* * * * *
by Brad Haskel, Huffington Post
Drinking Godello at Estado Puro in Madrid.
Photo by Harold Heckle, Associated Press, Madrid.
With his uniquely artistic vision, Gerry Dawes has knitted together a
portfolio of family owned Spanish wineries of incredible quality.
Recently, he formed a sales and marketing company called The Spanish
Artisan Wine & Spirits Group-Gerry Dawes Selections, that has
already begun appearing in great restaurants around the country. Gerry's
path for leading the company is based on his many years of experience
selling the wines selected by other historically notable wine merchants;
Gerald Asher, Colonel Frederick Wildman, Robert Haas, and Leonardo
LoCascio. His fine wine experience, and an adult lifetime love affair
with Spain is the perfect recipe for this company. His strengths are an
undying passion for finding wines that represent what is true, either by
tradition, or by an uncluttered vision for the cutting edge.
Ask him
about his wines and he will tell you very surely why they are in the
selection.
"It is easy," he says, "I just hate wines that suck."
Gerry is an acquired taste. His wines are not. I am his business
partner, and I have been in the wine trade more than 25 years. I can
honestly say this is as fine a portfolio of wines I have ever tasted.
Gerry's passion fuels a ferocious point of view for what great wine
should be at all levels of the spectrum.
He looks for wines with
purity, cleanliness, typicity, low alcohol levels, little to no use of
oak, with the exceptions of regions where the tradition requires it.
Even then, he starts to rant, if the levels of barrel aging are out of
balance to the wine itself. His belief is in the vineyards and what
they produce, with as little interference from winemaking tricks as
possible. Purity and terruño, the Spanish version of terroir, is what
makes Gerry smile.
Read More Here
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes
Dawes is Presidente-Jefe & Chairman of the Board, The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections
Gerry
Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía
(National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on
Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural
tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's
Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava
Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004,
was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles
& Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the
2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature
in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about
Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.
In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
".
. .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià
in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow
narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish
correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food
journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a
self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again
brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane
Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher,
Food Arts, October 2009.
Pilot for a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
Damián Canepa with wines from Bierzo at La Puerta del Perdon Hostal-Restaurante in Vilafranca del Bierzo. Photo by Gerry Dawes copyright 2013 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter.
Posts
