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Written by Joe Briand Tuesday, 15 September 2009 07:58
The Back Label
For those of you not familiar with fantasy football I will give you a very brief introduction: It’s Dungeons & Dragons for sports nerds and has had a very dramatic rise in popularity over the last decade. I’ll admit that NFL football cast a level 5 charm spell over me very early in life and I have been playing fantasy football since my sophomore year of high school (which was more than a few vintages ago.) The similarities with wine geekdome are many… lots of hard to pronounce names, numbers (vintages) are of huge importance, and most normal people find in depth conversations about both subjects to be a tad bit boring.
My high school buddies who I have been playing with for so long might be even more into Fantasy Football than I am…and better at it. Tired of years of cellar dwelling I created the Herbsaint Fantasy Football league with a bunch of waiters and cooks who cared less about football than I did. Championships followed and season after season of losing records in my friend’s league stung a lot less (I was The Herbsaint League Champion for Pete’s sake!) As time passed parity came to the Herbsaint league and my era of dominance became a distant memory. The time had come to start a new league.
It made perfect sense to me to start a wine industry fantasy football league that perhaps I could win another championship in. I reached out to wine buyers, wholesalers and retailers in the city with the hope of twelve teams…we got ten. Rather than play for cash each owner had to bring a bottle of wine that they felt represented their taste in wine. The winner of the league gets the case…it was the perfect plan to add to my cellar. While I must keep my fellow league owner identities secret I can let you know the wines that we are playing for. The league name is “2 Short of a Case.”
Up for grabs are:
Giuseppe Cortese Barbaresco "Rabaja" 2001 Shelter "Headwater" Cabernet 2006
Ermitage Blanc "Ex Voto" E. Guigal ‘06
Cote-Rotie "La Chavaroche" B. levet '95
Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Domaine Charvin '06
Nuits-St-George 1er "Les Pruliers" Domaine Henri Gouges ‘06
Henriot Brut Champagne 1996
Meursault, Domaine des Comte Lafon '05
Roland Champion "Special Club" Champagne '04 (x2) multiple people brought this wine)
The draft was lots of fun and featured much more serious libations than your standard fantasy football draft. (1989 Corton Charglemagne anyone?) I felt really good about my squad, but am looking at starting the season off 0-1. If I end up losing in this league I’m not sure to what depths I’ll sink to next in the chase for make-believe football glory. Perhaps I can get a few of the kids in my son’s day care class to participate.
My team’s name is Grand Cru Blitz Package. I’ll keep y’all updated as the season progresses.
Back Label Out!
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| Joe Briand |
 Joe is the Director of Operations and wine buyer for Link Restaurant Group (Herbsaint, Cochon, Calcasieu and Cochon Butcher.) As a part of his job he routinely tastes hundreds of wines a week from all over the world. If he could have only wines from one region it would be the wines of Burgundy. He constantly reinforces the notion both with his staff and the guests at the restaurants that wine is not something to be intimidated by and asking questions is the only way to learn. Joe is an admitted cork dork but is more committed to drinking wine and the pleasure that it gives then memorizing obscure facts about wines that most people have never heard of nor have access to. He is happy to answer your questions as best he can. Please feel free to email him: thebacklabel@gmail.com |
