I now know how famed Parisian, well actually worldwide, chef Guy Savoy felt when he earned his first every three stars and broke down and cried. I felt the same way this morning after former client and friend Ray Haddow of Nokia forwarded me a link to the first ever review of the 2009 Comunicano Wine Company "Double AA" Cuvee, a wine that was first poured at the 2010 IT Expo in Los Angeles, back in 2010 just after it was bottled. Boy has this wine grown up, and it keeps growing.
To my dear friends I wrote a short note which I feel compelled to share here as so many of you have seen, heard or participated (some would say put up with) my wine exploits for so many years.
Last week at CES at the party which Jeff Belk and I now annually host I brought along two bottles of the Double "AA" Cuvee, a wine that I worked along side my very good friend of 20 years Doug Margerum back in the late summer of 2010 at his small but very efficient winery in Santa Ynez. It may be the one place in the world where I can go, and not easily be reached as the cell coverage is non-existant and the WiFi comes from the Curtis Winery down the hill.
Never in my wildest dreams was I ever expecting the wine to be reviewed by a wine blogger so while I remain always pleasantly surprised at comments from my friends like you who have tasted the wine as far back as when it was first released to today, I did not expect the comments from New Orleans based food/wine/travel and tech blogger Shannon Lane to be so emotionally flattering. To say I'm blushing like a bottle of Doug's or my friend Sylvain Fadat's Rose would be an understatement. Since September the accolades have been rolling in about the Double AA Cuvee, and even my wine menu line up for the International Grenache Day dinner from global organizer Nicole Rolet, when the Double "AA" Cuvee was deemed to be one of the best, and best in its flight overall besting another Margerum collaboration by a nose at our 28 bottle, all Grenache wine dinner at Pamplemousse Grille with red, rose, grey and whites.
Then in October, long time wine trade sales director for the Languedoc Roussillion tasting room at the AOC's Mas De Soporta, Bernard Bardou organized a tasting of French Syrahs, all served blind and the Double "AA" Cuvee come out on top. But this review, and knowing what it was poured alongside in Las Vegas, and who made those wines, including some of my true longtime winemaker friends, on top of how a very dear friend selected this same wine at a dinner with two winemaker friends as her favorite recently while up in Santa Barbara, all are bringing the kind of feeling a musician, novelist, filmmaker or athlete gets when they first see their name in lights or in print. It does feel great and as another dear friend who loves wine as much as I do, Ray McKewon, once proclaimed, reading this, I have to echo that statement, "life if good."
But I don't come from the world of "your only as good as your last…….." It wasn't that way in my years in hockey. Nor in my agency. You see, I come from the world as your only as good as your next, not your last, so this spring I'll head up to Santa Barbara and work with Doug to make another wine, and maybe a second with palDavid Corey. It will be a fun event, and one that friends may even enjoy being a part of.
So, as one of my dear friends who have played a part in my wine world in various ways for so many years, especially winemaker and friend Sylvain Fadat who has taught me so much about wine, please savor the moment with me, as I present the first real review of something I'm really very proud of….The 2009 Comunicano Wine Company "Double AA Cuvee."
Thanks Shannon, for making my week start off the right way!
