Don’t love port, but do love me some wellington. In for three.

I know the Christmas Holidays are upon us, so first I’d like to wish the Casemates Crew and Peter a Merry Christmas and a Healthy & Prosperous New Year!!

If Peter chimes in on this offer, I’d like to know his opinion on the drink-by year? Is it still 2028 or can it go longer? I sill have two small bottles of his Criolla and I’m treating them like gold!

Five bottles of this remaining, but this is still tempting.

previous offer 11/21

As hard as it is to pass on a Wellington offer, I just don’t drink enough port (virtually none) to justify adding this to my overstuffed storage, especially since I already have 3 bottles (and a 500ml Criolla) from an earlier offer.

I missed the last offering of this. How’d that happen?

I still have a couple of bottles of the Pedroncelli Chocolate Lovers deal left from 2019, though. I confess to both being fond of port and to having conserved the Pedroncelli. A case of Wellington will ease that situation, me thinks.

Now, if I just had a storm to go with it…

I have a great story which includes a very special port. Many years ago in the early 1990s, I was involved in some matters patent. Our company’s lawyers and our hired legal gun, outside, patent attorney had come down to work with me on finalizing a particularly important patent.

Time was short. We worked through the day and late into the night, until we were all very tired, quite hungry, and desperately dry. We were about a quart low, and in urgent need of both lubrication and sustenance.

It was late. It was a Thursday evening. We were in Covington, GA. Hardly anything was open.

Did I mention that we were desperately dry?

Well, I knew of a restaurant out at the edge of no where, that had recently been built and was being operated by a chef – a chef, mind you, not a cook. It was called Cowboy’s or some such and it was situated on a country road between the towns of Social Circle and Rutledge.

So off we took. It was a dark and stormy night. OK, it wasn’t stormy, but it sure was dark. Arriving at said restaurant at the edge of no where, I was astonished to find that it too was closed.

Now we were even further from sustenance and lubrication, and our desperation was becoming critical. We had gone away – away I say – from civilization well beyond the boonies and approaching nearly the end of the docks.

“Hark!” I exclaimed, “Did you hear that?” My rapidly shriveling companions heard nothing, of course, for that thunderclap was strictly internal. I remembered that there was yet one more restaurant open in this vast wilderness, just a few miles down the road in the once small, dusty berg of Rutledge, GA. And it was run by a chef of the name of Breedlove, no less.

Breedlove, it seems had groan up in those parts, gone off to the big cities and made a name for himself as a chef. His dream was to come back to his exceedingly small town of Rutledge and open a fancy restaurant.

In the interim decades, Rutledge had gone beyond small, past minuscule. and even microscopic, and now was just dusty – and for good measure, precious little of that.

Undaunted, Chef Breedlove came to Rutledge with a bucket of money and converted the drugstore building of bygone days into a restaurant.

The man could cook. No doubt about that.

Soon he had a bustling trade, unbeknownst to me in the luxury car set, who inhabited the country side from Madison to Lake Oconee.

So it was that the four of us arrived in Rutledge, GA, which to my utter amazement was full – full, I say – of cars. There was no place to park. In Rutledge, GA late on a Thursday night in the early 1990s!

I finally found a wide spot on one of the two roads that cross in Rutledge, bumping hard on the city limits, and we walked the several hundred feet back to the restaurant.

Only to be first greeted and then turned away. The restaurant was full. I do mean full. There were people and tables, where one usually finds only dust, detritus, and lingering memories of better times. In Rutledge, GA.

So with heavy heart, empty stomachs, and impeding dehydration/dealcoholization, we were turned away with the admonishment that this soiree was by reservation, approval, and prior arrangement only.

So with grumbling bellies – did I mention, we were becoming critically dehydrated? – we turned and began to retreat from this marvelous inn, this fantastic place with wonderful smells emanating from every orifice, doorway, window, and wee crack in the facade.

Then, LO! A Miracle! A hostess, surely an angel in disguise, said, “Wait! I think I can fit you in. Service has begun, and we have a table of no shows.”

Que the heavenly music, harps, and trumpets…

We were seated and much to my amazement, we were treated to one of the most spectacular meals of my life. Course after course after course. Each course with its unique wine in a fresh glass, of course.

Gadzooks!

And then, and then, and then…the last course, which was a choice of simple, but elegantly presented deserts including cheeses and fruits, along with a whole bottle of port.

WOW! That port. So unexpected. So alien to Rutledge, GA on a Thursday evening late in the early 1990s.

Who knew?

As we finished this delight, we hardly had any words and much loosening of the belts. The restaurant was beginning to empty, and I saw that our bottle of port was only half done. I asked the waitress what was to become of that exalted bottle. She said, “It will probably be discarded as when it was opened they threw away the corks.”

Aghast, I picked up that port, that precious port of renown, and carried it with me as I paid the tab, which I must say was indeed modest for what was offered and for my group. My workmates said, “Surely, you’re not going to carry that port home with you? Are you?”

I said, “Yes, I am. Watch me.”

And so, my story of this storm of desperation and isolation in a dark and foreboding land and the port we found comes to an end.

So what was going on?

Chef Breedlove was having a wine tasting dinner, sponsored or featuring Australian wines by a wine and spirits dealer, by invitation only. Hoitee toitee, for the monied set, which lived (at times) in these hidden places, an hour’s commute from Hotlanta.

I found a cork, by the way. I still have a wee dram of that port after about 30 years later in the very same bottle I brazenly toted from the restaurant, which has succumbed back to the dust from which it briefly arose.

The port? I hold the bottle in front of me as I type its name…Seppelt Para Port, Tawny 111. It would have been bottled about 1990-1991 guessing from the 111 and other data. I have about 20ml left.

Merry Christmas my casemates friends and winemakers !
Miss you Mr. Wellington…and your wines. I’ll grab a case to help you clear out some space.

Darn. Missed the case. Took 6. Any way to convert that to 12 at the case price?…

Merry Christmas Day!