Announcing the 13th Hour

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Life is short, so it’s an absolute necessity that we enjoy every last tiny bit of it. As such, we are excited to announce that on Sundays, we will now open at the “13th Hour,” a reference to 13:00 hours in military time, a.k.a. 1 p.m., beginning May 6.

With these expanded hours, you’re invited to savor the simple things that make life good—wine, music, great food and good friends. A weekly and seasonally rotating menu of wine and fine foods will be offered with occasional live music. On May 6, we will feature the musical stylings of Omar Felker and Bradley Basker in the courtyard.

Sometimes we take things for granted, so join us for a few hours on Sundays to relax and enjoy life. After all, this is what 13 is for.

 

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Our closing time will remain 2 a.m. and never fear, our popular Sunday special selection of discounted bottles will begin at 1 p.m. and continue until they sell out.

We invite you to come see your favorite Sunday bartenders a few hours earlier than before. Opening at the “13th Hour” just means more time to soak up some sun on the patio while enjoying a nice glass of rosé.

Join the Facebook Event.

Rhone vs Rhone Rangers

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by Adele Corrigan

After deciding on our theme, Rhône vs Rhône Rangers as our next contrast series, Mike and I were brainstorming of a way to make things a little more interesting. We decided to put a little personal competition into it. I was going to choose the wines from the new world, and he was going to choose the wines from the old world. Of course, during these tastings, there’s the comparing and contrasting of the wines that happens as people taste, but Mike and I decided to see who could find the better wines to showcase from our designated regions. There’s hundreds of wines that could be used for this event. The true test would be to see who can find the best examples of our chosen regions to showcase in the tasting.

So the competition was set and the rules were as follows: Mike was to choose 3 wines from the Rhône and I was to choose 3 wines from California that were “Rhône inspired.” The wines could be red or white, and they had to be under $30. I knew Mike had the upper hand in this. Wines from the Rhône are highly respected and sought after. They consistently demand the highest dollar and have been made for hundreds of years. I mean, it’s the Rhône river valley, home of iconic chateauneuf-de-pape region, mind blowing amazing syrah from Cornas, Hermitage, and the other northern appellations. All wine lovers idolize a great bottle of Cote Rotie.

[Continue Reading…]

Tavel

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I can’t get it out of my head… And, It’s really difficult for me to explain… But, I am in love with Tavel. This is the area of the world that produces what is, to me, the finest expression of rose’ that exists. I think it’s fair to say that other rose’ producers work to create something close to Tavel. The quick story on this thing is that it’s lightly red (not pink, but just a couple shades under red) and it’s dry and it smells like rose petals, lemonade and something else that’s hard to place — It’s something like anise and pepper but in a really delicate and subtle way.

These wines bring something gorgeous to your glass. They are classic and, well, in a word, real. Tavel is clean and bright but also dark and sort of tempest-like. They run deep, if that makes any sense. I just love them. I won’t fuck around and try to lie about it: when I drink Tavel, I drink of the bottle mightlily and I feel as though, perhaps, I were in fact, drinking my noon-time glass of wine with the other French butchers at the market on any given Tuesday. I don’t even know if that’s a fair assumption to make (do they drink wine at that time? probably), but, well, it might be. Anyway, tonight brings me to a somewhat fluted bottle of Chateauu D’Aqueria 2001 Tavel. Mostly grenache and syrah with cinsault and mourvedre, this wine is made with the saignee method (by which grape skins are left in contact with grape juice to extract tannin and color and deeper flavor) and are great when drunk young and fresh but also rumoured to be delicious with some age. Not sure about the age thing but I am totally certain about the fresh and young situation. Tavel shines brightest when young, but for a strange reason: it already shows depth when young. It’s kind of like that girl you met in highschool, at someone’s party who was strange… smart, pretty, funny, sarcastic, kind of rude but really intense in a way. That’s Tavel, in general. It’s pretty. It’s neat. It’s all tucked up within itself and it practically reeks old-world character.

I haven’t experimented too much with food and Tavel but the marriage of these two seems ridiculously inevitable and fantastic. I can envision entire porterhouses washed down with a bottle of Tavel. Equally so, I see giant pizzas and, god help me, even a fucking NYC (or maybe, even, especially, a NOLA) hotdog with all the trimmings would work just insanely good.

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Please introduce yourself to this wine. It’s one of the Rhone’s more unique offerings and the quality is pretty much always there.

