there's a new wine shop near our house.
we're doing our best to help it succeed.
in '06 we bought a wine chiller at our children's elementary school auction. it came with half a case of good bottles of wine, each costing more than we'd ever spend at the grocery store.
one of the bottles was a '91 cabernet sauvignon, something from caymus vineyards, i believe. let me go check...
okay, this is it:
i googled the bottle for the label at left, and guess how much this bottle is selling for right now...$349.it was nowhere near that when we bought it. wine is an appreciating asset? who knew being a lush could also be lucrative?
the bottle is too expensive to drink. i mean, how can we enjoy a $350 bottle of wine? we can't. we're, like, $10-15 a bottle people.
it's a conundrum.
take, for example, the kim crawford sauvignon blanc above. it's from marlborough, new zealand, and it's marvelous. it has a green pepper finish to it that is characteristic of other new zealand sauvignon blancs we've tried. it's dry, but very flavorful. and you can get it at costco, for the love of cheap wine.
our basement stays cool, year-round, perfect for storing wine. so we bought some pre-fab wine racks from pottery barn, and they fit perfectly into a niche at the bottom of the stairs. i've just gotten them filled, for the first time ever. bottles from the new store, mostly.
it's an eclectic collection of reds and whites, mostly inexpensive, with a couple bottles making their way into the chiller now and then. this one, for example...
the last grgich hills chardonnay we had was at a business dinner in a fancy hotel in san francisco, circa 1990. the wine was an '87, and it was one of the few bottles in my life that i remember specifically. it was that good.
hopefully the '05 will be equally enjoyable.
there's very little point to all of this, except to say that we drink our share of wine. we heard somewhere that it's heart-healthy, in moderation, and really, that's all the rationale we need. besides, we like it.
and as some of you may know, we like to share it with friends.
a toast, then, to all y'all.
namaste.
p.s. bon, you'll have to go check it out.
2 comments:
not too long ago, i purchased a highly recommended, half carafe of calloway merlot at mr. kinsies', more warehouse like sodo outlet (it has a forklift in the entryway) to take back to the office for an evening smoker with my boss.
because our office is ill equipped for sipping on the job, i also had to buy a corkscrew to open the damn $4.oo (really, $4.00) bottle of red. the only model they had was a slick little instrument that cost twice as much as the bottle. i was skeptical. certain i'd paid too much for the opener and not nearly enough for the wine, i trudged back to the office to sit through the smoke and drink what i was sure would be miserable wine.
wrong was i! the insistent "wine guy" new his shit. that little bottle was the perfect antedote to the heavy cigar offerings; which, in fact, actually accentuated the flavors in the merlot.
i went back the next day and bought half a case - they're so handy, you know. mr. bon and i went back few days later to uh, stock up.
and, though i drive by it everyday, i still haven't stopped in at the more plush elliot shop - maybe this week. i wouldn't want your suggestion to go unrequited.
it's not all that plush...still kinda warehouse-ish. though it is lacking the charm of the forklift.
lots of good wine, which should never go unrequited.
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