Credit to Ian Hyde-Lay's blog A Life in Sport, and a post about a bottle of red wine, for moving a mountain I've been pushing at for a long time. Context is that I am forever trying to lighten our possessions to what we use or love but there are things that have deeply important memories attached that are hard to move on. Like a box of 45rpm records from the 50s that recently left the house!
In the years either side of 2000, Jim was back and forth to Asia more than a few times doing business for UVic. These trips are astonishingly unglamorous; stepping off a 15 hour flight and into a meeting then back on the plane. One quick turn around, home for 2 days and back for 3 more that included 17 meetings - lots of fun. There was also the earthquake in Taipei and being caught in Hong Kong during the chaos of September 11, 2001, catching an empty flight repositioning to Vancouver because luckily you know the right people.
One of the many interesting experiences of the Asia trips was attendance at one of the myriad events during the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China. It was a time fraught with anxiety that we now see playing out in protests and eroding freedoms; China played the moment up with a lot of pomp and ceremony.
Jim came home with a bottle of red wine; number 87 of a 1000 bottle run in a gorgeous presentation box complete with history of Hong Kong and certificate of authenticity. Supposedly worth $300. David Strong who was also on the trip ordered pizza delivery and drank his bottle while still in HK, but Jim's has been aging, along with us, for 23 years and two moves.
About 2 years ago I sent off a package of information to either Christie's or Sotheby's, I forget which, just in case we were sitting on rare and valuable item. The reply back was "no interest at this time".
So let's drink it says I! It's probably awful by now but at least we will know and have the memory and a laugh.
After reading Ian's post and in honour of David Strong's we cracked the bottle and drank it with pizza. The cork was dry as dust and there were considerable lees but we'd been careful not to shift the bottle much so the wine was clear.
And it wasn't terrible. In fact it was pretty darned good! Jim is a little it sad about it and I understand that and love him for going through with it and dealing with a lot of our never-saw-the-light-of-day "stuff". Ask him about the fun he's having with Facebook Marketplace! My plan is to make a Blurb book with photos and stories so we still have the memories but in a tidy format. I recommend the plan!
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