Chat Poetry: It has been my privilege and honor to help you all over the last 19 years! Thanks you for letting me be me and be here for you all, to embrace life and our community as it should be - inclusive and accepting and welcoming and warm and wonderful, not negative and selfish and disruptive - cheers to you all - you all are the best - the ' creme de la creme ' merci mes amis, gracias, grazie, obregado at tudos todos amigos friends family that I have come to love dearly, cheers! Until we meet again!!!

Cleveland Park Beer, Liquor & Wine

Featuring a wide, international selection of fine wines, micro-brews and spirits

I LEAVE WITH A VERY HEAVY HEART a wine and spirits store and neighborhood that I have called my second home for almost 19 years ( it will be 19 in April - I started here in 2000! ).

YOU HAVE PROVIDED me with so much warmth, good cheer, range of experiences, knowledge, nationalities, religions, political beliefs, cultural and artistic temperaments, personalities, temperaments, stories, so much that I am happy I have so many pictures to help bring this all back.

I HAVE BEEN HELPING everyone here today so this will probably be a shorter email as each time I start typing I have a customer or another sales rep and I have to catch everyone up on what's happening.

SO I LEAVE with a heavy heart and yet I want the transition here to be as smooth as it can be as I have had the time of my life here and I want and wish only good things for the team here of Santos, Jagir and Ranjit ( as well as Mark Slater that comes with an amazing DC and surrounding metro region restaurant background, and Alvin Southern that comes with a great local DC retail and sports background ), - so you all will get some great new stories, perspectives, and palates to test yours against and see where the chips fall in the wonderful process of ' new beginnings and new chapters '!

SO COME BY this week. I want to see you all before I leave at 6:30pm on Saturday. Come by and let's have a last toast together.

I WILL MISS YOU ALL as you can well imagine. Let me help you this week and introduce you to both Mark and Alvin. You will like them both.

LAST WEEK some of you came in looking for Mark and I believe it was Thursday. Mark was not here unfortunately but I look forward to seeing him tomorrow as there is lots to do this week.

WE WILL BE ACTIVE this week as always. So much to get in order, to organize, to outline for a really smooth transition here.

WEEK'S TASTINGS -

Friday, March 1st, 2019 ( 5-8PM ) : Part 1 wine-tasting :Alvin, Mark and I will open some wines that we would like to share with you that are still to be decided tomorrow.

ALSO -

Josh will be here from @MTDefianceCidery here at the same time. JOIN US.

Saturday, March 2nd, 2019 ( 2-6pm ), Alvin, Mark and I will continue with our Part 2 wine-tasting. It will be fun to see what we all three decide to taste. We will put our brains together and figure this out. It will be intriguing no matter what.

SO : Come and see what we three have up our sleeves for you.

COME and see me - I would appreciate that.

19 YEARS IS a long time, a lifetime of experiences really.

IT HAS BEEN AMAZING to see what we have been able to have happen and transpire in this rectangular space. I am so pleased that so many wonderful people have been here in this space, many of which we have introduced to each other.

COMMUNITY is about that, and providing a second home for many of you may it be only briefly for a couple of hours or more, sometimes much longer.

TO WELCOME PEOPLE and their wines, their spirits, their pets, their families. they coworkers, their ideas and stories and to encourage their smiles, smirks, grins, laughs, songs, music, arts, - to welcome and include and accept and make feel comfortable and relaxed - what a great mission this is and has been for so long.

AND MANY of you have welcomed and warmed to our experience and fabulous rectangular space.

I HAVE ENJOYED you allowing me to be vocal, seen, heard, and able to share through my writing and signs what I feel must be shared and not silenced, dummied-down, bullied, squelched, squandered, ridiculed, abused, ignored, diminished - thank you for this wonderful platform.

I HAVE BEEN HONORED and HUMBLED and PROUD to be here for you all because without you I - we are nothing. No matter what we may think about ourselves and our actions, only you and your opinion matter in any of this. Ego must be set aside, and everyone must ne included.

AS OSCAR THE GROUCH said many times on Sesame Street , I paraphrase - he used the word benevolent - and said that everyone got to play, no one got excluded. There were no losers, only winners! That still makes me smile broadly and proud to be alive and a part of a family and community.

I HAVE ALWAYS SAID : we add to the equation here, we do not duplicate it. By that I mean we have added choices and selections for you

SO : having said this if you all value the wines or spirits from any specific area that are here be sure and tell Alvin and Mark, Jagir and Santos so that they stay here and are available here locally when you want them to enjoy or give as gifts.

LET US KNOW what you value so those items remain and stay in place here. Do not be silent on this issue, say I mentioned it here in this store email and that you want to have these wines and spirits remain here.

SO : to ' new beginnings ', to ' new stars and starts ' - let us continue to grow stronger and to be better at becoming unified and stronger.

USUALLY I TALK ABOUT special and sales and items I want to bring to your attention. but today I will dispense with all of that.

