I've just taken these new pictures of Stag's Leap wine-pricing schedule that I got there when I went with colleagues from Forman Brothers back in June, the 29th, 1996, a Saturday. We had a great tour and tasting conducted by John Foust with assists from others there at Stags Leap Wine Cellars in Napa, California. Refer to the blog I just did for the rest of the story. It's just a couple down from this one. It's Friday, August 29th, 2008 here at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits where I manage the wine department at 3423 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington D.C. 2008. There's a nice, refreshing steady drizzle of rain, our second day of much-welcome rain as everything was getting really rangy and parched. It's also twelve years after this great visit of mine to Stags Leap Wine Cellars. Gabriella , one of our favorite customers was just here and asked me whether I had seen the movie BOTTLE SHOCK yet and I said " no " but that I was looking forward to seeing it. She enjoyed it. Stags Leap Wine Cellars won the blind wine-tasting in the category of red wine way back in 1976 in Paris at the Caves de la Madeleine. That was thirty-two years ago, how time flies, how the landscape of wine has changed in that space of time. It used to be so much simpler back then there certainly was less variety. In my humble opinion I liked it much more back then when it was more about just the wine(s) and not such a business/corporation/machine to move-pump cases through the system. Was it easier to dream back then ? People took those dreams and ran with them, realizing them. Now many of those small dreams have now been bought by moneyed interests... but I'll save that for another time. For now I just want to dream about that lovely Napa valley, the hills where these vines have taken root, the rosemary running free by and large, the few olive trees I saw at Rutherford Hill vineyards and looking down onto the Rutherford Bench from my father and my seat outside the Auberge du Soleil restaurant as the sun baked/warmed us and we drank our bottled water and a half bottle of Ridge's Zinfandel, the Gyserville I think that was rounder, more velvety and a nice treat after all the Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons that we had already enjoyed or were about to in the Napa valley. TONY
Cheers, TONY
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