What will you drink tonight (SFJoe birthday version)?

I think that I'll have to open something from Mike Dashe, which I think would be apropos. Or perhaps a CRB wine.

Mark Lipton
 
Nice, Mark. You probably don't, but I owe my introduction to those wines also to him.

(If i still had a half-bottle of the Roumier Chambolle and the 750 of M-C spatlese i was drinking the night we met in January of 2000 (or was it '99?) at the bar at the old Slanted Door on Valencia, I'd open those too. (Imagine my surprise when I heard a voice over my shoulder say, "How interesting. I had those exact, same two bottles here last night." It was an excellent harbinger, and conversation opener. Then it turned out we'd been fighting over who got what from the allocations of FXP, Prager and Hirtzberger for years; always half hearing about the other guy, but never having met. Credit to Mark E's wine list, and Charles Phan's cooking.))

(insert wistful emoji here.)
 
An offline many moons ago in San Francisco where Joe brought a couple of 97 Austrians,and I was so impressed I bought a bunch for our store in Manhattan Beach. That was way before they were accepted in the LA area and the wines ended up in the bargain bin or in my cellar. Joe for years always asked how the store was doing with those "old" Austrians that I had cornered the LA market with. In retrospect I wish I had bought more for myself. Just about out of the vintage.
 
2007 Huet LHL Franc de Pied Demi.

Because of the time we drank the 1921. And then, on other occasions, all the "younger" ones from the '40s, '50s, and '60s.
 
Tonight it's Hetch-Hetchy's finest, alas. But will open one of my last 02 Huet petillant 1st release this weekend.
 
I'm not opening anything.

I'm still really angry.

That's on me, I know. I know it's neither fair nor kind. But that's where I am.
 
It is daylight robbery to be denied his company, but just as misery in Africa does not invalidate arts grants in Philadelphia, down here we opened a 2006 Anglore Traverses, last wine I took to his house.
 
Last night we decided to open a 2009 Clos de Roilette to go with grilled quail and assorted sausages. The grilled quail immediately brought me back to a night in 2005 when Joe had a party at his SF pied à terre. Jean and I were then living in Berkeley on sabbatical with our 4 month old son, so we schlepped out there with the baby strapped onto me in Baby Bjorn for a totally surreal jeebus experience. There was quite the mix of people that night. Fatboy was there, as was Mark E and assorted CA Therapy patients (FMC, Jon Cook and Kyra) and Joe was out back on the deck grilling quail. I recall a CRB Franc de Pied as well as a magnum of Huet Petillant that had some connection to fb IIRC. While I was hanging with Joe at the grill, one of the Russians loitering nearby broke into a short declamation of poetry. It was left to Joe to explain the joke to me: it was Mayakovsky's famous lines about "eat pineapples, chew on quail/your last day is coming, Bourgeois!"

Last night the quail was good, but not as good as those Joe made us. The Roilette, OTOH, was singing: silky, light on the palate, floral with a distinct mineral tinge. Jean, a noted Coudert skeptic, loved the wine. It was hard not to think that Joe was there, offering it up while complaining that it was still too young.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light,
Mark Lipton

ETA: A lurker has written to inform me that the Mayakovsky incident actually happened earlier, at Sasha's 40th birthday party in CT. I must have mis-recollected Joe's relating that story to me as he grilled the quail that night. Apologies all around.
 
I miss Joe quite a bit, and I only knew him 'virtually.' The gap he left in his close friends' lives must be hard to heal. Life is a puzzle sometimes, and sometimes a painful one.
 
originally posted by kirk wallace:

(insert wistful emoji here.)
Click to expand...

This.

Had dinner at Rue Cler last night with my parents. Bongran and Texier to drink. I know he would have enjoyed both and I miss him.
 
God, I remember the story about Sasha, Maykovsky and Joe. I still occasionally quote the line. Like Ian, I mostly knew Joe virtually, though I met him twice or so. Given how much I miss him just here on this bored, which he regularly made a board, I can't imagine how much the people who were his friends miss him. I grieve for you all.
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:
I'm not opening anything.

I'm still really angry.

That's on me, I know. I know it's neither fair nor kind. But that's where I am.
Click to expand...

I wish someone would explain the anger.

There is very much anger, and some loose and traveling anger, and I don't understand.

I cry. I feel sad and cry.

I drank some good things yesterday, and I was pulled out of my sadness and a lot of crying for a span.

Kirk Wallace was god's own company, as many know.

2010 Prévost La Closerie was doing its 2010 business, a more talented sibling to the overripe 2009 and struggling 2011, a balance, and the gorgeous thing that we all loved;

2012 Clos Roche Blanche Gamay was Pineau d'Aunis on the nose and full frontal Gamay on the palate, and a worthy stand-in for a no longer available wine adored of Joe in that vintage, L'Arpent Rouge. It had a pitch-perfect gamay going on on the palate;

2000 Eric Texier Côte-Rôtie was a kind of hand on the shoulder to other vintages enjoyed together; both perfect as it was, with ideal weight and texture, a texture that was grainy and perfect. And, fuck it, also a kind and rebounding reminder of other bottles.
 
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