I have to say, that The Caller did an admirable job navigating the pontoon boat on the lake.  The lake that they are on, is a private lake, and I don’t quite understand it totally, but it is like a cooperative and every house on the lake contributes to the health of the lake.  It is a “no wake” lake, so no speedboats, just row boats, canoes, kayaks, small fishing boats and pontoons.  The second bottle of wine, basically lasted for the cruise.  Then we tied up and went back ashore to have dinner.

The Caller’s wife was all excited and made a Creole dish, that she learned how to make, while they were on holidays in New Orleans.  My Bride signed up for a cooking class on one of our trips there, and that may have been an impetus for them.  They had a diploma; my Bride bought an apron from the school that spends most of the time hanging up and displayed on a coat rack in the library. Continuing with the theme of the day, for dinner I opened up a bottle of Korbin Kameron Merlot Estate Grown Moon Mountain District 2015. The Moon Mountain AVA is a very new subregion of the Sonoma Valley, as it was only awarded status in 2013.  The wines were all aged for eighteen months in French Oak, of which half was new.  Production of the wine was three-hundred cases and easily ten plus years of cellaring would be wonderful, but I opened this one a bit early and it was strong.  I am and have always been partial to Merlot wines since my teens, and these were some of the best Merlot wines that I have had with a nose of red fruits and spice, with a taste of lush cherries and a charming silky tannin finish. 

The evening was coming towards the end and out came coffee and freshly filled Sicilian Canolis.  But we couldn’t finish without a dessert wine and I opened up a bottle of Korbin Kameron Late Harvest “Sweet Isla” Moon Mountain District 2018.  We were actually having such a great time, that I forgot to take a photo of the wine, but I had a couple of back up stock photos in my files.  The wine is late harvested Sauvignon Blanc with an addition of fifteen percent Botrytised Semillon. One-week cold soak and fermented on the skins for an additional two weeks to pick up extra color and flavors, called phenolics, which was a really long and cool fermentation for intense aromatics. The wine was aged for eight months in neutral oak. A beautiful wine that was just magnificent and reminded me of a French Sauternes with a nose of honeysuckle, a silky texture offering notes of sweet lemons, apricots and marmalade with a nice long count in the finish. After we said good byes, and reminded ourselves that this was the first real function as retirees.  Thankfully, we remembered how we got to their street, because we had to drive like in the old days for about a half-mile, before the GPS kicked in.