And now for another glass…

Balancing Sustainable Moderation with Hedonistic Pleasure

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I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week. I certainly did. And, as per usual, I brought a ton of wine to my parents’ house. It’s always fun to try new wines with the usual Thanksgiving setup of turkey (fried this year), stuffing, candied yams, corn on the cob and, of course, cranberry sauce (my mother favors the version that comes straight from the can, retaining that jelly-like cylindrical shape we have all seen at least once in our life). This year I brought Beaujolais, Oregon pinot noir, Austrian dry riesling, Pommard, Framboise Lambic (I suppose this is a product of the cranberry sauce) and finally a rose’ Champagne for after the feast. I only managed to open the Lambic and the Pommard during dinner (only my wife and I drink wine; the others stick to beer or iced tea). The Lambic worked marvelously and the Pommard was also fantastic. But we’ll get to that a little later down the line. Before I go into the wine I’d like to take a moment to briefly comment on this thing we call Pleasure.

I was reminded on the drive back from my parents’ house of a Thanksgiving I spent away from home, while in school. I was a sophmore at the University of Houston and living with four of the most insane, creative, intersting and intelligent devils I had ever met. We studied little and spent a great deal of time on the roof of our two story home in the Heights drinking, smoking and talking about just about anything. We would rage on until the early morning nearly every night of the week. Funny to think how, back then, it was nothing for me to take a Latin II exam at 9 am after having slept less than 2 hours the night before… and even passing it with a solid B. Anyhow, I digress. I was remembering that Thanksgiving the five of us spent in the house on Yale and 28th. To sum it up, we were all delegated specific Thanksgiving feast components to prepare. We were to eat at 6 pm and then nobody really had any plans save some football watching and some heavy slumbering. Well, the turkey was naturally destroyed by Tito’s inability to grasp the concept of time, Shafer’s yams were all but underdone (not even the blanket of marsmallows had begun to melt), Derek’s green bean caserole tasted and smelled exactly like burnt lion’s hair and James’ fresh-baked rolls, well, actually, I remember those as being pretty good. As for me, I was set in charge of the booze. I suppose I succeeded alright in this venture as it was the most largely consumed item of the entire meal. My roomates and I slurped down entire twelve packs of cheap beer by the half hour. We knocked back shot after shot of Jack Daniels and George Dickel. We killed a bottle of really cheap Mezcal (someone ate the worm so I guess there was a bit more protein in the mix) before sundown. We smoked cigars and various other things. James nearly killed himself falling off the porch after draining an entire jug of Carlo Rossi, “Chianti”. But, we really had fun. It was just totally decadent. Some girls who lived down the street came over and then some older guys from across the street came by and before 9 in the evening it seemed like there were 20 of us on the roof, laughing and dancing and just really going completely insane with fun. I awoke the next morning on the second floor balcony with a vision in my head of a large glass of water… it was glowing, nearly angelic in its glory. I stumbled downstairs, dragging an enormous, ponderous hangover behind me like a wet fur trenchcoat. I felt terrible. But, thinking back to the night before, even then, as I quickly drained several glasses of cool water from the tap in rapid succession, it was totally worth it.

Over the years, my friends and I moved away from one another (except for one, Shafer, who actually moved back to Texas after over a decade in New York City to open a bar with me), got married, had babies, got real jobs and basically settled down. I suppose this is why I thought about that crazy Dionysian “Thanksgiving Feast” with the guys back in school. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with going crazy every now and then. I mean, who the hell CAN’T go crazy at least once in a while!? And by “crazy” I don’t mean “crazy” like freak out and go shoot up an entire theater of innocent people watching the newest Batman (or is it Dark Knight?) movie. I mean “crazy” like fun crazy, like wild, unbridled pleasurable crazy. What I’m trying to say is that it’s good to let it all go every now and then. Enjoy life to the greatest extent possible. Don’t do it all the time, no, not every single night of your life. The key here is not to live life in a state of constant moderation of pleasure. That, to me, just sounds like boring mediocrity. No. Live your life well and be healthy. Do not constantly over drink or smoke all the time or dance on rooftops and forget to eat dinner… no, not all the time. However, now and then, say, once, maybe even twice a month, let it all go and forget about any and all constraints. Also, never do anything to dramatically hurt yourself or anyone else. But, by all means necessary and possible: have fun.

