I guess it's official now (ESJ)

Steve we did a visit/tasting with you at your house probably 15 years ago - loved it - thank you for the passion and inspiration...
 
thanks, Michael; my only concern, at this point is hypertension. Maybe largely because I like wine so much. Maybe turning 77 will be an issue, but, considering the alternative, I'll take it. Having lots of people in my life that I really enjoy is definitely a big plus.
 
Best wishes and thank you for making wines that made a difference. I was lucky to try some of the 90s Syrahs, well aged. They were magical.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
Thanks, for all the kind words; I feel both honored and moved. The "retirement" decision was made due to events that had nothing to do with anything I could control. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in '20, a biopsy in '21 that called for treatment, surgery for that in '22, which was successful, but left me feeling little confidence that I'd have the stamina demanded for a harvest, so I didn't crush in '22. Then, just a year ago, Last March, Cornelia fell and broke her hip, and after surgery and a couple months in rehab, something went awry with the hardware from that surgery, and she had to have a second surgery last July. (It's only in the past few weeks that she's become reasonably mobile) At that point Didn't feel I could be unavailable to her for more than an hour or two at a time, so I made no wine in '23, either. I'll be 77 this August, and we've had next to nothing in sales the last two years, so it really makes no sense, at this point to think about doing it again. In addition, a month ago, Ron Mansfield, with whom I worked starting in 1988, my primary grower, died a month ago (He was 76, too) from Parkinson's. I think I was feeling like life was telling me something I needed to hear. I fell like I've been exceptionally lucky to have had the opportunity to find really special grapes, grown by really special people, and really special customers and fans that have made my last 40 years just about as good as they ever might have been for anyone. And it seems like some of the wines we put into bottle might be around longer than I will. Thanks to all.
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Sorry to hear of your woes, and hope things get better. You have left many with great memories of wines and events, and had a much wider influence on the industry than your production and media coverage would suggest. When Rhone or "emerging" varieties are discussed, your name often pops up.
 
I always remember Manuel stating about 25 years ago that there's no good wine coming out of CA.

I replied, "But what about..."

He interrupted me with "Yes, yes, Edmunds St. John. But they're the exception that proves the rule".
 
On another board, I learned that the silliness of this expression as we usually use it results from our ignorance of the original meaning. Imagine that you are sitting in a classroom and you ask for permission to leave your seat because you have to go to the bathroom. The teacher says she'll make an exception and allow you to leave your seat. Since she is making an exception, allowing you to leave h seat to go to the bathroom, that proves that there is a rule against leaving your seat, whether or not it has been explicitly stated. Thus the exception proves the rule. The way Manuel and all the rest of us use the phrase, it's just an example of an older adage: when reason against a person, the person will be against reason.
 
The teacher example set me to thinking, of course, which as a general rule is tiresome but, in this case, wasn't, thereby proving the general rule.

My conclusion is that my objection is really to the use of the word prove. In science, as we know, rules do not allow for exceptions, and there are proofs that underpin these rules. The sum of the interior angles of any triangle will always be 180, period. Social rules, in contrast, commonly allow for exceptions. Thou shall not kill is a subjective social rule, but an equally subjective exception is made for cases of self-defense. But does the self-defense exception prove the rule Thou shall not kill? Can a subjective social exception ever prove a subjective social rule?

My objection melts away if, instead of the word prove, we were to use words like demonstrates, suggests, indicates, or points to. By nature, subjective rules are subject to exceptions, and since the teacher in the example above is making an exception, that would demonstrate/indicate to the unwary that there is a rule against leaving your seat. But it seems to me always tautological, and therefore meaningless, to say that a subjective exception proves a subjective rule. In the case of the student, it simply reveals a permissible exception, previously undisclosed, that has now been disclosed, and nothing more. If the teacher had said "no exceptions allowed," there would have been no exception made, yet the existence of the rule would still have been revealed (but not proven).
 
The full sentence would be that the exception proves that the rule exists-- because you can't have exceptions to rules without the rule existing in the first place. Science is concerned with causes not rules. Rules can be broken;an example of a cause and effect connection cannot, or it is not a cause and effect connection. The commandment example would show what I was saying if the commandment were something like thou shalt not prosecute someone for killing in self defence, which, regardless of the explicit content of any other commandment, shows that some kind of killing is against some rule and that such a rule exists. Put more economically, you can't have an exception to the rule without having the rule in the first place: the [existence of the] exception proves the rule [exists].
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Put more economically, you can't have an exception to the rule without having the rule in the first place: the [existence of the] exception proves the rule [exists].
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My point is that since the word exception already implies the a priori existence of a rule, it will always be tautological to say that an exception proves a rule.
 
