Hollowine
Posts: 7247
Joined: 7/25/2008
From: Hood River, OR
Status: offline
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Thanks to Eric (schwank) for posting the wines we shared on Friday. It was a stellar night, we were jointed by Joe (arthrovine) and Beau (UCBeau) as well.
The wines were amazing, but the company and how we did up the meal would have made Brad proud. The fact that we went 4 hours and ended up getting most of the corkage comp'd, got into multiple laughing fits (Note to winemakers: we would like to buy up any and all Neutral Wood barrels for a joint venture we hatched over dinner), and I ended up with the most ridiculous 30 min case of the hiccups.
It was a fitting end to a great week of remembering Brad. I started the week being able to spend some time with Brad's wife Lesley in Florida. We shared some great conversations and many tears about Brad. We are convinced he was present with us as we decided to open a 1996 Salon with the Stone Crab claws Lesley picked up, only to struggle and find it took two of us and a pair of channel-lock pliers to get that damn Salon open!
The week continued with some great meals and wines with Dawn (Cookiefiend) and Joe, Franklin (Franklin_10) and Kristin, an unexpected run in with one of my longest friends Frank, then the wines and meal on Friday night with Eric and Harvest, Joe, and Beau. My liver is screaming "time out!" right now, but I wouldn't take back a minute or drop from the week.
S1 relayed a few Brad stories and I thought I'd share one that I hold pretty special, mostly for the effort that would go into eliciting a single "look" or a 10-second reaction...
In his High School/post High School years Brad was actually in a band that was named Mirage. Brad played Bass, there were 4-5 others who played various instruments and did some original compositions. Brad and I frequently talked music, instruments, stereo gear so I found this bit of his past pretty cool.
We had arranged a series of dinners in Vegas a few years back, and one of the afternoons was going to be spent doing a Rhone tasting in his suite at the Wynn. There were several of us in town Lesley, Ismo (Ikkarrienen) and Kim, Tim (wine_strategies), Tom (tacman). We were gathered in Brad's suite and we were discussing the night's pending dinner and what to do after it. I suggested doing something out of the ordinary and going and catching a show at the Mirage, there as a great up and coming band playing I thought we might like. Brad asked who was playing and I said "I can't recall their name, but they have some publicity demo's on the ticketing site" and I proceeded to cue up my iTunes on my laptop where I had loaded the first Album Brad's Mirage recorded in the early 70's. Now at this point, EVERYONE but Brad is looking at me with this music blaring and thinking "I am NOT going to waste my evening listening to that...that..." but the only person I was focused on was Brad, who 30 seconds before was sitting on the sofa in his Tommy Bahama shirt with a glass of Chave Hermitage Blanc and his big ol' boisterous grin he always wore. As the song picked up detail I watched his grin fall to complete dumb-struck neutrality and his eyes locked mine, the words came out as a question, but more like Jack Bauer interrogating a suspect for the location of a suitcase Nuke..."Where did YOU get that? How did you...where did you get that?!"
My response, with the sh!t eating grin that had to span ear-to-ear at this point, was something along the lines of "kinda catchy, eh?"
Brad had briefly flirted with FaceBook for maybe 3-4 months. in that brief time I'd seen he connected up with one of his band mates and his longest friend, so I had reached out to him and been able to obtain a copy of the album Mirage had made.
There are many others random acts of kindness and general tom foolery we were able to apply to one another to make these loops around the sun a bit more enjoyable and to let one another know we might be 3500 miles apart but we were always there in mind and spirit. It still really hurts that he is gone, but his spirit will forever be strong with us. Thanks for joining me for this occasion; it warmed my heart seeing so many great bottles, kind hearts, great stories.
Cheers!
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RE: A toast to Drycab - OTBN 12/16/16 - 
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