My Top Twenty Favorite Moments from the "Old" BWE

[JimHow]

I still say I was set up big time on that '88 VCC moment, Nick. I had Alex and Tim distracting my attention while I was sipping the '88 VCC and '89 Lynch, then Tom calls for an instant poll. It was a conspiracy, I tell you. The classic moment, of course, was when I turned to Tim after tasting what turned out to be the Lynch and saying: "I've had this wine before...."

[PappaDoc]

One of my favorites was the dinner/FEAST that Giovanni made for us at his home the weekend of the 03 Convention. I dare anyone that attended to discribe a meal that they had that topped this. I think we had 12 courses. The wines were off the charts, from Jims 89 Haut Brion, to JScotts 81 Unico, DRCs, 78 Conterno "Brunate" (I think), great White Burgs and off the chart dessert wines.

[tim]

I do recall that, Jim. That was quite a fun tasting, and a classic moment!

[JimHow]

14#. 1996 DRC Grands Echezeaux and Tuna at Gio's House

PappaDoc described above the dinner at Gio's house the weekend of NYC '03. It was an orgy of food and wine. We had about fifteen courses. About half-way through Gio matched a tuna course with a 1996 DRC Grands Echezeaux that Jackdaw had brought to the dinner. I was in absolute heaven, one of my all-time wine experiences. Here is my recounting of that night pulled from a thread on the old BWE entitled: "A Burgundy steals the show (in my opinion) at Gio's Thursday night feast":

.... well, the people and friendships, of course, stole the show.

And Gio's cooking.... What an incredibly generous feast from an incredibly generous man. These are good people up there in Yonkers....

A million thank you's, Gio, I don't know how we can ever repay you.

I highly recommend that all BWEers patronize Fratelli's Restaurant on Main Street in New Rochelle.

PappaDoc has posted elsewhere the multiple courses that were served-- there must have been upwards of fifteen of them, one outdoing the other. Foie Gras. Quail. Lamb. Various fish and shrimp dishes. Creme brule. The legendary wild boar dish. On and on and on....

We had to take a break in the middle of the meal and walk the eight "appetizer" dishes off before going on to the main courses.

Oh, and there were a few fairly nice wines there, by the way....

The '89 Haut Brion did not disappoint-- I was a little surprised at how big it was, but it was remarkably complex, though shy on the nose. The only problem is that we had this as about the 19th wine of the evening! There was a very nice '83 Haut Brion there as well.

A couple pleasant surprises of the night were the '83 Lynch Bages-- much more youthful and concentrated than I expected-- and the '85 Palmer-- Dennis and I turned to each other and said, "Oh yeah, I get it now" about a wine-- Palmer-- that has been heretofore something of an enigma to us.

The wine of the night for me-- indeed, one of the wines of the entire week-- was the 1996 DRC Grands Echezeaux that Jackdaw brought along. Whoa, what balance! Elegance AND strength. I get huge scents and flavors of red cherries whenever I drink great Burgundy, and they were plentiful here, overflowing from the bottle. I drank this nectar with Gio's tuna dish cooked to its pink-center perfection, and was transported to a higher level of consciousness. Magnificent. This young wine was showing brilliantly. One of the greatest wines I have ever had.

There were what, three different Montrachets there? PappaDoc's '71 Germans. A white Ridge. Oh yes, a beautiful 1955 Vouvray that I thought was spectacular-- I declared it the wine of the night after tasting it (but I had forgotten the '96 DRC).

SF Ed called me on my cell phone to report that the cheeses had been delivered safely to Amuse for the Saturday night dinner. The excitement of the weekend was reaching a crecendo. And the hospitality of Gio, his Dad, and all of our friends north of the City-- combined with unforgettable food and wine-- created an evening that will never be forgotten.

Thank you JNells for arranging a ride home. Thank you Gio, PappaDoc, Jackdaw, and everyone else for taking us into your home for a night that will not be forgotten.

Jim

[JimHow]

#13. Timmy McCracken donates his Pontet Canet collection to the BWE cause.

A couple years ago we selected the 2003 Pontet Canet as the BWE Wine of the Year. We sent a congratulatory letter to Alfred Tesseron and met up with him for a Pontet Canet vertical in NYC. In a splendid act of generosity, Tim McCracken donated his entire pontet-Canet vertical-- ten bottles from 1994 to 2003-- to be consumed with Mr. Tesseron. The only problem was, Tim himself couldn't make it due to work schedule conflicts. Tim handed off the ten bottles to Tom in DC, who in turn shipped them to me in Maine, whereupon I drove them down to dinner at the Iroquois Hotel. It was a memberable night, and the Brothers Martin and I hung out with Mr. Tesseron up at the Ritz near the Park. It was the generosity of a great BWEer, Timmy McCracken, that I will always remember most about one of the most memorable evenings in BWE history.

[Tom In DC]

Nic, Nic, Nic.. Methinks thou dost protest too much... Had everyone in the room indeed been "hammered", who would have had the presence of mind to snap the telltale picture?

Joe Belmaati was a great host when I visited Kobenhavyn a few years ago...a true BWE'er!

And the "'07 DC LB/VCC Sting" was really payback for a particularly grueling WWTBAM hostile witness deposition in Chi-town a couple of years before... the BD had it coming, I tell ya!

[tim]

Funny enough, my boss promised me that we would have a fabulous dinner in South Beach Miami since I had to pass up on the Pontet Canet dinner. While it was good, I really wish I could have joined y'all in NYC for it. The guys I work with had no idea what I missed...

