At some point in your life you receive a special bottle of wine. When you receive it, you generally determine that you’ll save it for a special day or special occasion. I always do that (in thought). Though I am a firm believer in cellaring and hope to one day accumulate a reasonable cellar, my success rate has been quite low. Why? Well, the safe answer is to say that we don’t have the space in our home to do so properly, but the honest answer is, I tend to open them sooner than originally planned. I love wine and I love to drink it.
Jill and I had received a 2001 Tignanello as a wedding present from wonderful friends of ours who are incredibly educated and well traveled in the world of wine. We both looked at it with intrigue and excitement and deemed that we would hang on to it for a lengthy period of time and enjoy this intensely fruity and complex bottle on an evening with great significance. We gave it a nice home in our wine tower which was another lovely wedding gift we received from Jill’s sister and her husband. Though it is a tower that could hold 20 bottles, it has seemed to never hold much more than 2 bottles at a time. I think we may have filled it to 3/4 capacity shortly after our wedding reception. That was due to the genorousity of our guests who insured we weren’t going to begin married life without a few bottles. Thank you everyone!! Once we filled the tower, the nights would pass and before too long there was only one bottle remaining in the tower. It was the 2001 Tignanello. The tower never seemed to fill much after the initial inventory. We’d buy two bottles at a time (sometimes 3 or 4 in hopes we’d rebuild inventory), we’d open one and place the rest snug in the tower. We’d wake up and before I even had coffee, I’d be walking out to the recycle bin, look over at the tower and see one bottle remaining, the 2001 Tignanello.
Last month, Jill and I awoke on a beautiful Sunday morning in June each with a slight grin on our face. We didn’t have anything to do that day and we each knew it. It had been the first day in a while where we really didn’t have a single plan lined up and it felt wonderful. Around 2pm, there was slight overcast and the sky was just about to open up and shower us. Jill and I had the thought to bring out the scrabble board and go head to head. I always whoop her ( haha!). I’m a scrabble junky and she enjoys it as well. Truth is, she pounds me in the ground every time we play. For some reason she always gets the good tiles and I’m stuck with a bench showing 2 I’s, 2 O’s, 2 L’s and an N.
We glanced over at the wine tower and decided to open the 2001 Tignanello and let it breathe. Even though it doesn’t sound like the most significant occasion of our lives, I cherish those moments with my wife and why not open a special bottle on a Sunday afternoon while playing scrabble. Actually, I think the wine helped. I was competing for a while before she dropped a bomb of a word that racked up like 3000 points! If I recall correctly it was spelled QZXJKHS. HA! I refuted the word but Jilly found it in a dictionary. Just kidding…
To sum up the wine: Magnificent. I couldn’t get over the legs on this full bodied masterpiece. They hardly moved and the finish ran the Boston Marathon 3 times. We loved it and it was so good we savored it for almost 3 hours. It was the perfect Sunday afternoon.
I’m guessing it was three or four years ago when my parents decided to clean house and gather some goods to place in a garage sale. My brothers and I got the call that it was first-come-first-serve to obtain any item they were about to pawn off to the public. They’ve resided in the same house in Bethlehem Township for 20 years. Both my brothers and I were raised here through our early teens and college years. Needless to say, they have accumulated their fair share of “stuff” and decided it was time to reduce inventory. There was your typical garage sale merchandise, vases that lost their luster, various furniture pieces, shelving, nic nacs, etc. However, one item caught my eye immediately. It was a fondue pot still in it’s original box loaded with retro images and coloring. It was a wedding gift to my parents 40 years ago. It had its use but ran its course so I decided to take it. I think I’ve used it once at a house party I had on New Year’s Eve two year’s ago. It served as the vessel for some velvety white chocolate fondue. However, this past Friday Sauced used the 40 year old fondue pot at a fundraiser for No Kill Lehigh Valley at the Comfort Suites in South Side Bethlehem to keep our Tomato Confit warm for our Grilled Manchego Sandwiches. It worked perfectly!
In a world of prepackaged EVERYTHING, it’s hard to believe that there is still a group of people willing to wait ten days for great bread. I am one of those people. 
Ever had a late night craving for a HUGE bowl of pasta? Or maybe you’re like me and spent half the day making flatbreads .. and the other half cleaning up! Either way, when I’m not in the mood for disaster #2 of the day, I can always rely on my go-to sauce, 
A late night excursion at 
