Last night we scrambled home from work to get ready for a visit from our friends Mike & Heather. They live just down the street but because of scheduling it’s never easy to find times that work for our common ingesting & imbibing needs.

They came round bearing meat and cheese, and we opened a special wine we’d brought back from Portugal: a 2003 Niepoort Projectos Chardonnay. It was a beautiful little thing, maybe the wine that convinced Lindsay to like white wine at all.

We followed that up with a local Sauvignon Blanc from Five Rows, since that’s their preferred grape but they’re not used to the Ontario style. We also sent them on their way with a Le Vieux Pin sauv blanc so they could sample the left coast version.

We were supposed to go to dinner afterward, but we were all so full of meat and cheese that we just walked to their place (which had been the dessert plan all along) to admire their beautiful loft, play with their beautiful dog, and drink their beautiful booze. They had, unbelievably, a 2011 Le Clos Jordanne Claystone Terrace Chardonnay. They didn’t know what a rare treat they had on their hands; I practically forced them to open it.

Speaking of unbelievable: after that Mike opened a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and Heather opened a bottle of….some tequila that made me want to give up all other forms of tequila. Then Mike dipped into his beer fridge for some treats like a Prairie Flare and a Lindemans gueuze and I think some other things, and definitely some Portuguese custard tarts. We stumbled home and crashed out around 2:30.

Which made it feel WAY too early when we both woke up around 7:30. The day quickly turned into a jumble of errands, stress, and food, which at least included lunch (finally!) at Khao San Road (excellent), coffee at Quantum, and a visit to the popup LCBO on King West (where I bought the 2013 Southbrook Poetica Chardonnay) before we came home to buy a ton of groceries and pick up some framed prints. If we can stay awake we may or may not take in the Nuit Blanche installations in our neighbourhood.

.:.

Cover photo from the Southbrook website