a unique perspective on this crazy world

the wonderful world of vintage port

March 5, 2012

I have been busy drinking over the past few days so am behind on my public commentary.   It hasn’t been a “lost weekend” type of drinking adventure but rather a snotty wine connoisseur experience.  One of the local theatre companies decided decades ago to organize a wine festival as a fundraiser.  It has become possibly the best wine festival in the world for regular folk.

I started drinking wine at a relatively young age so have been attending for a few decades now.  The fact that I own a number of vintages of port attests to the fact that I am a pretty serious wine collector.  I was drinking a few wonderful ports at the festival and had some memorable conversations about port.

Lots of people will die never even knowing that vintage port exists.  It is definitely not the beverage of white trash.  In my twenties I vaguely heard that people bought vintage port when their children were born to drink on their 21st birthdays.

But the first time vintage port became real for me was in 1993 when my ‘born in 1963’ boyfriend started explaining to me what a great vintage 1963 was.  I still knew nothing but I really loved him so I went to Marquis Wine Cellars and spent an insane amount on a bottle of wine that might be corked.  It was 30 years old at the time and there was no guarantee on it.  We broke up before I even got to try it.  Buying great wine for men that I never get to drink a bit of a theme in my life 🙂

It did mean though that vintage port remained merely a concept for me.  I had never actually tasted any!  In more or less the same time frame one of my friends started dating this older Frenchman who was a wine expert.  So when she told me Francis said we should buy some 1994 vintage port I just did it!

It ended up being one of the best-uninformed decisions of my life.  I knew Francis knew wine.  It wasn’t very expensive.  I knew it wouldn’t be ready to drink for decades.  So I just stuck it under my bed waiting to figure out what I had done.

In 1998 I moved to Germany and acquired a European family, with a basement in which I could store my wine!  The new in-laws were very impressed with my vintage port but concerned it wouldn’t be ready to drink for 30 years!

I realized I better start buying more while I was young 🙂  So I started paying attention, which led me to salivate outside a wine shop in Lisbon in 2001 where I could see a Niepoort vintage port Wine Spectator had rated almost 100 points – but they were doing inventory and it was Europe so no one was willing to just sell it to me and reduce the inventory.  It was my last day in Lisbon so I just had to stare at it fondly.

A short time later I was at a wine dinner showcasing the young Turks of the Douro producing red table wine in addition to port.  Dirk van der Niepoort was at our table.  My friend said I should tell him my port story.  So I did… he told me the new vintage was even better!  And then he produced two glasses with a flourish and set them in front of us – “1863 – don’t tell anyone!”

I also made friends with the Portuguese trade ambassador by talking about my trip to Lisbon and my love of port… so he gave me his ticket and I got to attend a sold-out vintage port event that included a taste of the most expensive vintage port in the world.  It was delicious.

So it is only good karma that I did something nice of my own with a bottle of vintage port.  I saw this guy on Friday night in the Gold Pass tasting lounge – and wondered why he looked so familiar.  Luckily he remembered why he knew me.  His brother lives in northern BC so when he is in town he makes the most of it.  That was the year I was learning about Burgundy so I took them to meet some of the winemakers I had befriended in the afternoon.  We kept going after the festival ended and when the final bar closed I invited them to my house to drink a bottle of vintage port.  It’s so much more fun to share.  And you can end up with a story you can also share – and use to inspire others…


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eating & drinking - well

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the DNA of your everyday life…

February 29, 2012

Yesterday I was speed walking through Waterfront Station at my usual frantic pace, distracted from lack of sleep, and suddenly realized I needed to pay attention.  Because I wasn’t on my way to the client – but to the German Consulate –  so I couldn’t just operate on auto-pilot.  I have been traversing this same route a lot in the past couple of months and a routine has been established that I had to break.

It got me thinking about our everyday routines and how ordinary places become part of our life whether we are aware of it or not.  I think lots of people don’t realize there are places and rituals that have become an important component of their life – and that they would miss them if they didn’t do them.  This is why some people feel a bit lost the day after they retire.

Having moved likely about 40 times – changing everything from neighbourhood to town to country – I have always been very conscious of my daily environment.  And have found quite ordinary places and experiences imbued with great meaning and inducing much nostalgia.

Back in 1990, I lived in Sydney, Australia.  When I went back in 2000 for my first return visit, I took the train to Artarmon.  It’s a residential suburb that no one but a local would know and has nothing to attract tourists. But I wanted to get off the train there and retrace the route I had taken so many times.  Check out magazines in the news agent.  Walk by the TAB without placing a bet.  See if the Indian restaurant where I used to look for my boyfriend if he wasn’t in the apartment was still there.  Gaze up at the high rise where I had lived then.  Just soak up the atmosphere of my everyday Sydney life and try to re-live some memories.

