Terry Theise, a Wine Importer Who Has Folks Talking

Instead, he prefers images -- "a bolt of lightning," "a glass of grape mojo" -- and textures: "Individual wines don't attract people because you say it's apple or pear or quince. But if you call it sensuous, creamy, enveloping, crunchy or caressing, that makes sense to people, and all of those apply to wine.

"Wine is a beauty like any other," he says, sipping a "gossamer" Wagner-Stempel spatlese Riesling in his Silver Spring office, surrounded by tacked-up photos of Alpine hikes and his wife, former chef Odessa Piper. "If you approach it cerebrally, it will beat you."

That wine is more than just an alcoholic beverage is one of the core lessons Theise teaches his disciples. CityZen's Myers, who has tasted many of the best wines in the world, cites an example of the Theise effect: a 2005 Schloss Gobelsburg "Lamm Vineyard" Gruner Veltliner that Myers immediately loved because its smell and flavor "reminded me of summer days on my grandparents' porch cracking sugar snaps for dinner.

"Terry made me realize that this liquid can actually affect people profoundly and poetically," Myers says.

Theise doesn't shrink from such challenges as convincing Americans that they should drink wines with names such as Schlossbockelheimer In Den Felsen Riesling Auslese. Or that the rosé bubblies now so in vogue are mostly lousy.

Or, perhaps most important, that the big champagne houses such as Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot, which produce hundreds of thousands of cases of wine, are marketing their products as "exclusive" and actively trying to drive small producers out of the market.

Case in point: Theise was outraged this year when Champagne Fleury, a small producer, was threatened with a lawsuit because the label on its rosé bore a resemblance to powerful Perrier-Jouet's Fleur de Champagne label. "I can only imagine how threatened they must have felt by the 100 cases of Fleury Rosé rampaging through the American market," he wrote sarcastically in the 2008 catalogue. "Around the same time, I learned that Clicquot was suing a sparkling wine producer in Tasmania who had the temerity to use a yellow label on their fizz. Perhaps the Houses should collectively trademark VOWELS so that the growers would have to call their wine "Chmpgn."

Such rabble-rousing doesn't win Theise powerful friends. But he clearly savors playing David to the big houses' Goliath. His catalogues "rally the troops to fight the good fight," he says, adding mischievously, "You can tell a lot about a person by their enemies."

Whatever attacks his foes might mount seem unlikely to affect Theise, who is almost Zenlike about what he wants and, more important, what he doesn't. Theise could no doubt import more wine; he wouldn't specify numbers but said he does a "handsome business for a small-batch artisan importer, but of course a lot less than the big commercial guys." He also could easily import and distribute wines on his own instead of partnering with Syosset, N.Y.-based Michael Skurnik Wines, as he has since 1999.

"The only reason to do it is to keep all the money, and the price of doing it is onerous to me," he says.

Nor do accolades, such as that James Beard award, affect Theise much. "Flattery is like chewing gum. Enjoy it but don't swallow it," he says, quoting Dennis the Menace creator Hank Ketcham. For Theise, the Beard award is less a validation than an opportunity to try new things: writing a book that will serve as his legacy, or planning events with and for the people who have helped him along the way.

"I want to do gigs with the sommeliers I know," he says, "but wine dinners and wine tastings have just been done to death.

"So," he pauses dramatically, "I'm thinking champagne breakfasts. Now, that would be fun."