The last of an old friend

[stefan]

It is often bittersweet when you say goodbye to an old friend. We did that tonight. Lucie made an incredible mushroom tart that screamed, "Margaux!", so I opened our last bottle of 1988 Monbrison. I bought a number bottles of this wine more than 20 years ago. Monbrison is only a Cru Bourgeois, so I am sure that the price was low. A bit hard in its youth, the '88 has been wonderful since it became an adult. This last bottle was perhaps the best. The Margauxberries made Lucie swoon. At the beginning, the taste could not match the nose, but in the last 1/3 of the bottle the Monbrison became full flavored and the taste lingered for 40 seconds. This experience nudges me to look for this wine at auctions, but I doubt that I will find any. stefan 93. Lucie 93.

[JCNorthway]

Last bottles are always difficult for me. What is just the right time, setting, venue, etc. Glad your experience was a positive one - that has not always been my experience.

[AlohaArtakaHoundsong]

They produced a nice wine in '05 if I'm judging. It must be pretty dissimilar to the '88 - both now, and given the vintage characteristics, on release.

[AlohaArtakaHoundsong]

Last bottles are always difficult for me. What is just the right time, setting, venue, etc. Glad your experience was a positive one - that has not always been my experience.

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

~ Henry Scott Holland

[JimHow]

I Am Standing Upon The Seashore

by Henry Van Dyke





I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at

my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving

breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of

beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she

hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky

come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, “There, she is gone.”



Gone where?



Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just

as large in mast,

hull and spar as she was when she left my

side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of

living freight to her destined port.



Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And just at the moment when someone

says, “There, she is gone,”

there are other eyes watching her coming,

and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she

comes!”



And that is dying …



Death comes in its own time, in its own

way.

Death is as unique as the individual

experiencing it.

[AKR]

Wow that's an estate I've not seen or had in a long time. We had a radiant 89 at an eclectic party at the (other) Jay Millers house maybe a decade ago, that was just incredible. Yet overshadowed by a Gran Torres from Penedes from the 60's which I'd never had before. Maybe later a 95 and 98 might have snuck into our glasses. Margaux seems like a good area for the cru bourgeoise. Cambon le Pelouse sticks out in that area.