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Now, onto the wine. The Burgundy I opened this Thanksgiving was one I took from the 13 celsius cellar. It had come in about 2 years ago and I was curious to see how it was drinking. Louis Latour, Pommard, Beaune, Cote-d’Or 2008. Really, this wine did not strike me as being portentious of greatness… but, one never really knows with Burgundy. Screw it! I grabbed it from the shelf, tucked it into a slot in thhe box already nearly filled with other bottles for Thanksgiving.

2008 was a fairly difficult year for the vigneron in Burgundy in general, with unpredictable weather. As a whole, the vintage isn’t considered great but I think the whites faired relatively well and the reds were mostly showing well in the immediate youth. As for this particular bottle, the nose comes off kind of lean and extremely subtle at first but expands to give aromas of black fruit and hints of anise. In the mouth the first thing to show is acid, and lots of it. With a little time in the glass it opens and does show fair fruit with some complexity. Mostly, however, this is a youthful wine enveloped in a cloak of acid, which, thankfully, does make it good for a large meal, but, I think it has passed its prime in terms of its full expression of flavor and aroma. Not a bad wine but certainly not the powerful, seductive Pommard I have grown to love.

Two Italianos Worthy of Note

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Despite the ever constant influx of new and unusual wines that come to me each and every day through 13 celsius, I feel that I most often gravitate back to the source, the font that initiated my life in the world of wine, namely, Italia.
Two wines have come back to me that I feel are of particularly distinct and delicious character: one is sweet and one is just plain delicious.
Torcolato. This is a sweet wine derived primarily from the native Venetian Vespaiolo grape. Torcolato mean “twisted” in Italian. This is due to the way these grapes are hung in twined and twisted columns to dry. Much like Recioto or other sweet wines, the drying process serves to extract water from the grapes through evaporation, thereby concentrating the sugar content and intensity of flavor inherint in the grapes themselves. Torcolato was one of the first sweet wines I ever encountered, and it served as the perfect foil to a plate of Gorgonzola Dolce with dried figs and salted almonds. Of course, the strangeness of the name carried a lot of personality into the equasion as well. Torcolato. It sounds like both an alien torture device and a chant to be yelled amongst thousands during a festival of pleasure. I don’t know for sure. Either way, Torcolato was long considered one of Veneto’s “closet wines”; the type of thing that your Nonna would make herself by drying grapes in the closet underneath the stairs and would pull out when you and the family came to visit… most often, it was so sticky sweet and one-dimensional that nothing else would do but a glass or two of frizzante water to wash it away over Nonna’s cookies. Since the producer Maculan came on the scene, things have changed. Now Torcolato is the sweet wine of choice in the Veneto. And while it is still not famous among the majority of wine drinkers in the world, whisper its name in the ear of any sommerlier after a long meal and the word “smile” will form over his/her lips.
Torcolato Maculan 2006 is sublime: honey, poached pears, raisins, peaches, vanilla bean and pineapple show on the nose and on the palate with a sweetness that is balanced and long-serving. Drink with strong cheeses and savory desserts such as broiled dates on a bed of marscarpone.

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Brunello di Montalcino 2007. I can’t remember Brunello di Montalcino hosting two consecutive vintages of such superb quality as the 2006 and 2007 vintages. 2006 was great throughout. That said, it was sort of expected that 2007 would be slightly less brilliant. Not the case. The ’07s are showing beautifully. At the behest of a business partner, I was asked to explore this vintage, which, I admit, I had already written off as uninteresting. I have gone through 6 of these so far and I can say, without a doubt, that the ’07s are drinking wonderfully. Brunello was basically invented by Biondi-Santi. And a great and beautiful job has been done here. But, seriously, so far, across the board, nothing but good has been said about this ’07 vintage. Tonight I tested the ’07 output of Caparzo. Simply. Amazing. This wine is the full essence of Sangiovese, but in a new and dynamic costume. Ripe berry fruit, nuanced spice, violets and earth dominate. Acidity is fresh and lively and tannins are compact, definite and gorgeous. This wine gives its charms easily and, really, this is terribly worth drinking now. It shows dominance and pure force without being overly hot or raw. This wine will only improve with more age in a proper environment but I can’t wait to try more of them now. This opulent wine reminds me of tired nights around the fire in Girone (where I lived for 6 months with a strange Professor of Micro Photography who was also a shaman of Tuscan wine; grazie, Riccardo Innocenti). He once showed me a picture he had taken of a strange micro-organism that appeared to be something like a tiny crab. This creature negotiated his way through the menacing microcosmos by clutching smaller organisms in its two relatively large claws and using them as shields as it worked its way towards its cellular food source against potential attackers. This concept reminds me of two things: the way mankind often uses smaller entities to pawn off their defenses and problems and also the way good wine can sit confidently behind a good vintage and still perform its own seductive function.
Drink this wine now, later, or never… it will be good when you are dead and gone just as well as it will be good to you now. Eat just about anything with it; the acid moves it over steaks and big pasta dishes as well as over fast conversation and intense debate under a full moon.

