As a small contribution to sending commercial donation to the Chilean wine industry, I decided to purchase a bottle of Casa Lapostolle CuveeAlexandre 2007 Merlot and share it with my neighbor.



He has had infinitely more experience tasting fine wines than have I, and he takes great pleasure in flaunting it.



Why would I share wine with him (knowing he is going to be extremely critical and take great efforts informing me how much more he knows about the wine)? Well, it's about entertainment as much as about tasting the wine.



First all, I had tasted the wine at the vineyard during a recent trip to Chile and the assistant to the actual wine maker had conducted the tasting....so I felt comfortable in already knowing something about the wine....right from the proverbial horse's mouth - well, maybe the "assistant horse's mouth."



So the opportunity to "share" was really about being entertained.



We sat on my neighbor's patio....I presented the bottle and he inspected the label.



"You know," he proffered, "Chilean wines are notorious for their high alcohol content. If you look here on the label, you will notice it has 14.1%"



After carefully uncorking the bottle, he broke out his prized Tasse de degustation, which he inspected making certain there were no contaminants.....what was he going to find some dust or sand that might influence his first taste? "I see no reason to decant this bottle," he said, "I'll just go ahead and do the honors."



With that, he poured a small quantity into his glass and inspected the color, made a couple of swirling motions and observed the "legs" climb slowly down the sides. After another moment, he poured a small quantity into the tiny silver cup and slurped away.



Then he poured my glass filled to about 1/3 and waited for me to taste. "Good," I offered.



"Good," he questioned, "just good...no notice of the spice notes or the fresh acidity?"



"Nope," I said, "just good....I like it!"



Jointly, we finished the bottle over the next half hour and talked about travel and his upcoming trip to Cambodia.



I told him I hadn't decided where we would be going next, but it would probably be a selection from Luxury Link.











As I got ready to leave, I asked if he enjoyed the wine. "Acceptable," he offered, "not oustanding, but I would be willing to share a bottle in the future with you."



"Glad you liked it" I said .



As I reached for the door handle to leave, he said, "you were drinking the Merlot from a Riedel glass....the O Series and a single glass cost more than the entire bottle of wine."



"Of course," I said and smiled as I left the house - that's entertainment!