No, it is not my birthday, but for the young man who selected his own sobriquet of The Wine Raconteur, Jr. when he guest penned a few articles, it was a milestone birthday for him.  My Bride and I were pleased that he invited us for the evening, and I go back with him, since his days at the university.

He turned fifty, and I met him, when he was just starting to show his moxie and we have been in touch ever since.  My Bride and I have seen him get married, buy a home, have children and be successful in many endeavors.  The only thing over the years that I could not request, is at his wedding, when they were asking people to select their favorite dance tune, my Bride and I couldn’t select our bridal dance of “Love is Lovelier, the Second Time Around,” so we went with our alternative “You Make Me Feel So Young,” and he and his Bride have contributed to our staying youthful.  We have adopted each other over the course of years, and there we were, sitting at the Blue Llama Jazz Club and Restaurant with his Bride, his mother and father, and his aunt and uncle.

We also enjoyed a bottle of Giocato Pinot Grigio Goriska Brda, Slovenia 2025.  The wine is made by Aleks Simcic, considered to be one of the finest winemakers in Eastern Europe and the estate is just meters from the Italian border and adjacent to the Colli Orientali in Friuli.  Originally the land was part of Italy, and then after the war, it was part of Yugoslavia and now Slovenia.  The estate is too small, so it is made with an organic collective Vinska Klet, established in 1957, in an area that is referred to as “Little Tuscany.” The soil is like Friuli, being basically “ponca” a clay of salts and minerals.  The wine is pure Pinot Grigio, manually harvested, fermented and aged for two months in Stainless-Steel.  This straw yellow colored wine offered notes of peaches and apricots, white florals and almonds.  On the palate this light-bodied, rather well-balanced wine displayed notes of green apples and pears, with a bit of tropical fruit and ending with a medium-count finish of crisp fruit, almonds and minerals.

The bonus of the evening, and everyone was told to stay after the concert, was a special wine that was poured for the evening in his honor.  It was a gift from his uncle and aunt, while they were abroad on a holiday.  Everyone that evening was poured a glass of Cossart Gordon & Co. Bual Madeira, Portugal 1976.  Cossart Gordon & Co. was established in 1745 and is the oldest company in the Madeira Wine trade.  Bual (or Boal in Portuguese) is the name given to several grape varieties in Portugal and the name give to a style of medium-sweet Madeira.  The grape was known as Bual, but over the years, a common practice was to also use Tinta Negra Mole but historically called Bual.  The grapes are also known as Boal, Gual and Malvasia Fina.  This bottle was a Vintage Bual 1976 and is a single harvest Madeira.  The wine was aged for twenty years in seasoned American Oak casks using the traditional “Canteiro” system, whereby the casks were gradually transferred from the top floors of the lodge to the middle floors, and finally to the ground floor.  The wine would undergo regular racking, until it was bottled in 1998.  A brownish-red topaz- colored wine that offered notes of black fruits and wildflowers, followed by toffee, cigar box, vanilla, cinnamon and other baking spices.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black fruits, but especially in the form of raisins and dates blending with lively acidity and ending with a long-count finish of dried fruit, toffee and a touch of citrus and then pleasant aftertaste of spices.  The perfect ending for the celebration and I hope that if there were any left, that The Wine Raconteur, Jr. took it home and enjoyed a cigar with it, which one can’t do anymore in society.