Also, I emailed him like a little fan letter and he emailed me back like I wasn't even a troglodyte. It was really nice.
A few years ago? I don't know, somewhere, I noticed Nick had a thing for this stuff, Chateau La Fleur Morange, and also its second wine, Mathilde, both of which he blogs about like ten times, yesterday being the most recent. So what happened was, it just captured my imagination.
Was it the way Nick was so into it? The orange label? The pretty name? That it made me think of Tom Waits? It's silly, all of it, but it's still what connects us to: everything, to life, - all the random, semi conscious associations at play. It's just the way it is and discovering wine is about discovering what connects you to it, something no one can tell you but you.
I couldn't shake the Chateau La Fleur Mathilde so what I did was look it up and found only a few places in this country were selling it, Wine Exchange being one of them, as futures, a mere twenty bucks for what Robert Parker scored a 91-93. So I called them and ordered half a case because I really only wanted one to try but it was half a case minimum.
This was like the most grown-up thing I've ever done. It was funny. I was nervous and stammered. Look what I got! Isn't it awesome? Isn't is just completely pretty? When the delivery came I was so stupidly giddy! I actually haven't tried one yet; I've given two away.
It's cool, from across the pond some guy I don't know swayed me with his unrelenting fondness and now this stuff is here at The Cave and for some reason all this makes me very happy. Almost as happy as this song, which maybe was towards the end of a bottle of this stuff?
PS. Thank you, Nick.