Michael Gansl
Where does one begin to tell their personal story about wine? Does it start in the crib, or the first time you get drunk on cheap wine, or sometime in adulthood, when you realize how simple and yet how complex wine can be.
Well, as I’ve been told, my wine journey did start in the crib! When my father came home from his night job and wanted to sleep in the morning, he would take a small piece of cotton, dab it with sweet wine, and let me lick it, and sure enough I went right back to sleep!
Thunderbird, Blue Nun, Mateus were the wines that I knew in the early days, and of course, Manischewitz Concord Grape even earlier! But then one day in my twenties, I discovered I could actually taste some of the nuances in relatively dry red and dry white wine. I started my journey walking the aisles of Astor Wine and Liquor on 8th street in the Village, and I would buy their house label wines, because they were inexpensive and really good. That’s when I discovered the first joy of drinking good wine – it does not have to be expensive. What could be better than telling your friends that this fantastic wine they were drinking was not even $10, could you believe that?
But that was in the early days. As time went on, I realized one could amass a reasonably small collection of wine, but storing it properly was much more critical than I thought. I hate to think about all the good wine I bought, but did not store properly, and how much I spilled down the drain. I don’t have to spill wine that goes bad anymore, because I’ve invested in wine refrigerators for quite some time. They don’t last as long as I like, but I learned the hard way – no more spilling good wine for me, unless that wine has passed its prime forgotten in the back of the fridge!
So, what’s so special about wine anyway! For me, it’s a story, it’s history, it’s geography, it’s the terrior, the sky, the rain, the sun, the weather, the air, its poetry in a bottle, and of course the people. People who make the wine, people who sell the wine, people who drink the wine, people who share their experience in every corner of the world. Most of the traveling I’ve done over the years has included wine trips to many different countries and regions.
I love when people ask me what wine I like most, and I never know how to answer that question. I like trying all kinds of wine, from every region where it can grow, and I love to challenge myself as to what can I actually taste in that wine. That is why I love to read wine descriptions as they are pure poetry for me. I marvel how sommeliers and wine aficionados can wax so eloquently about how the wine tastes. In fact, here is a description that wows me, and is wine poetry for me of the highest order:
The wine is dark violet at the center, with bright flashes of purple-flecked garnet towards the edge. Aromas of crushed black raspberries, sun-dried Mission figs, Satsuma plums, and crushed violets emerge at first, then intermingle with suggestions of smoked black walnuts, sweet poblano peppers, and fresh dill as the nose evolves in the glass. On the palate, a savory, plum-berry compote is seasoned with raspberry acids, and evolves into a classic Malbec core: an amalgam of red and black fruit with dried clay-rich earth, smoke, leaves and wood toast. The overall impression is charming and food-friendly. Drink now–2030.
I could never write that, nor ever decipher the wine to that level, nor describe it as poetically as that writer, who I know, and who I admire and respect for his wine knowledge and acumen. But I don’t have to do that. I know I am a wine enthusiast, and all I have to do is appreciate the wine and enjoy it as much as I can.
There is one more thing about wine I want to talk about. The word or the concept is “context”. Here’s a story that exemplifies that:
I am on the mountain top of a small winery in the Willamette Vally in Oregon. I have a 360 degree view of the Valley, on the most beautiful day of the season – blue sky, not a cloud to be seen. I have a glass of Pinot Noir in my hand, and it is spectacular, possibly the best Pinot Noir I have ever tasted. I buy a few bottles, ship it home, and eagerly wait for several of my friends to join me in tasting this fabulous wine several weeks later. I ask them what they think, and they say, “It’s OK. Ok, I say isn’t this the greatest Pinot Noir you ever drank, and sadly they say, it is not, definitely not”. What happened? Context happened! Part of the beauty of wine is often where you are when you drink it, who you are with, what is the story the wine tells you at that moment. Wine is so very different when you drink it at home, even with good friends who know their wine. That is not to say the wine was bad, just different, because the setting was different.
That’s the challenge – drinking wine is always an experience, and that’s why I am a wine enthusiast and why I cannot say that there is any one wine I like best. All right, yes, there are wines I like better than others, but I can’t tell you that now. We’ll have to meet and taste some wine together, share a few laughs, eat a good meal, and then, we’ll let the stories flow.
