There are certain things that one encounters in life that goes in cycles. Weddings, religious rites and of course graduations, and it is partly from one’s age. My Bride and I have cycled through all of our friend’s weddings, and now we are celebrating the generation of our children and soon our grandchildren. Then enter into that equation the lives of cousins, nieces and nephews and there is always something to celebrate, and hopefully it is all great celebrations. We recently went and celebrated one of my cousin’s twins who graduated from High School.

The weather was most agreeable, even though my cousin had a very large tent erected in the back yard, just in case. It was all fun, they had people grilling food in their front yard, they had an ice cream vendor wagon passing out goodies and they even had a local Coney Island stand passing out the classic Detroit dish. There was food everywhere and everything and everyone was eating. Nothing was left to chance; even the pretzels that were set out on all of the tables were zinged up with added spices. The sweet tables were bigger than some of the weddings I have attended. I also was honored to be asked to lead the dance line when they played some Armenian music, and I guess somebody still thinks that I can dance.

There were coolers also place around with assorted beverages like water and pop; and shades of my youth there was even a keg of draught beer iced down which is kind of derigueur for a party of this nature. I always like to be prepared and take some wine to events like this, because one never knows, and it never hurts to take wine to any party. The first bottle that I opened was one that we had bought at a wine tasting event the year earlier, and I wanted to see if I still approved of the selection. It was a bottle of Terra d’Oro Pinot Grigio 2014 from the Santa Barbara County district of the Central Coast of California. Terra d’Oro Winery began life as Montevina Wines in Amador County and now they are part of the much larger Trinchero Family Estates of wines. Terra d’Oro which means Land of Gold has basically developed into a winery that they refer to as Calitan, or California-Italian, and hence they basically grow Italian varietals. I have to say that the wine was just as refreshing as I had remembered it to be. The other wine that I took, not knowing what the menu would be was a bottle of red wine that I had received as a Christmas present from a customer. The bottle of Mazzoni Rosso di Toscana 2011 was just a nice and smooth bottle that seemed to pair well with the barbequed meats that day. This wine is one of those “Super Tuscan” wines that are always on menus nowadays as it carries the Toscana IGT appellation, which may be the largest IGT in Italy. It is a blend of Sangiovese and Merlot, hence the IGT designation, because Merlot is not a native grape of the region. Some people that I have talked to like to call wines like this “French” Rosso di Montalcino; one of the famous red wines from Tuscany and made from the Sangiovese grape. To be truthful they are both great drinking wines, so we were very happy with the wine that we had. We just have to wait for the next party.