I AM RECOVERING from a 4-day-and-night bout with the flu and it did a number on me. I am regaining my voice and it is strained already today from all the speaking I have done. So I may be a bit more silent and take a break from speaking as I do not want to lose my voice again as I get better.

COME and let me know what I can do for you this week? I am here for you, have been and want to be of any assistance I may be.

COME TOMORROW and SAVE up to 20% OFF on our Special and Sale wines.

I AM REACHING OUT to The Strategic Group of MOET-HENNESSEY and seeing if we cannot do some great ' splash wine-tasting ' here - make some noise, stir the dust, awaken the bubbles, be festive, free, easy and happy, too! Maybe we can work a great ' hurrah ' for my last days here with hosts and emcees Tess Ankeny, Francois Hurtel, and Chris?!? Nous avons voir, c'est bien possible tout ca, on verra!

THANK YOU Santos Rivera for having always stood here and worked well here with me - boy we have had some special times. Gracias amigo.

THANK YOU to the old owner Ved Goyal and to Peter Anastopolos the wine-manager then that hired me in April 2000.

THANK YOU to present owners Jagir and Ranjit Singh and Jesse and Raj.

THANK YOU Mike Martin for working so well with me in the past here.

Gracias Sifredo and merci Michel, cheers Greg from Rochester, New York.

THANK YOU all our great wholesalers and sales reps like Steve Mostow, Tom Morrissey, Nolan Hale, Chuck, Robert Kennedy, Narayan Campbell, Noah Wallace Stevens, Craig Mauro, Alan Cohen, Christina Caswell, John and Theresa Morrison, Jeremy Sutton, Eric Garcia, Estebe Salgado, Rob Moulthrop, Sal Furfari, Mark Congdon, Adriane Morgan, Eduardo Soares, Roy Cloud, Danny Haas, Olivier Lotterie, Natalya Kim, Rebecca Eastman, John Peters, Manuel Rojas, Marci Weinstein, Naomi Barber, Tess Aneky Stephen Watkins, Oscar Losama, Olivia Bombart, Sotiris Bafitis, GRaham Isaac, Chris Pigott, Andrew Stover, Geirge Tsapos, Yannis Tsapos = Ioannis Tsapos, Danielle Davidowitz, Lucinda , Eric Platt, Jean Gagliolo, Aleksandar Krsmanovic, Andrea Shank, William MurckChris Regan, Doug O'Neil, Gustavo Iniestra, Alberto Panella, Camille Edange, Amy, Peter Flecchia, Diana Richer, Anne E. Haye, Dmitrii Curbet, Didier Simonin, Noel Brockett, Adam Sager, Wagner Alberti, Michael Cavanagh, Martin Lumet, Jeff Palmer, Steven Schattman, Stephane Defot, Francois Hurtel, Mamuka Tsereteli, Ken Ross, Michael Downey, Brennan Downey, Tatiana, Mickey, Christina M. Thornton, Elyse J. Kudo, Doug Fabbioli, Ronnie Miller, Scott Jenkins, Andy Gable, Jaren Keller, Brayden Campbell, Jody Jackman, Serghei Gulceac, Reid Harper, John Amo Amoroso, Andrew Shapiro, - and there are so many more of you, sorry I have not included you here!

TAKE CARE, come and see me soon! TONY

FUNNY BUT NO ONE REALLY KNOWS our wine SUPER STARS by name like they know those movie stars that have recently come to the openings of their movies across the street at the Uptown Movie House : you know, like Tom Cruise, Benjamin Bratt, Kevin Costner, Linda Carter, Mohammed Ali, Josh Hartnett, Demi Moore, Robert Redford, Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Biehl and so many more.

WHO KNOWS THE NAMES OF Vittorio Navacchia ( TRE MONTI Romagna, Italy ), Walter Bressia BODEGA BRESSIA, Lujan De Cuyo, Argentina ), Caroline Parent-Gros of PARENT French burgundy ), Cantoni Matteo ( of FATTORIA FIBBIANO in Pisa, Tuscany, Italy ), Christophe Reverdy ( of France's Loire Valley JEAN REVERDY Et FILS ) and Thomas Haag ( of Germany's Mosel SCHLOSS LIESER, Lieser )? not many people know these people by name and yet they may have enjoyed some of their wines already?

We have been selling them to you largely without mentioning points and scores and simply talking about the wines themselves and who makes them / who is behind them. The other interesting point to bring to your attention is that recently all of these owners and wine-makers have been here at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits and have been tasting their current vintages as well as some that are barrel samples and not yet bottled - just to give us a hint at what they will be like later as we are all so anxious and curious!!

THESE PEOPLE ABOVE ARE OUR WINE super stars and just like Mick Jagger that has dined here in Cleveland Park we draw the known and the unknown and are happy to be a host to both. WE are always here for everyone as is our great neighborhood of Cleveland Park N.W. Washington D.C. Here are some updates for you all on these wineries and owners and wine-makers that I mentioned above.