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Hey folks. In a last minute decision, I dragged my son down to Wine Library in Springfield, N.J. to take advantage of some heavily advertised sales today that I've seen on Wine Library TV over the past several weeks. In particular, 2005 Bordeaux was an offering discussed (see http://tv.winelibrary.com/2008/09/29/secret-pack-tasting-after-a-jets-offensive-explosion-episode-548/) that was available in vast quantities. So, I thought I'd take a look and see if I could find something at a decent price that I could pick up or even sample. Before starting my shopping, of course Max wanted to poke around and see the place. He found the huge aquarium on the 2nd Level not too far from the Wine Tasting tables. Well, call it good timing or call it whatever else you like, but right when we were there looking at the fish (and dodging the folks browsing all the sampling stations) an employee from the Wine Library came out stating that Gary Vaynerchuk would be doing a taping of Wine Library right where we were at the tasting table in a few minutes. As that was said, Mr. Mott appeared carrying his camera and tripod ("Mott", as Gary refers to him on Wine Library TV). Soon enough he and his guest(I think he said his name was 'Joe') came out and began talking to a few folks nearby as well as ready their set. I took an opportunity to introduce myself to "Mott", and he seemed appreciative for my acknowledging me being a regular viewer of the show. Afterward, Gary took a look over and saw Max staring at him (since he's seen him enough times on the computer while I watched shows) and said 'hello', to which Max quickly responded back with a hearty 'hi'. I waved to Gary figuring he had recognized me previously at Costco, but he went right into the start of his show--oh well.

After a few minutes Max had his fill of watching the taping of the show as well as watching the fish, so we had to take a walk and began our search for something to buy. We headed back downstairs and looked at the numerous opened cases of French wines available. I came across a small tasting station and began reading about a wine on sale for $14.98 (http://winelibrary.com/reviewwine.asp?item=42146). The fellow at the station had me try a small shotglass sized cup of this wine (it had been decanting for a few hours). The nose was very fruity, mostly a dark berries type of aroma--a very nice start! The body was medium- heavy and fruit filled, high in tanins, and very complex. It also had earthy, almost vegetal, overtones to it. What I really enjoyed was the tremendous length across my entire pallete. Nice wine. So, with that experience, I thought a bit, and after thinking back to my experiences with previous medium to medium-heavy reds like this, they really mixed nicely with hard cheeses and cream-based pasta dishes (such as my Tri-Color Tortellini Alfredo). This compelled me to pick up not one, but two of them--I also visited the gourmet foods part of the store, and decided upon a wedge of California Monterrey Jack cheese (I did originally have my heart set on picking up a package of Cowgirl cheese-any variety, but for $28, I had to pass on that). I didn't get a chance to chat with Gary this time around, but I think Max got a kick out of being acknowledged by him!