Very good article by RobertCamuto in the WineSpec:
https://www.winespectator.com/articles/the-wizard-of-all-california-grocer-darrell-corti
It pretty much captures the essence of Darrell, whom I’ve known since 1974.
I’ve lots of Darrell stories to tell. Some of which may even be true!!
Tom
Never met him in person, but did send him my Mission and Flame Tokay and we emailed in regards to Harbor/Charlie Myers. Never heard if he liked them or not, but I’ll try to drop off some of the new Mission stuff next time I’m in the area.
Another rather amazing feature of their store is the wall of apertifs, digestifs and so on.
Thanks Tom, That’s a good article. Corti Brothers is my favorite store for just walking around and making new food and wine discoveries. There’s always something super interesting to find. The ravioli cutter “museum” they have is awesome too.
Matt,
I just love shopping there. I always give Darrell a head’s up when I will be coming. I watches for me to come in the front door from his office upstairs. He gives me about 10 min to shop for interesting wines. Then he comes down, in his blue grocer’s smock, grabs the front of my shopping cart & starts to walk the aisles w/ me in tow. He’ll stop at some particular btl, give me a several minute lecture on the wine. “Tom…you must try this wine” and then puts it into my cart. When we get up to 3-4 cases worth, “Darrel…no mas”. And we’re done. Then I go shop the grocery aisles & always find something new I must try.
He usually invites me over for dinner that night w/ John & Paloma (his Dove). One time some 20 yrs ago, he sat us down to table, gave us all paper & pencils, and started ripping open tins of tuna fish, passed them around to help ourselves, & then instructed us to take notes. “Darrell…this is just canned tuna fish”, I said w/ some consternation. “Try it” was his retort. He had just been to Spain/Portugal & had fallen in love w/ their canned tuna. He was the first to import the As Do Mar/La Tienda/Ortiz canned tuna into the US. Those canned tunas lift tuna salad to a whole nuther level.
Tom