Chateau Musar

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“The dimension of taste in Lebanon is different than anywhere else,” he said. “Not better, but different. Better has no meaning.” -Serge Hochar (as quoted in The New York Times 04/04/2012)

Last month a small group of about 20 Houston wine professionals was invited to take part in something potentially life-altering. Serge Hochar, the 70+ year old winemaker of Chateau Musar was hosting a rather expansive tasting of his wines from relatively recent vintages as well as particularlry old vintages. The vintages ranged from a 1961 blanc that drank like a deep, cloudy and profoundly nutty Jerez to a 2003 rouge that smacked of bright, rich fruit, steady, sure tannins and layers of a delicately building earthiness. The tasting of these wines was intense and unusual, much like Serge himself. When asked a specific question about the wines he has made, Serge invariably pulls said question into a realm into which it was never designed to enter, often answering several other questions never asked before actually (sort of… vaguely) answering at least some small part of the original question. He also makes a point of saying such arcane little phrases like “I don’t know anything about wine. I know how to make wine. But I know nothing about wine.” Interesting. When I myself asked Serge to give us all a better mental picture, a closer experience, if you will, of what it was actually like to be among the scattered vineyard sites of Lebanan I was treated to a very long diatribe on the dangers of asking “too serious and anxious questions.” No offense was taken here though I did find it somewhat interesting that the one thing that intrigued me most about these wines, i.e. where they orignate from, seemed almost lost on Monsieur Hochar. Oh well. The man is a genius, nevertheless, in my book. He makes beautiful wines from vineyards among one of the world’s most war-torn places in the world. His wines are made with very little (in fact, practically none) chemical interaction. Sulphur and pesticides are kept to ridiculously low levels and I feel that Serge has taken a decidedly hands-off approach when it comes to actually making these wines. However, the little involvement he does hold in these wines is just substantial and important enough to render them wildly interesting and so variable from vintage to vintage that it is difficult to pin down something of a winemaker’s “signature quality” among them other than the fact that they are all almost mystical in their individuality. The reds are bold and unique; they smell and taste like something in the realm of Bordeaux and Rhone but they have another quality about them that proves them indisputably of another place and philosophy. The whites are even perhaps more intriguing. They are huge, lush and reminiscent of old vintage Bordeaux.

Lebanon is an ancient country and has been rocked with religious and political strife for most of its life. Civil war and conflict with Israel have decimated large swaths of its population yet it continues to survive and Phoenix itself just like the ancient Phoenicians who once not only dominated civilization in this area of the Middle East but also developed the first alphabet and captivated Rome with the quality of its wine. (Incidently, it can reasonably be argued that the Phoenicians developed a writing system in order to keep track of its bustling wine business throughout the Mediterraenian and beyond.)

Serge did eventually attempt to answer the orignal question I put to him. At some point in what felt like a very long but wise meandering through about a thousand different ideas and approaches to not only the art and science of making wine but to life, in general, as well, Serge began to describe the landscape of Lebanon. He reminded us of the fact that Lebanon begans at the sea but then rises boldly and swiftly into snow-capped mountains; then, the landscape dips again as you go east, only to rise dramatically into yet more mountains. He spoke of the delicious imagery often written in the Bible: the “Cedars of Lebanon.” He talked of such strange as going sking in the mountains, “among the Cedars” and then negotiating the delivery of grapes meant to be turned into wine across from the vineyards in the Bekaa  Valley down toward the sea to Chateau Musar across treacherous, dangerous roads during times of Civel War… The images he left in my mind were disastrously confirming: this may be the strangest winemaking scenario in all the world today. And strange things married with beauty and character, history and science are those things I deeply respect and constantly seek.

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2003 Vintage Red and White are currently in inventory at 13 celsius.

 

 

biodynamic…w.t.f.?

