what a domain. She invited the world’s toughest wine critic to taste the then very fledgling little-known wines of Oregon. Rachel was tough. There was no aspiration toward becoming an adorable twinkling sommelier in her life. She was singularly a tough buyer and a wine visionary.
Her idea of inviting the wine critic God was an act of bravery that few would attempt. It comes as no surprise that she would have hauled him out to the curb and used NE Broadway as her spit bucket! I have seen it – and as a statement it was disarming. Was the wine presented good or bad? Rachel was the consummate judge.
She later went on to found her own winery. At sixty-one years of age, she died far too soon. Next time you have a glass of Oregon Pinot Noir give a toast to a great pioneer, Dr. Rachel Starr. (The Dr. was her Ph.D. in Political Science. Oregon was her re-invention of herself.)
FELICIA WARBURG ROGAN (1927-present), New York City, Charlottesville, Virginia
VINTNER/AUTHOR
When they write the Great Book of American Wine in two hundred years, she will be in it as “The Dowager Empress of Virginia Wine.” Women in wine today have a “storm the barricades” attitude-deservedly so. Felicia, on the other hand, was born to royalty, and not just any old royalty. I knew her when she owned a middling “Marie Antionette“ winery and wrote an insignificant book on Virginia wine in the early 2000’s.
I summed her up in my memoir “Wine Maniacs Life in the Wine Biz”:
“…the key ingredient here was the classic combo of politics and power… the ability to snap her fingers and have high ranking state officials pad over like little schoolboys.”
While we shared the same podium as industry leaders, she managed to gaze over us all. The classic headline was “Red wine, white wine and the blue bloods she has known.”
Doers & Dowagers
Then, many years later, I found her earliest writing, “Doers and Dowagers,” 1975. The book contains interviews she conducted with the world’s greatest members of the older generation of American women: Mrs. Joseph Kennedy, Marian Anderson, Peggy Guggenheim, Clare Booth Luce, Louise Nevelson (artist), etc. It is an absolute tour de force of resolute character, maturity, and power. This is her magnum opus.
Her winery shut down, the Virginia wine book is woefully out of date, her name will be on a plaque somewhere on the state capital. Her advice was “these women had ridden the roller coaster of decades.” Husbands: Robert Sarnoff (President of RCA), Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., John B. Rogan (Developer). Choose the wine carefully to toast as there are great and not so great ones in Virginia.
PATRICIA KLUGE (1949-present), Baghdad, London, New York, Charlottesville, New York (again)
SOCIALITE/WINERY OWNER
Patricia Kluge was half of the most powerful of power couples in America in the 1990’s. John, the buzzsaw investment mind, richest person in America decided to encamp in little Charlottesville and give the locals something to talk about. A 45-room mansion sprung up, then a golf course, pheasant hunt, antique carriage museum (Tzar Nicolas‘ own rides for starters), not to forget they built a private chapel on the estate. This little extravaganza lasted a decade – then divorce.
Patricia was on the board of directors of the winery that I ran, and we received invites to events and dinner for a little taste of the Tzar Nicolas lifestyle. After the divorce, I wrote wine columns for Style Weekly in Richmond, Virginia, and had an exclusive interview with Patricia along with a peek at her next life (after the 100-million-dollar divorce settlement), that of winery owner.
There is an age-old truism in the wine biz (by 2003, the date of the interview, I had been in the biz twenty-seven years). Want to make a small fortune in the wine biz? Start with a large fortune.
“At the end of the day we need to be international to go against the best outside the state and country. We must be world class” -Patricia Kluge.
“Fire on the Mountain,” Jan. 15, 2003.
Bankruptcy & Trump
I don’t think it is about women in the biz, but, as I ponder my memoir, it is about the intersection of amateurs and nepotists in the biz. She gambled too much, the economy went sour, and she went bankrupt. Her ambition was too high, as were her wine prices.
The Kluge Estate was bought at yard sale prices by “the Donald” and is now the Trump Winery. And the events won’t stop coming. Don’t forget Eric Trump’s upcoming Baroque concert in the former Kluge private chapel where we can continue to be… Giddy with Events.
LAYNE’S WINE GIG
THIRSTY THIRD THURSDAY
For an afternoon of snark, fun, and wine come to Layne’s Wine Gig on the third Thursday of every month 5:00-6:00 p.m. at BLUE, 650 Congress St., Portland. Four pours of three ounces each for twelve bucks. Best to check the website for updated vax and mask policies. Visit portcityblue.com.
Layne has been a professional in the wine business for many decades as a teacher, importer, writer, competition judge, and winery CEO. He was awarded the Master Knight of the Vine for his pioneering work in the Oregon wine industry.
Read more WEN Layne’s Wine Gig posts here.
Visit Layne’s blog at http://winemaniacs.wordpress.com/blog.
