Oenophilia

For one of my recent birthdays, Preston and I went to The Harvest Vine, in Madison Valley, Seattle. Both of us love the hot and cold small plates there, heavily influenced by Basque culinary traditions.

Since this was before The Crash, and I was at that time lighting cigars with currency notes, we decided to get an extraordinary bottle of wine: Vega-Sicilia Reserva Especial "Unico."

I don't speak Wine too well, so I'll turn it over to the folks at Wine Advocate, who gave it 99/100 points:

"The Reserva Especial is a blend of the best barrels of 1990, 1991, and 1996. Purple-colored, it delivers an ethereal perfume of smoke, mineral, scorched earth, Asian spices, black currant, and blackberry. Elegant yet remarkably powerful, this rich, lavish effort seems to linger on the palate for well over one minute."

Hey, I totally resonate with anything that suggests scorched earth. And true to its promise, the wine was amazing, delivering full-on sensations from the first hint of its nose to the massive after-taste. If wine was wrestling, this was the whole WWF, in the ring, at once. Naked.

And, if I recall correctly, it cost exactly one Porsche monthly car payment.

The wine is gone. The Porsche is gone. The memories will never die.