I don't see that an implication is the same as a tautology. But if you wish to rewrite the adage to say the existence of an exception implies the existence of the rule, that's fine with me. I am just saying that the way we misuse the adage is manifestly illogical: the existence of ESJ disproved Manuel's claim that there was no good wine coming out of CA and not the reverse. I think the misuse could be made logical by taking rule to mean rule of thumb and taking the statement to claim that if you can only find one exception to a rule of thumb, then it's still a good, functioning rule of thumb. Alas I don't think anyone means that when they invoke the adage. They just mean what Manuel meant and most of us do mean, which is, roughly putting one's fingers in one's ears and saying nananana.
 
Steve -

i popped into chambers yesterday afternoon for what i thought was a minute and ended up tasting leftovers from your dinner that was hosted a couple of days earlier.
first of all, every single wine was still in pristine shape despite small amounts in bottle and passage of time.
every one of the dozen wines was excellent; most were outstanding.

question about one wine that blew my mind in how subtle and integrated its delivery of its complexity was - a 2001 syrah without a vineyard designation. where is it from - location/soil/microclimate?

thanks and congrats, what an amazing lineup.
 
Thank you, Pavel; I felt both lucky, and immensely relieved at how they all showed.And kind of surprised at how youthful they all were. We had a lunch the next day at Union Square, and two of the wines at that event, were also different bottles of two wines that were at the dinner the night before. (2014 Rocks and Gravel, and 2005 Syrah "Wylie-Fenaughty) Those two bottles were better than the ones from the night before. The 1990 Zinfandel from Brandlin (Mt. Veeder) was much more youthful than I'd imagined it would be; it showed such restraint and elegance! I took that wine to a lunch at Chez Panisse back in the mid-late '90s with Kermit, after he'd told me he'd be bringing an '89 Domaine du Cayron Gigondas. I'd recently tasted the Zin, shortly before that lunch, and was surprised by how much it reminded me of that '89 Cayron. When I walked to our table with that wine in hand, Kermit saw it, and said: "where's the Gigondas?" I laughed and replied; "Wait till you taste this." When he did, he was kind of speechless. Finally, he whispered "this is really good," and a grin spread out over his face.

The 1992 Durell Vineyard Syrah was better than I remembered it. So was the '01 Wylie-Fenaughty.
The '01 CA Syrah was no slouch either.If it lacked a bit of focus, or delineation/detail, I'd chalk it up to being the barrels that didn't make first cut for the bottlings named by source material. Durell, Parmelee-Hill, Wylie, Fenaughty, and Rozet Vineyard in Paso. (Source for Los Robles Viejos bottlings in '00 and '01. Rozet is clay-limestone)
 
Yesterday, another friend and I celebrated a joint May milestone birthday celebration. We have many of the same friends. We figured herding cats twice in the same month would be near impossible. There were about 30 people so magnums were suggested, but we didn’t care. We just wanted it be a great party and it certainly was! Besides the '54 Rioja I opened, my birth year (AGE Bodegas Unidas Fuenmayor, it was soooo good), I finally opened my magnum of '95 Durell Syrah. Steve, it was the most difficult cork I’ve ever dealt with, even with a Durand. It was absolutely terrific. There was still around 500ml leftover which I’m polishing off tonight.

(FYI, I couldn't upload a jpg photo. This error message is displayed: "Errors: No original file specified for moving")
 
originally posted by Larry Stein:
I finally opened my magnum of '95 Durell Syrah. Steve, it was the most difficult cork I’ve ever dealt with, even with a Durand. It was absolutely terrific. There was still around 500ml leftover which I’m polishing off tonight.
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I caught a mini-vertical of 96 and 95 durell among aforementioned samples on saturday. The 95 was indeed superb. The 96 was better :-)
 
originally posted by Larry Stein: I couldn't upload a jpg photo. This error message is displayed: "Errors: No original file specified for moving
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Larry, I get that message frequently. I mentioned it in another thread quite some ago.

. . . . . . Pete
 
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