The Last Eleven, #8: Donnafugata, Ben Ryé, Passito di Pantelleria DOC 2015
Some friendships grow gradually, but some friendships there’s a moment that Step Brothers summed up most eloquently: “Did we just become best friends?” “YEP”. I had one of those moments on my 23rd birthday.
I had only been in San Francisco for about 6 weeks and my social circle was limited to the people I worked with and the people I lived with. I couldn’t really socialize with the people I worked with because I was their boss, and I couldn’t really socialize with people I lived with because I was always working. My then-boyfriend and dog were still in San Diego, I was working around 12 hours a day closing the restaurant 5 nights a week and I was, honestly, the loneliest I’ve ever been. That is, until I met my First Real San Franciscfriend.
It was a regular evening I had off and I decided to check out a wine bar. It was a) recommended to me by a coworker and b) literally the only one within walking distance of my house in the Presidio. I got talking to the bartender about wines which turned into somm exams and study groups and eventually chocolate chip cookie recipes. I would assert that anyone who knows how to properly rest chocolate chip cookie dough is worth keeping around. We exchanged numbers—and no, not in that way, we were both in long-term relationships—and made plans to study together at some point.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to my birthday. I had planned out a few days of treating myself, first with a two-Michelin star dinner and then visiting a restaurant in Oakland where I knew one of the chefs through my boss. Celebrating a birthday alone really isn’t that sad when you have awesome food to keep you company. Anyway, after the latter dinner I was in the Lyft back from Oakland and planning on heading to my favorite wine bar, so I texted my friend to see if he was working that night so he could save the birthday gal a seat. He said he wasn’t, but that he was at a bar with some friends and I should meet him there. I updated my Lyft’s destination and headed over.
A good person would have introduced me to their friends.
A great person would have had a drink waiting for me.
It takes a truly exceptional one-of-a-kind gem to get a glass of sparkling wine then ask the bar for a plate with a cookie and lit candle on it then make their friends, who had never heard of you until just then, sing happy birthday as I entered the bar.
I spent the rest of the night with him and his friends at another random dive bar, just drinking and laughing and getting their slurred advice from them about life in the SF. It was spontaneous and perfect and beyond what I could have hoped for. Here I was, this 23-year-old girl alone in a huge new city who planned on spending her birthday with a simple meal and glass of wine instead hanging out with all these awesome 30-somethings who welcomed me in with open arms like we’d been friends for years. That was the night I realized I would be okay.
A year later and a lot of things changed—my relationship status, my living situation (twice), my position at my job—but not this friendship. For my birthday this year he gave me a dessert wine from Italy that I had never heard of but that he knew I’d like because he knew about my affinity for Gewurztraminer ice wines.
We drank the Ben Ryé on Christmas. This was another example of a day I was planning on spending on my own perfectly contently until my friend interceded. This time he invited me to his friends’ (the same ones from my 23rd birthday, as a matter of fact) sheet fort that they build every Christmas to hang out and watch movies in. The wine was gorgeous and floral and peachy, the fort was epic, and the company was, of course, the best part. Well, maybe tied with the wine. It was damn good.
Sometimes it's hard to put a friendship into words. Say it with wine.