That Special Wine
I guess it was inevitable. After all, I live in Chicago. What am I talking about? SNOW! Sitting in my kitchen and looking out my window I see the first remnants of the white fluffy stuff starting to fall, and by the weather reports, there should be some accumulation today. Now as a wine blog you might think this was some sort of lead in to maybe Ice Wine. Nope. Maybe a look at the Southern Hemisphere's vintage. Nope again.
It just got me started thinking (that's always dangerous) and reminiscing about the last week or two.
My daughter came to visit and spend my birthday and Thanksgiving with me. Lots of great memories there. I also found myself back at the wine shop I use to work in this weekend. They had a wine tasting and a friend of mine had said she wanted to drop by and try some wines and have a little time to spend together to catch up with each others' lives. I was so glad I did. Not only to catch up, but in being there I was fortunate enough to run into a number of customers that I had known while working there that I hadn't seen in a while. It brought me back to my blog "I Have the Greatest Customers."
When I say customers you should know that what I really mean is friends.
I know I've said it before, but wine truly does bring people together. Not necessarily to evaluate a wine or wines, but maybe as a stimuli for sharing ones life and adventures. I think about that outrageously expensive (at least in my check book) 200 Point wine I had with my daughter. While we both enjoyed the wine, the experience of just being together to talk about what's going on was really the epicenter to us being together. That same experience is what triggered this blog. My friend and I had gone through the tasting and we were trying to decide on what wine to open while we catch up. We scanned the shelves for something we both would enjoy. I don't think it was something either one of us thought about, but this would, in retrospect, probably be our holiday get together as well, so something a little nicer kind of popped up. Now if you happen to be looking for a really special bottle of wine for the holidays, the wine we chose was the 2013 Quintessa Proprietary Red Wine. She loves Quintessa and their sister bottling, Faust. Me, I'm just enamored by the 96 Point rating Robert Parker gave it.... I should also point out that that wine was one of the last wines I purchased for the shop while I was still there. Fate, karma, no just a great wine I wanted to have on the shelf. Probably a little more like dumb luck.
Just like the time spent with my daughter over a nice (okay great) bottle of wine, this wine also moved our meeting to a higher plain. While we could have met over a slightly less expensive bottle of wine, both of us being wine connoisseurs (or in my case wine snob), partaking of this wonderful wine made the day.
During my time there, and continuing on the "I Have the Best Customers" theme, I was greeted numerous times by some of the shop's regular customers. Catching up on things and wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season. Kind of like old home week. Except it was only a couple hours.
So here I am, reminiscing about my experiences and my time with friends. For me, include wine into the mix and it is just about perfect. Maybe now is the time to start thinking about some special bottles of wine for the holidays to enjoy with friends or your significant other. Remember, ANY wine can be "that special wine" if you enjoy it with others.
Cheers