Friday Aug 29 – 8:00 PM
Once again, the old man, IWG, has left me in charge. What an idiot! He knows there are some old bottles, standing up in his wine room, which are pretty close to my birth year. I have already texted my friend down south to see if she wants to come up and raid the room. I even saw a bunch of old Brunellos from her birth year, 1975. I think they’re both ready.
So he goes and abandons ship, says this month really kicked him in the butt, gotta get away, sun and water and wine and friends. OK, so go, nobody reads your damn blog anyway, get on down the road, Viejo, we can handle it around here for a few days wi-chout-cha.
I bet you’re all dying to know, what’s up with the “intern?” I have long ago given up that title, even though IWG still thinks of me as his find. I am so not part of his world anymore, I’ve learned all his mysteries, and I gotta tell you, when he’s running around town saying “ I gotta get more cowbells,” I think we should “make the call", if you know what I mean.Speaking of running around, IWG seems to think he has everybody fooled into thinking I am some figment of his imagination. He says he already set it up on some older post, just so nobody would offer me a job or a column or book deal. Well, ask the old man’s Sicilian Godfather. Every time I go over there to take him some Googootz or pomodorini from my garden, he livens up a bit. Doesn’t seem to think he’s imagining me. I don’t know why IWG thinks he can claim me as his own. Nobody owns Bea.
Saturday Aug 30 – 11:00 AMI got a text from IWG last night when he landed. I didn't pay any attention to it till now, Great, what’s for lunch and how well will it go with that last bottle of 1990 Cristal that we be chillin’ up?He wants to talk, says he had a breakthrough. Just another latent and left-behind mid-life crisis that is haunting his oh-so never-will-be-middle-aged keister again. Look it up, he used it. Said one of his friends in the Hamptons uses it. There are very few who are worse name droppers than IWG.
Now he is torn, ‘cause he gets this call trying to bribe him to come into the city for a tasting of old wines , journalists just back from their trips, old Italian wines, ready to go. Spume-man is back in SF and the grand poobah nephew of the great sci-fi guy, well he’s still M.I.A. And that pretty well much cover all his friends. At least the ones he think he’s got left, if you don’t include those whack jobs out in Albany and Nyack.“No, not those,” he says. “Big ones, really, really big ones. Influential in their own circles. Critics, auction houses, European folk.” Ok, so what? Go.
He said he felt like he was abandoning his hosts on the “island”. Give me a break, they’d love to see him go I left him at that. The bubbly was ready and we had figured out how to make Croque Monsieur with some ancient Fontina and Speck he brought back from his last trip. That should go down real good with it. Now, let’s see where did he put the SPF30? The sun is high and bright.
Why is it something like a 1937 Carmignano so interesting? It’s old, like IWG, that must be it. Hell, I’m digging into old, right here in the wine room; have that 1975 Lisini Brunello lined up and am looking at a 1979 Schloss Schönborn Erbacher Marcobrunn Riesling Spätlese for sometime après swim and sol. Let IWG suffer in Suffolk, tonight friends will come over and we will par-tay.
Sunday Aug 31 – 9:30 AMI told him to not call me before 10. He said he waited until 10:30. Technically, for him, he was right. But I wasn’t ready to hear about his old wine conquests. Our party lasted until 2:30 and some folks crashed around the many beds, while others just split for more private surroundings. I have an aunt of one of the friends who has a cleaning service, he’ll never know. Like he can see anything outside of his own drama? That’s the Mother Lode of Life Theater, boys and girls. Believe me, he’ll never, ever, know.OK, now he’s all happy, ‘cause he got them to let him take the driver to drive him into town and wait for him, in time to back for some truffle dinner in the Sound. Sounds like he double dipped the elite-class. Good for him.
So it was old Italian for lunch and old French wine for dinner. And there’s still Monday, which he says, in honor of the holiday, will be a tasting of old California wines. I hate him, truly, truly despise every bone in his body. Which is growing ever larger by the day.
Check this out and puke with me ~ His Italian lunch:
1979 Salice Salentino - Malfatti
1978 Etna Rosso - Torrepalino
1976 Morellino Di Scansano - Francheschini
1982 Le Pergola Torte
1979 Tignanello
1979 Sassicaia
1969 Barbaresco Riserve Speciale - Calissanp
1968 Monfortino Riserva - G.Conterno
1961 Chambave Rouge - Ezio Voyay
1937 Carmignano Capezzana
1936 Est !Est!!Est !!! Amabile – Lampari
His Majesty's Truffle dinner and French wine menu:1966 Margaux
1966 Cheval Blanc
1964 Mouton Rothschild
1962 Petrus
1959 Ausone
1953 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Bonnes Mares ( magnum)
1928 and 1929 d'Yquem.
I’m so glad we drank his freekin' 1990 Cristal, sister.