There are often times when we celebrate totally good memories and there are times when we celebrate memories; on this particular day we celebrated the latter. A very dear friend of ours had a tragic moment in her life, and we have been at her side, from the first day. She has created a foundation to help some students and has held golf outings for this endeavor, but on this day, there was a barbeque that was held for her family and close friends.

Even with the solemnity of the occasion, everyone got together to remember the good times and for the future. It is too hard to continue to dwell on the past and our friend wanted a day of joy, instead of sadness. She held a barbecue for the event at one of her friend’s home, who had a pool for those that wished to partake of it. There were appetizers all over the kitchen area for people to enjoy earlier in the day, as people took it upon themselves to bring assorted dishes to help out for the dinner. In fact there were so many choices prior to dinner, that if one wasn’t careful, there would have been no room left for the barbecue. I mean who could not enjoy having shrimp, hummus and guacamole all afternoon, plus all sorts of other small plate items. The designated “chef” was busy at the barbecue grilling chicken to finish off the dinner after several hours of grazing all of the small plates. Then of course one had to save room for the cakes and pastries that showed up after all the dinner were done.

There were also plenty of beverages for the guests to enjoy from soft drinks, beer and wine. There was a huge assortment of wines to choose from, but since this was a beautiful summer day, I went with white wine, and in particular, I sampled a couple different bottles of Chardonnay and I tried to mention to some the differences between the two. The first bottle was Acacia Chardonnay Carneros 2012, a classic buttery type of Chardonnay from California. Carneros is one of the oldest areas that was used originally for grape growing and wine making and they have their own AVA and is a subset of the larger Napa Valley. The grapes for this wine is grown at Acacia’s Lone Tree and Winery Lake Estate and the wine is aged for about ten months in oak, and it shows the classic buttery taste of the Chardonnay wines that Napa Valley became famous for. The other wine was from France and showed the crispness that I tend to associate with Chardonnay from the Old World. The bottle of Louis Latour Ardeche Chardonnay 2013 is from the IGP Coteaux de l’Ardeche from the northern Rhone Region. The IGP designation has replaced the old designation of VDP which used to mean “table wines.” In fact the IGP Coteaux de l’Ardeche actually has three AOC designations; Saint-Joseph, Cornas and Saint-Peray. The firm of Louis Latour is a large and well respected negocient and known for some great wines as well as for wonderful affordable wines as well. The Ardeche Chardonnay is an example of a wine that has been aged for around ten months in Stainless Steel vats and this imparts a crispness that is totally different then if it had been aged in oak. Some people didn’t even realize that the two different bottles of wine were both Chardonnays, because of the marked difference and had only gone to these wines because they were chilled and white. It was a beautiful day to celebrate a memory.