CUPID'S INTERMEDIARY

I am going to be selfish this Earth Day. Not because I am a ruthless jerk or anything like that, but because today is my nine-year wedding anniversary. Today marks the day that nine years ago, I married the love of my life. It was the second marriage for both of us, and maybe the first relationship either of us have gotten right.

What the heck does this have to do with wine? Well, everything actually.

The wine business has become my life during the coarse of our marriage. It's the career path that led me out of a dead-end restaurant career, and the conduit for some very cool travel memories for us both. And then there was the wine that brought us together in the first place: St. Clement Oroppas.

For those that know me, you'd find that pretty hard to believe, because I am not a big California wine fan; my passion revolves around the reds of Piedmont and the Southern Rhone predominantly - generally Italian and French wines. So when I credit a Napa Valley red with influencing one of the most pivotal points in my life, that is a huge statement for me to make.

St. Clement Oroppas is a Napa Valley red that is primarily Cabernet Sauvignon (usually with small portions of Merlot and Petit Verdot) that sees 19 months of aging in new French oak, giving it amazing depth and baking spice characters. It's always been a sublime amalgamation of red and black fruit aromas and flavors that for at least my wife and I, hit all the right points, and pushed all the right buttons.

I still have bottles of this beautiful red blend in my so-called cellar, and the particular night I manage to convince my wife to marry me, there was not 1 but 2 bottles of the stuff drank between us. Needless to say, I got her significantly drunk (I don't think she'd have said yes if she were sober) and the cheesy romantic poet in me was naked and in full-display (I mean that literally).

It was great that we were able to visit St. Clement a few years later, though our pilgrimage there wasn't anything memorable. Yet it was the wine that set us on the path we continue on this very day. And it is the wine that gave us one in a long, succession of happy memories that we both hope will continue long into our golden years.

I hope to pick up a few bottles of the new 2006 vintage to add to our collection, but in the meantime, I can at the very least, send out my undying gratitude to the folks at St. Clement for contributing to the life that my wife and I continue to enjoy, together.

Cheers!