August 11th, 2019 Vine and Wine

 

Based on the feedback received regarding our August event I have to say that the overall consensus has been very positive. It was a great event that could have been a total bust. An hour before the 1:00pm start time of the event the sky turned gray, it rained and hailed on and off for about an hour. At almost exactly at 1:00 the clouds parted, the sky turned blue and all was good to go. No religious overtone implied. Before the event was over, we had about 60 attendees. All seemed to really enjoy the day. Lots of good comments about the wine. Of the eight wines presented all received good to great praise. Participants also expressed appreciation for the live entertainment provided by Chipper, Kim and Bruce. 

 

The congregation around the Calfee table seemed constant. I figure that it must have been one of three reasons. The wine was exceptionally good, Tom was being exceptionally witty, or Carolyn was being her normal charming self. I tasted the wine. It was good but not exceptional. Tom was witty but not exceptionally so. Therefore……….

 

I am happy that Tom Calfee did not check his humor at the door as I had non too seriously requested. His humor was in full force. If I ever decide to be funny, I will ask him for lessons. I wish I understood how he gets away with his edgy humor. It’s an art. It must be. Maybe it’s the grin on his face when he’s being funny.  I just manage to get myself in trouble when I try to be funny. We’re all familiar with the term stand-up comedian. I think of myself as a sit-down humorist. More like a satirist than a comic. I say sit-down humorist because I find I get myself in less tepid water when I let my humor come out while sitting at a key board. The key board has this magic key called “delete”. It’s in the upper righthand corner. The “lete” part has almost been rubbed out. Wendy doesn’t believe that I use it often enough. Back to Tom, maybe next time we have a big event rather than having live music we can get Tom to do a stand-up comedy routine. Of course, I will have to screen his material in advance. Mike, I bet that you are happy that I now target Tom instead of you. It’s his own fault.

 

I’m thinking, without first discussing it with our Board, that our August event has run its course. The purpose for our chapter holding this annual wine tasting event is to help us meet our nonprofit mission. As in, “help to foster the development of the wine industry in New Mexico”. We seem to be doing it with minimal support from the wine industry of New Mexico. Over the past four years at our August event we have featured about 30 wines from 14 different New Mexico wineries. For the most part our chapter has covered the cost of the events. Over the last six years our chapter has featured wines at our bimonthly (every other month) gatherings from at least twenty of the State’s wineries. Of course, we do not limit ourselves to just New Mexican or even U.S. wines. Our August event is unique in that we make a serious attempt to invite folks that have little to no knowledge of the wine industry in New Mexico. They are quite surprised to find that the wines of New Mexico stand up quite well against the more famous wines of California.