Perfect Wine For A Ferrari Evening!

This evening I left the local trivia team contest. We took second place out of 12 teams because one of us knew what North American animal carries leprosy. I am not making this up. Armadillo. And I am not making THIS up. My lady partner knew this because her boss, back in Texas, contracted leprosy while hunting! Easily cured of course. Anyway, sun going down on a perfect mountain evening. Mondial parked with windows down and starts with a single key turn and idle off go I. Then make a right hand turn, pull a couple of full throttle 6k shifts and feeling FINE! But went the wrong way to get my celebratory wine! What to do now?

That's easy enough: keep going the wrong way and come back for the wine the extra long way around. On the way up the small mountain four lane try to temp the BMW down the other side into a long sweeper without success. NOBODY who hears the little bitty 3.2 even at 6k ever takes the bate. It is a 90+ mph sweeper but I never do that much anymore since I got a four point ticket in the same place going back up the mountain the other way at a lower speed.

So. Left arm out the window, long shadows, more or less puttering along the back way to acquire the wine. Fifth gear at 2,000 rpms and everything is copacetic. You NEVER really need to shift this car and that is inexplicable in a 7,000 rpm engine. I mean, I made my regular full G braking for a sharp right hander from about 50 mp and just overshot by about five feet. Still in 5th gear just above 1k! Full throttle just for the hell of it and not one hick-up. This is stupidly impossible given the car seriously scampers otherwise.

Back to the wine! The "wine shop" is the back shelf of an old old two pump gas station that still sells live bate for the local anglers. Subcontinental Indians own the place. The twenty something girl [on the low side of the range] exclaims: "I LOVE your car! What is it?" I tell her and explain it is my "bucket list" vehicle. She giggles. And NOW for the wine! Rancho Zabaco Zinfandel 2010. This is another impossibility that I discovered a couple of days earlier. This is something I know from my Wine Spectator days back in Chicago Land! How in the hell did a bottle get to this far end of the distribution chain in the first place! And it should be seriously ruined. But noooo. It is covered in dust but the proprietors seem to know this is not junk because the price is $22.

This is the sort of place you expect to find Boon's Farm Strawberry Hill! Putter the Ferrari back home as sun goes down. Uncork and breath out the wine a bit. At this very moment I am savoring a wine actually worth $22 a bottle. Sold next to the live bate stand.

Some days are better then others.....

 

My local vineyard produces a light red wine and will sell it 10% off $30 per bottle if bought by the case. I asked if it aged well but observed if I bought a case it would never have time to age. One of the Atlanta tourist customers actually almost dropped to the floor with laughter. I have been getting the 10% discount on each bottle ever since. As a light red it is best drunk in a year or eighteen months at best.

It is the only boutique wine I have ever had that is actually worth the price. I find this to be quite an accomplishment from a local vineyard in the N. Georgia Mountains!

 

Now I have a REAL story! Back in the 1990's my wife's best friend was the administrative assistant to one of the top hospitals in Chicago. People were forever plying him with wine but he did not drink, so he gave them to my wife's friend. SHE did not drink and simply piled them up in the basement year after year.

Comes my birthday and she asks to provide a wine? I say any old red would do. She brings a Staglin Family Farms Cab and asks to have hers mixed as a spritzer. Its done and I have my glass and take on sip. WOWW. I started thinking eye droppers! Later I looked it up on the internet. It had not been available for three years and even then it was $100 per bottle. AND MINE WAS PERFECTLY AGED! I will never ever have such a wine ever again. Drove me to Ice Beer.

The last time I looked it up the top Staglin Cab was something like $350 per bottle. Un-aged.

 

Yeah, its entirely manageable.

 

Is that a "Sparkling Red"!?

 

Boons Farm Strawberry Hill. My first real drunk. That was back in about 1972 or some such. I was drunk in one of the back water secondary bays behind San Diego harbor. There were people on one side who wanted to get on my side and the reverse. So I stole one of those original Hobie Cats and spent the afternoon doing shuttle service.

The Remainder Of That Day is something of a blur. The next day is as vivid as this very morning.