I’m glad you’ve come to our website. Click on the contact page, tell us who you are, and let’s explore the world of wine together!
You can find me on LinkedIn – just search for Michael Gansl.
Email: michael@winesofreason.com
Matt Plociak
My first experience with wine was getting drunk on Mateus Rose. I drank most or the entire bottle. I did feel sick and vowed to never have that wine again. I was in high school at the time.
In college, I didn’t have much occasion to drink wine that I can recall. Perhaps, I had a few glasses here and there.
When I started in the business world, after grad school, I noticed that wine was ordered at certain business dinners. There was usually one person in the group that took on the task to choose the wine. I got to try some wine that today would be called decent. And, I learned a few names of wines that seem to be well regarded and could make an impression on the dinner’s attendees. Wines like, Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape, Brunello Montalcino, Chateau Margaux, etc.
Actually, one of the first wines I liked was a Frankenwein. I recently learned, this is a German wine from the Franconia region of Germany. Not sure what the grape varietal it was, but the most common varietal planted there is Muller-Thurgau. I remember it was a drinkable white wine and the bottle had an interesting shape, like a squat green flagon…(not unlike the Mateus Rose bottle, but thankfully I was drinking Frankenwein to enjoy it instead of to get high on it.
From then on, I enjoyed trying wine mainly from areas that I was familiar with. Tuscany with Sangiovese grapes – Chianti Classico, Brunello de Montalcino, Rosso de Montalcino. France with Bordeaux and Loire area wines. And a few California wines from Robert Mondavi, Joseph Phelps, and Sterling.
Fast forward to about late 1980’s when I made me first wine trip. Napa was the epicenter of U.S. wine production then and non-more well-known than Robert Mondavi. Besides visiting them, I also stopped by Sterling, Hess, Opus One, Schramsberg and a few others. I was so impressed with Schramsberg sparkling wines that I ordered them for my upcoming wedding. It is still one of my all time favorite sparkling wine producers.
I started collecting wine around the mid 1990s. First, I had a wine rack of about 30 bottles stuffed in a closet. A few years later I got a small 32 bottle wine fridge. And, most recently another 54 bottle wine fridge. I still have some wine sitting in wine racks in my wine room (formerly my daughter’s room) with my more precious bottles in either one of the wine fridges.
Today, I usually have 10+ cases of wine in my NYC apartment. I really enjoy Russian River Pinots, Piedmont reds and whites, almost any wine from Sicily particularly in and around Mt. Etna.
I also am very passionate about wine that is unique – due to the terrior, soil, grape varietal or vinification method. Like Collares, which is grown on the sand dunes on the Atlantic coast of Portugal. Listan Negro Rose grown in the Canary Islands, the vines surrounded by soil or rocks to protect the vines from the constant wind. The common grape Nebbiolo, but grown in Carema, in Piedmont, 10 miles from the Alps on elevated vines 8 – 10 feet above the ground.
Wine is a story, a work of art, a passion, and a lot of fun.
You can find me on LinkedIn – just search for Matt Plociak.
Email: matt@winesofreason.com
Stephen Kaupp
My wine journey started out slow and steady for the first 20 years but transitioned into a passionate hobby over the next 20 years. That transition included wine tastings, wine travel, wine collecting and most importantly wine experiences.
I am sure my teenage years had a few forgettable evenings trying to drain the last few drops out of a box of wine, but I couldn’t really recall the details of any of those. I can, however, remember very specific details and feelings of the most special wine experiences in my life.
My first “aha” wine memory was on my honeymoon in the fall of 1995 on the island of Santorini. This was the first time I thought it would be great to have a local wine. Who knew that first unexpected sip of wine filled with the unforgettable taste of volcanic ash, would lead to my current passion of wine from unique, sometimes underrated wine regions of the world.
A few years later in 2000 came my first visit to Napa Valley with our nine-month-old son. You wonder how this was a memorable experience, but surprisingly it was. My wife and I mastered tiring him out in the pool between breakfast and lunch, which left him napping for our first Napa vineyard visits during the early afternoons. A few more hours in the pool and some stroller walks around Yountville, left him fast asleep for our 9:00pm dinner reservations in amazing places like Bouchon.
In 2004 we welcomed our daughter and starting in 2007 we started four years of consecutive summer trips back to Napa Valley with friends and family, where we started to build a portfolio of lifetime favorite vineyards that includes Brown Estate, Saintsbury, Etude, Duckhorn, Frank Family and a few more. Visits to each of these vineyards were experiences I still remember as if they occurred yesterday.