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The practice of cultivating vineyards on a biodynamic schedule, with all the weird, sort of strange harvest under a particular moon and the burying of things like ram’s horns filled with excrement is… well, just weird. Everyone in the wine world has his/her own view as to whether any of this makes a difference… but, I would like to offer up one thing that I think sets this thing straight: however strange and pointless these rituals may seem, the end result is that, with biodynamic wines what we inevitably see are winemakers paying greater attention to their vineyards. They monitor every subltle nuance of the vines thriving in their vineyards. This is, quite simply, the way it should beTricyclic antidepressants: You may recognize india generic cialis http://respitecaresa.org/caring/2020appealsocialposts-1800×1800/ the names “Anafranil” or “Placil. If the procedure is affected because of TBgets cialis canada online spread through coughs, sneezes, spits, laughs or talks. Get Kamagra 100mg and have a great time with levitra generic india your partner during bed time. This is done with the help of nerves, blood vessels, tissues, liver, mind and reproductive organs must work together female cialis for sexual arousal as well as strong erection. . Drink anything from N. Joly and you will soon understand this distinction…

What is 13 Celsius?

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Difficult to describe… 13 celsius is a wine bar. It is an entity that both fills and is filled by the space it occupies… does that make sense? The building is old and strange and unique. Together, the wine program and the building marry to create a dynamic, engaging and ultimately orignial experience. From its birth, 13 was designed as a place through which Houstonians (and visiting folk) could enter and find themselves transported to somewhere distant, odd, far-away and beautiful. Our wine program is intense and dedicated to bringing new and exciting wines to our patrons. We also support a rather large and diversified beer program. We pour great, locally-roasted coffee from our good friend Max of Amaya Roasting. We aim to provide great service and wine education while at the same time servicing your random nights out with a friend. We are not a restaurant, but we do serve the city’s best pannini and seriously awesome cured meats and cheeses. Our bar is designed for small parties… we love first dates and anniversaries… we will take care of you in the best way possible no matter what… however, you should be aware that we are special, we are unique and we are… basically, pretty weird. We don’t advertise, so we work by the word-of-mouth concept. We take our time and deliver the best quality that we can… from wine selection to cheese plates. Yes, we will take our time to get you your wine-accompanying bites, but they will be delicious. We are not Red Lobster and we do not cater to the masses. Rather, we work to give those of you in “the know” the things you want. 13 is a delicate and demanding entity… she needs so much to deliver the things she wants to deliver… but, she is beautiful and she is always striving for perfection…

As a side note: this bar has ruined my life. I am obsessed with cleanliness and the delicate and time-consuming processes of wine storage (and pouring). We keep all wines in a cellar maintianed at 13 degrees celsius in an effort to replicate the divine situation of selecting an European wine cellared at the undergroud temperature of 13 c that never fluctuates. The idea is that when you come to 13, your wine will come to you in the most pristine and unaltered fashion possible. Imagine walking down, into the cellar of a fine Chatreau of Bordeaux… would you expect a hot bottle of wine? No, you would not… It should come to you cool and readily drinkable… and always perfectly delicious.

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And that’s what we do at 13.

South Africa

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I am always searching for good wine to present to my patrons at 13. I taste upwards of 100 wines every week. It’s a weird task… sometimes, frankly, it’s a bit taxing… but, reallly, I can’t complain. It’s a pretty great job. Recently, I held a private (that meaining, alone, by myself) tasting of South African wines new to the Texas market. And, I have to admit, they were great. I’ll not mention the brand names or any of that stuff for now; however, I would like to point out that, as I have always suspected, wines from this weird place in the world don’t usually get to us here in the States. This is likely the reason as to why I have never (literally) featured a South African wine at 13. This has changed! The new lineup of South African wines at 13 were selected because they were particularly deliciousThe shilajit tablet fit for intake of men and 38% of women, which were 60 to 70 years-old, (with approx. same age partners) were levitra pills for sale having sex just as often. The reason why herbal alternatives Get More Information levitra prices are better than synthetic is because ED pills can only enhance the blood circulation. Enhancing the creativity and productivity within you is an important herb to treat kidney ailments. cheapest cialis australia Furthermore, most e-pharmacies will ask viagra properien for less per sachet, if your buy large quantities dependent on treatment needs and budget. . I tweeted the tasting late one night last week… South African wines are decidedly “New World” in style… but the good ones deliver a unique “punch” of good, bold fruit balanced with acidity (the whites) and something like a smoky char (the reds). I think the wines of Stellenbosch stand out because they are well made and the vinification culture of these wines are varietaly appropriate. I want you, and all your friends, to explore these wines… I think you just have to sort of “sharp smart” about them and you will be justly rewarded. Focus on Chenin and Cab here, but do not hesitate with Riesling-based blends.

