When I die…
Not to be morbid, but when I die I have no desire for my epitaph to be:
“We’re sure glad he always bought crappy wine!”
It’s actually odd I came to love good, all too often expensive, wines, and would start a cellar I’m beginning to have considerable pride in.
My dad was an alcoholic and as a result spent time with him in his stints in rehab as well as years in Al-Anon. He favored vodka, often saying while making our Saturday trips to the State Store when I was a kid in Ohio “always buy vodka, because no one can tell the cheap stuff from the expensive. What the heck, it’s made out of potatoes after all!” Additionally, I was raised in the ‘50s when cocktails and cocktail parties were fully the rage. My father’s bar was always exquisitely stocked and he could make any cocktail requested, including when my aunts would request a Bermuda Rose and my mother her Compari and soda. He also made a hellaciously delicious Bloody Mary, but only on Sundays!
The only drawback was he bought his liquid stock based solely on price, but in those days after his cocktail parties got going I doubt anyone noticed what brand of scotch, gin, etc. was being poured! Oh and there was only one kind of wine I ever saw in our home. When it was around it was the prototypical, single jug of raffia-wrapped Chianti. Plus I don’t actually recall anyone ever actually drinking any of it. It was simply a required bar ornament. The only change to this was when my eldest sister came back from a semester overseas and frequently made pitchers of her new love, sangria.
Years later I’d leave for college with a gift from that same sister packed safely in my duffle bag. She gave me what she termed ‘freshman essentials’. One was a large can of Medaglia d’Oro espresso. The other a fifth of cheap (naturally) rum. Tucked in with these two essentials were her instructions: “You’ll need coffee in college. This is great coffee so learn to drink it the right way. BLACK! You will also need to learn to drink in college, so sit down one night with this rum, a can of Coke, a friend, and drink until you know what being drunk feels like.”
To this day I still drink my coffee black and did learn what being drunk felt like with a fellow who ended up becoming my roommate for the rest of my undergrad career.
Mistakenly, in hindsight at least, I spent part of my life thinking wine cost 99 cents, was only bottled with names like Thunderbird, Boone’s Farm, Annie Green Springs, MadDog 20-20, and with the really good stuff coming in a bottle, which could double as a candlestick holder if you needed to impress your date, such as Lancers, Black Tower, and Mateus. I’d only been to one winery, located on Middle Bass Island in Lake Erie, the purpose of a tour of the old Lonz Winery apparently being to vomit all the Pink Catawba you could drink! After a few too many ghastly hangovers, I swore off ‘fine wine’.
On one of my early jobs I happened to meet an incredible woman. She was absolutely drop dead beautiful, 100% Italian, and I’d learn later, her grandfather made wine in his basement. From the day he drew a glass of his homemade Dago Red from one of his oak casks and toasted to my future as his granddaughter’s husband, we got along fabulously and I enjoyed his wines for years after. At the time I did not catch the importance of the comment he made that night after saying to me “I understand you love my granddaughter very much. That is enough for me! Salute! Cin Cin!” As we savored that first glass of his dry, red wine together he added “You know those are Mondavi grapes in your glass!” We served that same wine at our wedding to over 250 guests!
That day, back in 1974, I may have missed what Mario was telling me, but later my wife, always working her magic to help me be more well-rounded, would tell me the story of her great grandparents’, grandparents’, and parents’ friendship with Cesare and Rosa Mondavi. Forty-two years later my wife asked me to promise her I would not let this familial connection with the Mondavi’s end with her.
About the same time I happened across a random photo of Mike, a college roommate, who I hadn’t seen in 40+ years, bottling wine. Turned out he was in Napa and he was bottling wine made by a friend of his, Keith Webster, of Webster Cellars. He was quick to say ‘Let me hook you up. My friend makes really good stuff’!
It would be the first order I placed for our wine cellar! I gladly paid more than I ever had for a bottle of wine before, but trusted my good friend’s advice and he was spot on! It is great wine!
My real wine journey had begun!
I’ve kept my promise to my wife by continuing her family’s Napa connections, and kept it alive by introducing it to our next generations.
Best of all, in-between, I’ve enjoyed a whole lot of really great wines!
Now that I’ve written and thought more about it, I think my epitaph is safe!
L’Chaim!