[JimHow]

12. The Cross-Examination of Tom-in-DC.

At Chicago '04 we had a dinner on Thursday night where we drank large quantities of wine with names like Petrus, Cheval Blanc, Margaux, Mouton, Lafite, Latour, etc., etc. After consuming significant amounts of these wines, DavidG, Tom-in-DC, and I went to a Blues club around midnight and hung out at the bar drinking beers. At around midnight, I began a cross-examination of Tom about his experiences on a famous game show in which he had been very successful. The witness was hostile. Formidable. Dozens of questions were asked and answered under the heavy influence of fine Bordeaux and beer in the early morning hours in Chicago. It was exhausting. Finally, we realized it was four o'clock in the morning and, it being only the first day of Chicago '04, decided it was a good idea to end the line of questioning. The testimony came out in bits and pieces, but I believe we came away with a clearer picture of what Regis Philbin is truly like behind the scenes....

[Nicklasss]

Jim, when will you add your 11 best moments? I'm not pressuring you, but this is kind of interesting topic.

Nic

[JimHow]

I've been so busy in court this winter! Today I had to represent 15 men in domestic violence court in district court from 8:30-11, then i represented a sex offender in a plea on a superior court probation violation from 11-12:30, then i had to speed back to do 10 bail hearings from 12:30-3:30, then I had an hour to get some court appointment vouchers out, then I met with an OUI client at 4:30, then I went home with a headache. Tomorrow morning is crazy too but the afternoon is clear, gotta go to a birthday party tomorrow night then its up at 5 on Saturday to head to NYC to run errands, buy wine, go to see Natalie Dessay in La Sonnambula at the Met Opera Satirday night, come back Sunday, fortunately next week is administrative week, one of two weeks during the year when the courts are closed except for emergencies, i'll be able to use Monday and Tuesday to get caught up on some overdue paperwork so I can better enjoy DC '09!

[tim]

Following the whoopie pie initiation last night, it seemed appropriate to resurrect this thread and ask for the remaining 11 favorite moments.

[JimHow]

That was indeed a very wild night last night. Holy cow.
Mix whoopie pie, Nic Maltais, and fine northern Medoc in the room together and you get magic.
It's 10am and I'm just getting up and about, I'm going to go down the street to get a bagel and coffee. If anyone wants to join me, call 207-754-3900.

[robertgoulet]

Absolutely loved that story Jim....the hahvahd one that is...though lots of funny stories...may have to attend a bwe convention, b4 Im lost to the burgundy devil!!!

[tim]

Not to resurrect an old thread, but hoping Jim's cases end soon so we can find out the remaining 11 moments...

[Nicklasss]

I'm pretty sure that first dinner at the Zinfandel restaurant in Chicago, in 2001, should be in the top 5.

Nic

[Jay Winton]

and the Mouton dinner we had in Napa would be on my list.

[tim]

It's been another six years since I last resurrected this thread from 2009. And we still don't know what the remaining top 11 moments of the old BWE were for Jim. I guess he has so many new moments that the top 11 have left him?

[Jay Winton]

Roberto, Joe Belmatti. Where are they now?

[marcs]

I'm sure I'm going to miss some, and I welcome BWEers to chime in with their own lists, but here are my Top Ten BWE moments that are coming to mind, among hundreds, from the past nine years.

#20. The BWE Harvard Professors

Back in 2004 we had a young undergraduate from Harvard who joined our site briefly. She invited us to teach a Bordeaux class in a wine class being taught on the Radcliffe campus. I immediately accepted the invitation. i gathered up "the BWE professors": Steve, Josh, Eric, and Mike McNamara. We brought a bunch of beautiful wines: '83 Lafite was in there, '86 Gruaud Larose, there was a great Sauternes in there, oh man, help me oiut profs, I'm drawing a blank, there were some great wines. Anyways, i was really taken by this group of Harvard kids. They were really inspiring. They were young, bright, enthusiastic, completely unpretentious, innocent. Just really good kids. Absolutely no pretentions. They knew nothing about wine. But they were wide eyed and enthusiastic and appteciative. It was an incredibly fun time. Steve gave a little talk about Sauternes. I gave a little background on Bordeaux. I remember referring to the '86 Gruaud as a "big" wine and the students reacted. they loved it! Finally, at one point, I pulled out a 1989 Lynch Bages. I told them this was my favorite wine in the world. We talked it up a bit before pouring the wine. This wine can sometimes be variable. But when it is on, it is as good as it gets, in my humble opinion. On this afternoon, this baby was smokin'!! It was 1989 Lynch at its best. Anyway.... So after we poured the Lynch, and each of the twenty students had a glass, I turned to Mike McNamara. On a whim, without any notice, I said: "Mike, why don't you lead us through this, tell us what we are tasting...." Words cannot describe what happened next. It was one of the most beautiful experiences ever. We had these twenty 21-year-old Harvard kids, sipping '89 Lynch.... Without missing a beat, Mike McNamara went into this incredibly beautiful description of the wine. Swirling it, sniffing it, sipping it. The young Harvard kids-- just great All American kids, no Ivy League pretentions here-- sitting there opened mouthed, soaking in every word of Mikes beautiful descriptions of the wine.

All of the wines were spectacular tht afternoon, but the students came up to us afterwards and kept talking about the 1989 Lynch. we had just given twenty kids their wine epiphany.

It was a great BWE moment!

Wait a second. Not to be overly skeptical here but...one bottle of 89 Lynch divided between 20-22 people gives like a thimble full per person, not enough for a wine epiphany. Was this like a biblical loaves and fishes type situation?

[marcs]

Here it is: Whuzzup - I've Been On A Freeze

Lol I think we could all use this guidance, a shame the link is dead

[Nicklasss]

Maybe it is time to complete that list, as these moments are positive proof of the greatness of BWE?

Maybe i should write mines?