Chenin is referred to here as “Steen” and it is its own animal in this part of the world. The wines are based on an interesting grapefruit citrus core with a very present creaminess to round things out. Reds are robust, in fact, they are juicy and huge. Even the Pinotage (a grape I’ve never quite trusted) can be decadent and has a tendency to offering up something almost feral in the glass… indeed, the image of a tiger pacing back and forth in its cage, ready to strike out at any moment, is an apt metaphor.

Why(ne)?

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In the Summer of 1998 I woke in the dark on a train barreling somewhere through the odd landscape of Calabria in Southern Italy. I had spent most of the evening playing my guitar with a gaggle of young Italian students and drinking red wine. They had food with them as well; and they were excited about sharing. We ate arancini (fried balls of risotto with a center of tomato sauce) drank the wine (from the bottles, passed from one to the other) and sang old Italian folk songs… “Bello Ciao” was one I remember rather perfectly… At this point in my young life I didn’t care for wine or even good food, for that matter… at this point, I thought of food and libations as nothing more than fuel, as the thing that kept me moving and, therefore, alive. But that evening, on the train, as we sang, ate and drank, I have to admit, I think I was changed, altered, transformed. The wine was SO good, the food was SO delivious, the friendship was SO amazing… I had never experienced anything quite like this. As my new friends left my sleeping cabin and went their seperate ways, I fell to sleep easily, clutching my little $30 acoustic, nylon six-string in my arms. And, I just felt so good… When I awoke later on, I looked out the window to a stark, alien landscape of flat, rolling plains and saw little villages emerging under the white moonlight like phantoms… I got out of my bunk and put bare feet on the cold floor of the cabin. I could see several other people sleeping soundly in their bunks. I opened the cabin door and stepped into the hallway of the train. I stood there for a couple of hours and looked out the window at the amazing scene flashing before me. The sun rose, delicately and fully, over the distant horison. We were headed far south, destination, Sicilia… I was so out of my element… in fact, I was truly lost… I was outside of reality… I had ventured into unknown territory. I was without money and as content as ever. I had been living basically off of friends and playing Bob Dylan covers on my guitar for roughly the equivalent of $6 to $20 a day… which was, at that time, just enough to eat a piece of pizza a taglio and drink a bit of wine each night. But as we crossed the straight, and I looked out at the twinkling lights of Messina and the steady glowing neons of the Martini-Rossi signs on the far shore, I was struck with a sense of amazement… Was it possible that all this had been going on in the world while I was studing Latin in school and thinking about the next month’s rent and the grocery bill and Doctor Cerigioli’s mid-term exam? Indeed, it was. Indisputably.

Jump forward about 6 years and it was I, sitting at the bar in an Italian restaurant in Austin, Texas. I had ordered a pizza and a bottle of red wine for my dining companion, Brian, and I to share over dinner. I was non-specific about the wine and had only asked the bartender for “something red, good and under $30.” I remember the way her presented the wine perfectly: “This is Gagliopo from Calabria… it is dry and acidic with a fair amount of dark, plummy fruit… perfect for pizza margherita…” Calabria? Oh, my god! I had been there before. I once gazed out of the window of a fast-moving train heading south towards Sicilia and remarked to myself how odd and weird the landscape was… I was instantly transported to that moment. As the bartender opened and then poured the wine I left myself for a moment and went all the way back to that trip to Sicilia… Brian noticed. He asked me what was wrong. “Nothing,” I said. And that was all I could say; because too much had just happened to me. I was transported to a distant past and reminded of a particular moment that was important to me. That night, after we finished our pizza and the wine, I went home and fell to sleep much the same way I had fallen to sleep years before… in a sleeping cabin of a train barreling through the alien landscape of Calabria.

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This is what makes wine something special to me. When I open a bottle of wine from some strange part of the world, I am forced to think about where it came from, who made it, who typically drinks it, what forces of wild Nature shaped the growth of the grapes that make this wine? What strange sun bathed these vineyards and created the juice that is now sitting, innocently, unassumingly, in my glass?