It’s been a long time… you thought I left you
Thursday, August 21, 2008
It’s actually been quite awhile since I wrote the last
diary entry, and in that time, I really have been busy. I
am trying to negotiate several business deals, have
attended a very nice event in Baltimore (The Baltimore
Chefs and Wine Extravaganza; or something like that), been
to at least four wine tastings, and discovered and tried
some new things. And of course, I made a lot of
connections along the way.
For the last two weeks, I have been inundated with
things, so I have been lax in adding reviews, but I did add
three of them yesterday. I am thinking about adding
another aspect to look at wine on the site, and I will have
the figured out by the end of today and implement it by
Monday. Additionally, I have been thinking to move back
the contest drawing date to the beginning of November, as
to also promote the website while I am at the Congressional
Black Caucus this September.
But the biggest thing has been in having the attitude to
keep going on no matter what. As I said before, this is a
totally independent effort, for which it is being funded
out of pocket, and that’s not always an easy thing,
especially when one is not rich and has no patrons; maybe
I’ll have to start putting my photography out there again.
However, I did receive a good feeling that I was still
doing the right thing, while stopping in on a bartender
that I know last night. The plan was for me and another
bartender to hang out at a new restaurant called Maia,
which is located in Villanova, PA. Another bartender that
we know and love currently works there. The décor of this
place is fantastic, both inside and outside, and it’s in a
great location; right at the intersection of two major
thorofares. As I perused the wine list, I was surprised to
see that they had Ironstone Obsession Symphony, a lovely
sweet wine that I have been drinking for at least five to
six years. In fact, this was only the second place for me
to ever see it carried. I was introduced to another former
co-worker of Timmy’s, and we got into a nice conversation
of wines, what the place he works at carries, and I gave
him some good suggestions and resources of some other
things. By the end of my time there, I had also connected
with Rich Furino, the general manager of Sullivan’s
steakhouse. I can’t remember how our conversation started,
but it was a good one nonetheless, comprising talk of a
very good Masi Amarone, other Masi wines (I just happened
across their Modello Bianco Delle Venezie) such as their
Masianco and their Campofiorin (it needs another five years
of aging in the bottle). We talked of dessert wines, and
of what each other did, and exchanged business cards.
In that time at Maia, I felt a renewed sense of purpose
in what I am doing, or attempting to do, or slowly
accomplishing, whatever you want to call it. It was great
to be able to just sit there and talk to people in regards
to wine, and our choices and loves, regardless of race,
sex, color, creed, gender or agenda, which is what I want a
lot of us to feel and do, no matter what we are.
After that, I took a drive down to Panorama and had a
couple of glasses of vino and chatted with the bartender
and the owner. While at the bar, I happened across a
couple that contained/featured a woman who used to bartend
at Panorama herself. Our connection was a wine from
Australia called Lilly Pilly, which I had never heard of,
but when looking at it on the menu, it said that it was a
noble wine. I remarked that I had just written an article
on dessert wines and guessed that that must have been the
noble rot method. She replied that the Australians can’t
necessarily be trusted in their labeling system, and
identified the two wines on the list from there that did
use the noble rot method (for those that don’t know, it is
a way to remove water from a dessert wine i