With Brandon, QH, Hansel and YP. My birthday dinner at Gabriel Kruether’s private chef’s table, 5 Oct 2022.

Ok wow. couple things.

There was this couple-years window where I was basically a mushroom. If Brandon was around, I relied on him entirely for picking all wines. I never thought about it, never bothered to remember anything we drank. Like a very useless fungus on a Brandon-tree. As a side note, Brandon’s also the person who got me interested in the stories behind winemakers. But that’s another topic altogether.

Anyway. I was looking through my camera and it suddenly dawned on me. He had picked a birth year wine for me back at my birthday dinner. I don’t remember details, but I distinctly rmb being blown away by the wine. Super aromatic. Leathery. Cigar box. Lean, not plush. Distinctly aged with a certain earthy truffle.

It was this. A 1989 Pontet Canet.

I went back to check my Vivino, and I had rated it 4.8, accompanied by a single word: “wow”.

God bless iPhone camera rolls.