The bottles that made one of the greatest somms turned winemaker

For the last 20 years, I've collected some bottles. The ones I've loved. Many have been drunk in other places. Many have been drunk right here in this room. So I'm going to select four bottles. Oof, it's tough to pick four bottles, but I guess if there are four, I guess this would be it. I probably travel, at least I used to travel, maybe 100-plus days a year and taste thousands of wines a year. And over the years, I've kind of saved bottles which have had a special meaning in my life because wine is mostly just a memory. Of course, it's taste, and drinking with friends, family, on special occasions, every day, depends what it is. But these four bottles have a special memory. Three of these four bottles have been drunk right here. Two of them around this house, one of them just up the hill, and one of them many years ago. So yeah, these are four special, special memories. I guess we'll start with the first one. This is a wine we're going to need. It's a Bienvenue Bata Moraché, 1955, from Loire, the Négociante arm of Loire. This was drunk when a few of us went to the closing dinner at Charlie Trotter's, and Larry Stone worked as a sommelier there, his last stint as a sommelier. After he retired, he came back to work for Charlie because that's where his career really took off and started. So he worked for three months, the last three months of the restaurant. And a few of us went there for dinner. You know, I was trained by Larry, and it was kind of amazing to see him work the floor again. And they had a special price on some of the old bottles, and we asked Larry if he should have this wine. He said, I'm not sure, maybe, it might be good. And, you know, so we ordered it, and we drank it. And Larry had a sip of it, and he sat down with us. And then we ordered another bottle of the same wine. So we, like, you know, it was amazing to see your mentor kind of, like, be there and see him work the floor and just be at that restaurant, which was one of the most important restaurants in America, I think. And it closed in such a great way of celebration for food and wine. And what Charlie Twata did for American cuisine is unparalleled today. And maybe people don't realize what a legacy he had and what a legacy Larry had, and together they built such an amazing program in Chicago. The second one here, this is William Salliam 1986 Rocchioli Pinot Noir. This wine, this producer, this person, Bert Williams, who I got to know towards the end of his life. He had a home just right above where we are right now in Santa Barbara, and this bottle was, we drank with him towards the end of his amazing life. And this was his favorite vintage, his favorite bottle he had produced. And I've had a chance to drink this several times with him and without him. But this bottle was drunk with him, and my mom was here from India, and a few other friends, and we drank it right here in Santa Barbara. This wine kind of changed American Pinot Noir because he was one of the first people to make Pinot Noir in this style, and also at the time the most expensive Pinot Noir in America. And he really kind of paved the path for us to produce high-quality Pinot Noir in California. This bottle we drank right here at home, maybe last year. This is from the Canary Islands. This is a vineyard called Magalagua, which is an ancient vineyard, a few hundred years old in the Canary Islands, made by the Envenate boys, and one girl, I guess four of them, four friends who met in school and started this winery, and they make wine in Canary Islands and in Rivera Sacra. So they are amazing because they found this kind of semi-abandoned vineyard, which is a feed blend of different grapes, white and red, and they make this very small quantity of wine. And this vineyard oversees the ocean in this little island off the coast of Morocco. And in my mind, this is one of the most important vineyards in the world, even though Canary Islands is not that well-known. But when you go and see the vineyard and see where they make their wine and how they make their wine in the purest way and just their passion for wine, I think this is like a new benchmark, a new classic in the world of wine. Last but not the least, this bottle was drunk right here a few weeks ago. Our friend Jose Pastor brought it with him. This is one of my favorite producers in the world, if not my favorite producer. Thierry Allemand, 89, Cornat. This was, I think, his first vintage he released. He made wine before, but this was the first commercial wine. I've had this wine with him in his cellar in Cornat several times, but this was kind of amazing to drink it right here at home and kind of feel that energy of the great Thierry Allemand right here. Syrah from the Northern Rhone, 89. And yeah, it was pretty cool to just sit here on the couch and drink this wine. So yeah, there you go. These are not just bottles, because this is right in the mantle at home above our fireplace, and this is something I look at every day. We don't have a TV in our living room, you know. These are memories, living memories. It's just, you know, oftentimes you zone out and just look at what these bottles are. And we rotate them, you know. Sometimes bottles get taken away and trashed, and a new bottle shows up on top of that. So this was a new addition, and something else was removed from that. So there's no, we're not adding bottles. It's just like we remove something, and something else replaces it. So some bottles like this have stayed in the collection for 10 years, and some bottles have just shown up in the last few weeks. So yeah, memories.