Granted that today, many people may not recognize the name Jack Benny, but if you do, you remember a great comedian, who created two images of himself that will be forever etched in one’s memory.  One is that he was the most frugal men in show business, and as a kid I can still remember when he picked up his trousers and realized that his slacks were missing a quarter, and it took almost a half hour to get to that punch-line.  The other image was that he was always thirty-nine years of age, which considering that he was a star or a head-liner (back then) when my parents were children; even I as a kid knew something was wrong.  Well, we had a niece that was in town for the holidays and they threw her a surprise “Thirty-nine and Holding Birthday Party.”  And no, she was not born in Waukegan. 

Her mother and her aunts were the co-conspirators of this plot, and it fell apart a day or two before, but that does happen.  We were all meeting at a pub, that is a local chain, and it was near the university that she received her doctorate; so, there were some of her former schoolmates as well.  As Jack Benny used to say “Age is strictly a case of mind over matter.  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter” and that was a logical theme for the night, where the majority were past the demarcation line.  The party was a casual affair of pizzas and salads.  As soon as we got there, ahead of the guest of honor, I went over to the bar, as we were in a private room, off to the side, and I ordered a bottle of wine and some wine glasses for whoever wanted a glass of wine at our table.  I went with something safe that everyone would know Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay California 2022.  We use to always have it at the house for company, because sometimes it is easier to go from strength, instead of trying to explain the virtue of the wine being poured.  The late Jess Jackson started the winery in 1974 and his first vintage was in 1982.  I once heard a statement that I will paraphrase that “people tend to talk about dry wines, but that they prefer some sweetness.”  From what I have read his first vintage under his own label was not a true dry Chardonnay, so he labeled it a “vintner’s reserve” and it took off from there.  He was an attorney, but he was a marketing genius.  The fruit for the Chardonnay comes for the cool, coastal regions of California.  The wine is aged in oak barrel, which adds note of vanilla and butter to a fruit forward wine.  It is probably the first wine that people in America think of when they think of Chardonnay.  A pretty golden-yellow wine that offers notes of tropical and citrus fruits.  On the palate the tones of pineapple, mango, honey, vanilla, and butter with a decent finish of toasted oak; all blend into an easy drinking wine that is very food-friendly.

While I was holding down our table, my Bride, one of the co-conspirators was flitting around all the tables and taking her camera, she is rather a self-appointed historian for the entire clan and she produces DVDs of events to give out at later dates, plus she is big on creating photo albums filled with her photography that she gives to the honoree.  While she was out and about, she stopped at the bar, and purchased another bottle of wine, but she thought she would try a different wine at our table, so we had Carmenet Reserve Vintner’s Collection Chardonnay California 2021.  Carmenet Reserve is based at the family-owned Forest Lake Vineyard in Lodi and they began making their wines in 1983; they are marketed by the Bronco Wine Company.  There slogan is “half the price, yet twice as nice.” The wine is a blend of eighty-eighty percent Chardonnay, six percent Sauvignon Blanc and six percent “Proprietary Blend.”  A pretty golden-yellow wine that offered notes of apple, banana and vanilla bean.  On the palate a crisp balanced wine that offered tones of melon, citrus and buttered popcorn.  This wine proved to be a hit at our table, as another one appeared a short time later.  Since, I started with Jack Benny, I shall end with one of my favorite hallmarks of what a man he was, because he arranged to have a rose delivered to his wife each day after his death, until her death, almost nine years later; not bad for a stingy guy that was always thirty-nine and billed himself as the “Original ‘Old Blue Eyes.’”