Summers at the Lake and in Chicago

Like superheroes, every good blogger needs to have an origins story - some explanation as to why they do what they do. In the case of superheroes, there needs to be some explanation as to why some individuals have all the powers of a spider, dress up like a bat to solve crime or fight for Truth, Justice and the

 American Way, even though they are from Krypton. For bloggers, we need to have a ready explanation as to why we choose to devote so much of our free time to maintain and update our little-read blogs, to obsess over a certain subject and find interesting ways to present our take on topics we deem interesting to whatever audience may or may not be reading it. With that in mind, here is a brief excerpt from the origins myth of BeltwayBacchus:

Last May I had a business trip to San Francisco. Caitlin flew out to join me and we spent a long weekend in Napa. While we both enjoyed wine before the trip, exploring some of the country’s, if not the world’s, greatest wineries gave us both a newfound appreciation for the nectar of the vines. We began to understand the difference between good wine and bad wine, how the right wine can make even the best food taste that much better, and both became hooked on learning, drinking and enjoying as many different types of wine as possible. One of the wineries we went to, Summers Estate Winery, was like something out of a storybook...Provided that the storybook was written for wine-loving twenty-somethings and didn’t have a moral or life message. Still, between the classical music that the proprietors played, the bocce courts, the beautiful scenery, and the word-class wines that we were able to drink, we started down the road less-traveled - by car, anyway. That experience led to the birth of Beltway Bacchus.

So Summers Estate, thank you for contributing to my evolving obsession with wine and wanting to share what I know with the world. Or at least the 75 or so who have chosen to read this blog up to this point. While we were at Summers, one of the wines that we tried was their 2006 Charbono. Charbono is

a rare varietal - less than 100 acres are dedicated to its growth and cultivation - yet it is certainly worth trying. The 2006 Summers has a full body, and has hints of plumbs, currants and pepper in both its smell and its taste. It is well proportioned and, at least in my experience, had the chameleon-like ability to accompany whatever we were eating along with it.

Caitlin and I have recently had the two bottles that we have been holding on to, one with her parents over the Fourth of

 July holiday and one with my parents last weekend when we were in Chicago. It is only natural to share good wine with close friends and family and both weekends gave us the perfect excuse to open up some bottles of wine that we have been kept for more than a year, which must be our new record.

At Caitlin’s parents’ house, we drank it on the deck, overlooking Owasco Lake and drank it with crackers, cherries and cheese curds to nibble on. At my parents’ house, we drank it before going out to dinner. My parents’ kitchen is under construction, so we were in the living room trying to listen to Pandora over the hum of their old refrigerator.

In both instances, the wait was worth it, and those we shared it worth enjoyed it. Both Caitlin’s mom and my dad commented that it was, “very, very good.” I couldn’t agree more.