I use this saying to my wife and hopefully in my life - if I say I am going to do something I do it. And I am back blogging on a daily basis. Before I get to the wine I drank today let me spend a minute on parenthood and children. I have been blessed to have two great sons and equally lucky to be surrounded by family, friends and coworkers that also have great kids. To me one of my great joys in getting older is watching all of these children mature and become great young adults. I am so proud of both my boys - they are doing great in school and on the path to becoming great adults and hopefully making a difference in the world. It's also great watching their friends grow up as well and even the children of my friends and coworkers as I mentioned above. Kids are graduating from college and high school. More recently I am so impressed with the resiliency of my friend Ken's two kids. As I mentioned yesterday Ken suddenly died about two weeks ago. Certainly incredibly traumatic for his family and two kids. Yet I couldn't be more proud of how they have responded. Nicole his daughter will graduate from college this May. And his son Peyton was back in goal for the El Paso Rhinos yesterday and got the win 8-2 over the local DFW Junior Stars team. So great to see all these kids respond so well to the challenges they face in today's world.
So on to wine - yesterday I decided to cleanse my wine locker of "average" wine to create more space for better wine. So I brought home and put into non-refrigerated storage about a dozen Joseph Phelps non-cab wines. I love JP and their Insignia and Backus are two of my most favorite wines. However the downside of being a member in certain clubs is receiving wines we are less excited about - namely the JP Pinots from Freestone and Pastorale and Quarter Moon. I have about a dozen of these wines and while I love pinot these bottles have never really thrilled me. But today, since I was grilling burgers I decided to open a 2012 JP Freestone pinot that I brought home yesterday. From my perspective this is an average to pretty good (not real good and certainly not great wine). Probably about $50-75 so certainly not cheap as well. Before grilling, upon opening it was ok, but it became more drinkable and actually paired well with the burger for dinner (which BTW was a spectacular burger - a cowboy burger from Central Market for us DFW folks). Also went well with my rosemary french fries. So I guess the moral of my night was average to good wines can be paired with simple dinners to create a very enjoyable experience. Cheers to not being a wine snob today.