My wife and I flew out to Los Angeles for a long weekend and got together with some of the LA members of the board on Saturday night. The offline was hosted by Pinot Envy and her husband at their home. It sure was nice to get out of the single digit Chicago weather and into the mid 70 degree weather of Southern California. PE put my wife to work and she made a beef tenderloin as the main course. Flubis made a cheesecake for dessert. In attendance were:

Pinot Envy & Pinto
Landshark and wife
Flubis and wife
Red4life and girlfriend
Ron D. Banquer and wife
ArieS
My wife and I

As is customary with the CRS, there was no wine theme but a lot of great bottles. Here is a partial list (I know I am forgetting some):

Whites
NV Chandon Brut (for starters)
1996 Dom Perignon
2002 Wyncroft Chardonnay (served blind)
2004 Alban Estate Viognier
2001 Georg Breuer Riesling Nonnenberg trocken
2002 J. Leitz Riesling Rudesheimer Berg Rottland trocken
2005 JJ Prum Riesling Graacher Himmelreich GKA
2001 JJ Prum Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr GKA

Reds
2002 Lewis Cab
2001 Bressler Cab
2001 David Arthur Cab
2003 Araujo Cab Eisele Vyd
2001 Barton Vale Cab Lazarus
2002 Paloma Merlot
1999 Behrens & Hitchcock Fat Boy
2000 Don Melchor (from mag)
1996 Chateau Beaucastel
1997 Siro Pacenti Brunello di Montalcino
1996 Alenza Ribera del Duero
2001 Barton Vale Cab Lazarus

Dessert
Forgot to write these down. Can anyone help?

I will post notes on these as time permits.

It was great meeting everyone (again for most of you). The wine highlight of the evening for me was trying the 2 Prum GKA's side by side (I must give a thank you to R4L's girlfriend for sharing her pour of the 2001 with me since it was gone by the time I got to it).

Some of the non wine highlights of the evening included the unveiling of Pintos portable and collapsible homemade bar. It really is a wonder of science and craftsmanship. Ron breaking the decanter full of the Melchor on the bar. Not sure if Ron understood what Pinto meant when he said he wanted to christen it. The saving grace was that we salvaged about 500ml of the Melchor. Staying with the breaking theme, Aries broke a pair of stems trying to make a few points talking with his hands in an oh so French manner ("I NEED MORE WINE!" he said as he slams his glass down breaking the stem). PE breaking 3 more stems in the kitchen. Come to think of it, there must be something in the LA water to contribute to this phenomenon. At least nobody fell into the pool. We then had the late night run to replenish the dwindling firewood for the outdoor fire (I think the less we say about that the better).

And lastly a huge thank you to Pinot and Pinto for their very generous and gracious hosting of this event. Of course anyone who knows them would expect nothing less. A truly memorable time. To quote Randy Newman, "I love LA".

VM

Sounds like it was a lot of fun.

Pinot Envy,

How far are you from Santa Barbara? There is a chance that my girlfriend and I will be out there in the fall for my 40th bday.

IW