Please bear with me, as I give some background exposition, before I get into the actual stories about wines.   This is all to set the stage for my discoveries and to explain why I enjoy the grape so much.

My earliest recollections of being around brewed beverages were in the local establishments in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario (as my family was originally from Canada).  I think that were times when my father would “baby sit” me as a child, so he dragged me around to see his friends.  Those days were the days of shells, perhaps a Canadian term for draught beer, or draft here in the States.   They would order trays of shells, as they were a nickel or dime depending on the “exclusivity” of the establishment, so why bother the server for a glass at a time, when one was thirsty.  You have to remember that at that time, people believed in the bill board advertising “Drink Canada Dry” and they always tried.

In Canada back then there were Taverns and Bars, I believe these were the legal terms for them.  One only served beer and were men only places, women could enter accompanied by a man.  The other was a place for both sexes and it served whisky and other hard drinks as well as beer.

Since I was a child, I really should not have been there, so if the local gendarmes would walk in, I would become a coat rack that is all the coats and jackets would be piled on top of me, and my glass of coke would be left on the table.  I still smile when I think of the times when I was a clothes rack, and remember the heady days of being one of the boys with my father.