Food & Wine Magazine Names Eric Solomon Best Importer for 2006
"WHY HE'S SO GREAT - He champions small-producer wines that emphasize a sense of place rather than winemaking technique... "Ever since Eric Solomon founded European Cellars in his New York city living room in 1989 with just two Châteauneuf-du-Pape producers, he has adhered to a single bedrock principle: place over process. Solomon says, "The excitement of wine for me is in taking the purity and warmth the ground has given it and making that articulate." In addition to those first two obscure (now famous) properties, Domaine de Marcoux and Domaine de la Janasse, Solomon is now working with over one hundred wineries in five countries. Solomon's biggest score, in the early 1990s, was Clos Erasmus, from Spain's then-unknown Priorat region. "I fell in love twice," Solomon likes to say—first with the wine, which he helped launch into the stratosphere, and then with the winemaker, Daphne Glorian (now Mrs. Eric Solomon). He continues to champion native grapes (Spain's new As Sortes white, made from Godello) and uncover superstars-in-the-making (South Africa's Columella). "My customers sometimes look at me like I'm from Mars when I bring them obscure bottles," he says cheerfully. But they know one thing: If Solomon found bottles on Mars, you would be able to taste the red soil in the wines." - Food & Wine, October 2006. Please refer to www.europeancellars.com for now, a complete list of producers will be updated on this page as soon as time allows. |
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