The Last Eleven, #4: Chateau Tour des Termes, Saint Estephe 2010
The thing about being an only child is that you get to pick your siblings and collect as many as you want as you go through life to create your own little family. Sometimes you mess up and things change, but sometimes you get it right and knock it out of the park. This is that kind of story.
We met in Social Studies class in 8th grade back in 2007. I'm not even sure how we started being friends, maybe he impressed me in the geography bee. For about five minutes it became one of those awkward middle school "relationships" but that ended as quickly as it started and we went back to just being best friends. Now, as a 13 year old you say things like "best friends for life" without really realizing how much life that actually entails so for the most part you end up being quite wrong. But I guess even then we knew what we were doing because 11 years later he's still the closest thing I have to a brother. Even though we haven't lived in the same town for six years, we still visit each other when we can and stay in touch via texts and pictures of cute dogs on Instagram. I know that no matter where in the world we end up, he's still the kind of person my future kids will refer to as 'uncle' when he visits. I'm really lucky to have someone like that. He came to visit me last week and we had a ton of fun exploring and catching up--it's always cool to show an old friend around your new life.
As for the wine, I got it as a present from my dad after I visited Bordeaux a couple of years ago. I never visited this particular winery, but the guy at the wine shop assured my dad it was tasty so he thought I'd like it. Bordeaux can usually age for a while so I haven't been in a huge rush to drink it, but I popped it open during my friend's visit when we made some beef tenderloin for dinner. And DAMN was it good. We both love to cook and bake and decided for his last night we'd make dinner at home. We got some cheese to start then a couple delicious tenderloins from my favorite local butcher plus some veggies and mushrooms and went to town. It was a fully gourmet dinner that we ate and drank on the couch while cracking up at Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. If you told me back in 2007 that's where I'd be, I would have a ton of questions but I don't think any of them would be, "We're really still friends?" Because of course we are. We're family. Can't get rid of me that easy.