August 24, 2005
Fantastic Time Waster
Came across this website today.
This is a cool time waster that is actually educational.
See if you can have some fun with it.
August 21, 2005
New Pics in the Gallery
Hi.
It's been a while since we updated the photo gallery. So, I thought we'd post a few from the past week or so. Most of these are just some random Ethan pics. Others are from Mat and Monique's visit and our trip to the farm for Ethan to see the animals. Finally, Laura and her baby, Thor, were here for a little while because Laura was assisting a friend in his bid to swim the Channel. He made it, by the way!
Here is the link to the gallery...
Click on this link...
PHOTO GALLERY
August 18, 2005
Chateau Lafite
Recently, the wine shop where I work had the extreme good fortune of being able to acquire a substantial parcel of wine from a private collection. Substantial not in the actual quantity, but substantial in the context of rarity.
In late May, we were approached by a gentleman who had come across some wine that had belonged to his father. The father, being quite on in years, had no further interest in drinking the wine. Not being a wine drinker, the son had no interest in holding onto the wine or drinking it, either. He then set out to see if anyone would be interested in purchasing this wine from them. Luckily, we were one of the entities he contacted.
The wines that this gentleman had on offer were:
3 bottles 1914 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
2 bottles 1918 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
2 bottles 1948 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
1 bottle 1955 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
1 bottle 1957 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
1 bottle unknown vintage Chateau Lafite Rothschild
6 bottles 1981 Chateau La Cardonne (Lafite's 2nd wine from 1971 to the mid-1980s.
6 bottles Non-Vintage Bollinger Champagne (likely 25 years old).
3 bottles 1963 Cockburn's Vintage Port
1 bottle 1927 Taylor's Vintage Port
Chateau Lafite-Rothschild is arguably one of, if not the premier Bordeaux producer. It is highly regarded and has been so for centuries. Even in bad years, top Bordeaux houses can produce phenomenal wines (with astronomical price tags to match). Given the state of the bottles - dirty, uneven fill-levels, missing labels, unreadable labels, poor cork, etc., the man was quite content on unloading the wine for a very reasonable price. When coming across an opportunity, we could not pass it up and came away with the entire lot.
Our shop hosts a wine club, of sorts. The club members each invest a certain amount of money that is used as sort of a credit system. By doing so, they are entitled to advanced notification of rare or unique wines that come in - regardless of price. They then have the option of paying for these wines at a premium price, or use their credit. Most opt to pay at the discount and leave the credit intact for truly rare or precious wines that come in. This club is an exclusive club, made up of roughly only 20 people or so. The Chateau Lafite, et al, was designated as a showcase wine for a very special club dinner.
On the evening of July the 3rd, the club members were invited to participate in the opening and the tasting of all of the wines purchased in this transaction. The tasting would accompany a wonderful catered dinner of fillet steaks, potatoes, green salad and a tremendous fine cheese plate. All this took place in our shop.
I took detailed tasting notes for the Chateau Lafite-Rothschild and the Ports. If you are at all interested in reading them, click HERE. (To return to the blog, you'll need to click the "back" button on your browser after you're done reading the tasting notes.) I'd be interested if anyone out there who found this blog through a Google search (or other search engine) looking for Lafite information has tasted any of these wines and what their impressions were. Click the "comments" field, below to leave a note.
Here are a few of the pictures from that night...
August 17, 2005
August 03, 2005
Members of the ESRI cult - eat your hearts out!
THE man
GIS Gurus?
Are these people actually employed?
Whoa
'Party Dancers'
The 'normal' part of the trip was seeing Lisa and Aiden
Stunning Coranado Island beach at sunset.
A stop in Bean Town to see old friends!
I did a nice little stop in Boston to visit Shannon in her posh pad up the street from Teddy - Kennedy, that is. Marcy flew in from Denver to make the trip more complete...
A great restaurant in the North End - Neptune Oyster
A night on the town...
Steph and Marci