My love for travel has been a crucial ingredient to some of my most memorable wine experiences. Family trips to the South of France in the hot summers sipping cool rose wines by the pool or at the beach clubs in Nice. February friends’ trip to Madrid Spain, sitting on a rooftop in freakishly warm 80-degree weather drinking numerous bottles of one of my favorites, Bodegas Clio. My most recent father daughter trip during the Spring of 2023 to Milan Italy and Lake Como, gave me a definite top 5 wine experience when on our first evening staying in the town of Bellagio, we wandered into an unexpected gem of a wine bar called Enoteca Cava Turacciolo. Here the owner Norberto, treated us to an incredible pairing of his hand curated bottles of Italian wine. with his fabulous meats and cheeses. There are actually 650 hand curated bottles of Italian wine in his wine bar!
While I cherish enjoying great wines with family and friends, I have grown very fond of drinking local wines with the local people that love those wines. The stories those people have to tell and their love for those wines, are experiences that I have very vivid memories of.
There are always wines you classify as favorites, and in most cases, you can buy those wines years after year. Memorable wine experiences though, are definitely once in a lifetime for sure, never to be replicated. As I near the end of my first forty years as an Oenophile, I crave those unforgettable wine experiences more than those prized 95+-point Cabernets. I hope my next forty wine years ages even better than the first forty.
You can find me on LinkedIn – just search for Stephen Kaupp.
Gerard Boucher
Although I haven‘t been tasting wine for as many years as the rest of our team, I’ve come to love wines from all over the world and have very quickly expanded my palate and love for many classics, as well as some unique and lesser-known winemakers across the U.S. and Europe.
Rich and complex California wines continue to be my go-to standard, but my palate over the past few years has expanded to include some really beautiful Italian, Sicilian, French, and Spanish wines.
My top California winemakers are some classics that cannot be missed. My #1 go-to higher-end California cabernet is Jordan (particularly the 2016 and 2017 vintages which are perfect for drinking as of today.) I‘ve really come to love Cakebread wines - including the winemaker’s delicious Chardonnay, although I usually go for reds. Pahlmeyer is one of my dark-horse top wines, with the 2016 blend being particularly well-balanced, complex, and good to be paired with almost any meat or pasta dishes. And finally, another one of my favorite wineries is Rutherford’s Grgich Hills. If you are lucky enough to come across its 2010 Cabernet in the wild, buy it and enjoy it.
Since the Covid pandemic, many of the restaurants I frequent changed their wine list out of necessity, and a result, my palate evolved with this new era of wine offerings.
In the realm of Italian wines, I’ve really come to love a perfectly balanced and beautiful Barbaresco, which is really a great fit for any meat or seafood-based meal. But, it also pairs very well with rich pasta dishes, which I appreciate.
I have to give an honorable mention to many 2011 through 2017 Brunello di Montalcinos, and 2016 was a particularly good year in my view, based on the many bottles I’ve tasted.
Guidalberto, also known as Baby Sassicaia, is a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend that has become one of my go-to Italian wines with many Italian meat dishes.
From Sicily, any of Donnafugata’s delicious wines are great to enjoy with a late-night meal. My personal favorite is Mille e una Notte (One Thousand and One Nights). Tancredi is another great option, and the 2017 is particularly well-balanced and a near-perfect choice for lamb, bolognese, and similar dishes.
Onto France: Bordeaux has been and remains my favorite region, although as of late, I‘ve really leaned into Provence for a delicious Bandol wine. Complex, fruity, full-bodied Margaux wines are my absolute favorite French wine today. Some of favorite Bordeaux wines at my top NYC haunts include a 2009 Château Du Tertre at Soho’s classic Balthazar and the classic 2014 Margaux du Château Margaux at Village staple (and sister restaurant to Balthazar) Minetta Tavern. A unique 2016 Domaine du Gros Noré Bandol wine can’t be missed there, either.
Wine has been, and continues to be, a passion for me. In my opinion, it opens your eyes globally to many cultures, climates, values, and of course, flavors, and is an essential part of any sit-down meal.
You can find me on LinkedIn – just search for Gerard Boucher.
Email: gerard@winesofreason.com