Whom You Know Recommends Pinot Noir by Otto's Constant Dream
You have not heard of Otto's Constant Dream yet? It is the latest in wines and you heard it here first! The excellent wine is imported from New Zealand and is limited in production. It comes in Sauvignon Blanc (previously recommended by Whom You Know), Pinot Noir, Riesling and Syrah.
Click here to see their philosophy and process, which is entertainingly laid out:
Peachy Deegan was tipped off by Lily O'Brien's owner Cathal Queally at a wine and chocolate tasting. Former Lawyer Melissa Monti Saunders who is as friendly as she is brilliant is the owner along with her husband Dan, who is from New Zealand! Peachy Deegan has personally met them and is convinced this couple is committed to quality and the pursuit of excellence (and congratulations on your recent great news!). Melissa holds a WSET Diploma as well. Whom You Know found the Pinot Noir deep and flavorful and among the best red wines we have tried recently. Notes of red berry, cherry and plum infiltrated us and left us wanting a second glass. This would go well with nearly anything as the complex flavors would complement many appetizers or meals. A strong, bold red from the Marlborough Region of New Zealand, Whom You Know recommends this winner by Otto's Constant Dream.
Here is the exciting story of Otto's Constant Dream:
What do you do when your friend designs a wine bottle for you? He shows up at your house with a bottle of wine that looks like, well a bottle he bought in a store, and it has a label on it that you just love. Then he tells you that he made it for you – designed the label, printed it, stuck it on a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, made the whole thing look totally legit. Just what do you do? You decide to make it legit, of course.
Taken straight from the famous entrepreneur’s handbook, “Inside Jokes for Insiders”, by Morton Schmelburger III, the strategy is to treat these happenstances as pure kismet. Serendipity personified: the recipient of this bottle is just aching to escape the litigious world of lawyering for the romantically lyrical world of wine.
She’s already working on her Master of Wine, she already leads
tasting parties for her friends and outside of her husband,
she loves nothing more than wine in all of its enigmatic wonder.
She’s already working on her Master of Wine, she already leads
tasting parties for her friends and outside of her husband,
she loves nothing more than wine in all of its enigmatic wonder.
That bottle of wine was designed for Melissa Saunders. Designed by Chris Antista, her friend, croquet competitor, summer housemate, and general troublemaker. He designed it with Melissa in mind: a label based on a person who thinks about nothing but wine (and sex, salami and cheese of course). To Chris, Melissa was that person, in the best possible way – her house was impeccable, her cat fed and happy and her husband had only a few abandonment issues. She was, to Chris, the ultimate wine person and he made her a bottle of wine to honor that single-minded passion because he was fond of her (and her husband, but in a different, more bromantic way).
Hmmmmm, what to do? When in doubt Melissa does what she always does, puts on whorishly tight clothing and goes running around Brooklyn – I believe some call this jogging. She’s exceptionally adept at this and after a deep think over a long, long, long run she had decided to be bold. To change her life. To make this fun bottle of wine more than an inside joke. To make this wine for everyone, and her husband Dan and his manfriend, Chris, had no choice but to take part in making the dream a reality – lest their bromance become fractured by her displeasure.
The Brooklyn Croquet & Drinking Club (BCDC) called an emergency get-together to hash out the reality of this program. Dare they risk their fairly comfortable Brooklyn lives with the harsh realities of starting a company? Could their friendship survive working together, fates tied to dollars? RIS-KEE! However, they all loved wine, and it was a constant companion. Melissa’s bona fides were inscrutable (except for that incident at an ice skating competition in 1986). Dan was a business and finance modeler extraordinaire and Chris was an accomplished concept guy and designer, if a bit of a puffed up ego-maniac with a penchant for saying uncomfortably un-funny things at dinner parties. Sounds like a dream team!
At this point in the story, lots of stuff happens, none of it terribly important or interesting. Verbs to highlight these months of exploration and groundwork include, but are not limited to: beg, borrow, steal, shame, cry, exult, berate, belittle, bemoan, bitch, slap, fret, drink, dance, forget, remember, push, plead, write, re-write, call, harass, re-do, apologize, drink, apologize, dance, play and pray. End result: business plan & money.
Whoa – she got the dough! NO WAY! Now Dan and Chris were really stuck. Though they never doubted her ability to secure the resources to make it happen, the reality of the sitch was now a reality. Really. So of course we contacted a reality TV producer to film the impending insanity…but our pitch was rejected on account of everything we were doing being actual reality, and Dan and Chris refused to fake an intimate relationship for sensationalism – theirs was real, thank you.
Melissa now flies to her husband’s homeland, New Zealand, where she has inside contacts in the wine biz. With NZ insider, Ness Paton leading the way and making intros, she tours vineyards, meets winemakers and tastes wines, and forges some relationships with excellent wine makers like Fiona Turner. Yet another hurdle hurdled, as Melissa comes home to Brooklyn with excellent juice (sampled by the BCDC panel) and a commitment for this juice year to year. OCD was not going to be a one-hit (hopefully) wonder.
OCD? Isn’t it called Otto’s Constant Dream? Yes. It is, but that original label Chris designed for Melissa, based on her obsessive single-minded behavior toward wine, was originally just called OCD, like, “Yo dog! You crazy OCD about wine and shit!” One might point out to the person making this statement that crazy and OCD might be perceived as redundant. Which kind of brings up the next issue.
OCD is a colloquial expression here in New York and elsewhere, that means, detail oriented, particular, fussy even. Not crazy. With all due respect to people who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, we meant you no disrespect. We’re sure you really can’t just stop touching the door handle 50 times before you leave your house if you really wanted to. Well, when the label was submitted to the US Govt.’s Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax & Trade Bureau, they sort of took the latter definition. Somehow, the government was able to access the interweb and they Googled OCD. It came back as ‘nuts’. RE-JECTED! Like a Muslim on J-Date. We were without a label for our wedding of wine and bottle in New Zealand in 7 days. MAJOR PROBLEMO.
So the whole concept was on the rocks, but the juice was already paid for. What do you do now? Chris had an idea – meet up at his house and drink Sidecars until you come up with a solution. That’s what happened. In a swirling haze of chilled coupe glasses full of brandy, lemon juice and triple sec, the team concocted and re-cocted and danced a little, and laughed a lot and then cried a little and then VOILÁ! It came. OCD stood for Our Constant Dream. Eeeeew – too goddamned self-involved. Wait a second! Our guy who’s been there from the beginning watching the dream become a reality – the guy with wine on his brain 24-7 – yeah, him; what’s his name?
Otto – palindromic magic starting with O. OCD – Otto’s Constant Dream – our dream with a mascot. Done
Otto – palindromic magic starting with O. OCD – Otto’s Constant Dream – our dream with a mascot. Done
Where to buy OCD:
Whom You Know recommends it!!!
