A Reminder of Why I'm a Wine Lover
Last night I was reminded in the most glorious of circumstances why I love wine and how wine has enhanced my life.

Steven Fox is a wine salesman for a large NY distributor called Lauber Imports, Steven and his lovely wife Lori are passionate wine collectors and have been for decades, they are also my friends. As part of a little cadre of wine collectors that I host regularly, Steven has affectionately been nicknamed the "white boy" because of his ability to pull from their collection the most amazing white wines, very often upstaging the reds the rest of us snobs put on the table.

Several months ago Steven suggested a wine dinner for our group with one singular goal...to share with people, he knew would appreciate, a line up of the very best Champagnes of the great 1990 vintage, all the wines to be tasted blind(wrapped). The price of entry...that our group pick up his and Lori's dinner tab.

Well, last night I tasted through the who's who of great Champagnes. We warmed up with a list of 1990 Champages that would have been impressive anywhere but then moved on to the elites, the line up of top 10 included Cristal, Krug, Bollinger, and Dom.(BTW: I gave Lori a bottle of our Montraux Brut $32 which is a 1990 from Napa and had her put it in the lineup wrapped...everyone was convinced it was a top Champagne) This was a tasting that easily could have been featured in any of the top wine magazines and the wines were sublime, yet what stood out for me last night was not the wines at all.

As I looked around the room at my group, my friends, and most of all Steven and Lori, I was touched by the generosity and sincerity that wine appreciation brings out of us, for one can not possibly be a serious wine lover with out being an altruist as well. When you have a special bottle of wine that you have been waiting years to enjoy, you simply can not drink it by your self, it must be shared with friends or even strangers that you know share the passion.

There are many wealthy people out there that could afford to buy these wines at current market prices and drink them as if they were spritzers, and most likely these same people would never think to share the experience, Steven and Lori are not rich, they are a hard working middle class couple that could easily have sold these wines at auctions for a price that would have purchased them a well deserved first class vacation to Paris, Rome or Bora Bora. Instead they chose to share their treasure and ten of us are immeasurably enriched for it, for the wine yes, but more so because through the love of wine we have befriended Steven and Lori Fox.

To Steven and Lori....thank you!!!

Sincerely,