Moving so much has taught me to value my everyday life and the relationships I develop in each place.  My hairstylist, my drycleaner, my tailor.  They all KNOW me.  It’s a personal relationship, not just a business transaction.  It makes everyday life sweeter and more meaningful.

The thought loop finished at the German Consulate, which as I expected was in the same building as one of my other clients.  They have moved to a new building but it still feels familiar to enter the door and know where to go.  Which made me think of the fun of new routines.  It’s good to break habits and explore new things.

I once dated someone who used to not take the most direct route when we were walking – but the most interesting or pleasant.  I am all about efficiency (the German Consulate felt like home 🙂 but I had to concede he had a point.  And while I generally take the efficient route to run errands, when I explore new cities or have a day off in my own, I just wander and see what happens.  In Paris, I might find a wonderful patisserie.  In Amsterdam I might encounter someone dressed like Darth Vader.  And here at home I might end up helping a lost tourist find the right bus.  Going beyond the DNA of my everyday life always offers unexpected pleasures…

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life philosophy, travel stories

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cinematic moments

February 27, 2012

I semi-watched the Oscars last night along with many millions all over the world.  It seems to have lost a lot of its mystique.  More a marketing platform for Harvey Weinstein and a bunch of designers most people can’t afford.  And Angelina Jolie is no Grace Kelly.

They kept trying to channel their past glory.  The one part that did speak to me was various people talking about their early cinematic memories.  The first film that I really remember clearly was Mary Poppins.  I was very into magic in those days and who couldn’t love a word like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  I still reference Mary Poppins when I am pulling an improbable amount of stuff out of my tiny, perfectly designed evening bag.  Thank you, Longchamp 🙂

Most of my childhood movie memories are Disney films.  My mom thought she was Walt’s missing daughter and we were brainwashed from an early age.  They were perfect films for children and I do think cinema sparks your imagination and encourages you to dream.

I have meandered a very long distance from the life into which I was born.  I am sure some of those early cinematic moments inspired me to think big.  Once I got away from my mother’s strict parental controls, I went to see all sorts of films.  My sheltered youthful self would watch European films in wide-eyed astonishment.  Oh my god, they are naked!  Is that even physically possible?

Somewhere along the line, I started to absorb those lessons so well that my real life began to resemble the stuff I saw on the screen.  Often my real life adventures had a better script and cinematography.  How the concept “life on planetm” developed.  I would describe some recent adventure and my friends would say, “only on planetm!”

Shorthand for “that only happens in the movies”.  Or in marla’s life.  I started to dub them “cinematic moments.”  A fragment of real life with the look and the script of something bigger than real life.  My life has been full of cinematic moments.  Not too many people are sitting in Madrid shortly after the movie “Vicky Christina Barcelona” had come out and overhear some American tourists talking about it and think, “I had my own “Vicky Christina Barcelona” film last night.  I saw the real Spain.  I thought the movie was far-fetched.  But I just hadn’t met Spanish men :)”

How do you make your life cinematic?  You take some chances.  You talk to strangers.  You develop fine-tuned skills for reading people so you can let loose a little but not come to any harm.  You decide that after attending your 25 year college reunion, you will take advantage of the economic crisis and use your points for a business class ticket to Madrid.  You will do your research and not act like a North American.  So you will stay at the hippest hotel in Madrid.  You will be in the bar around 9 waiting to go to dinner.  You will not engage the boring American businessmen in conversation.  So when the cute guy who is sitting next to you – also alone at the bar – buys you a drink, you will be able to talk to him.  His name will be Javier.  You will think, “I want to experience the real Madrid.  And now I have Javier… a local.”  You will eat octopus, throw your refuse on the floor in the tapas bar like the locals and you will end up in the rooftop bar on the top of your hotel overlooking Madrid on a perfect October evening at 4am – when the place is at its peak.  Other crazy stuff will happen and you will come home with a story that Woody Allen would loved to have written.

So I don’t need to go to movies anymore.  I produce them in my everyday life – and always get the starring role 🙂

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artsy stuff, life philosophy, travel stories

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who needs Yoda when you have Yvonne :)

February 26, 2012

Before Sex and the City popularized the concept, I knew my close friends were like family members.  Many of my friendships now have a decade or two of history… some even more.

Yvonne is one of my oldest friends. She is one of those women who could rule the world… with time left over to have a hobby 🙂  (Women should rule the world of course – but we’ll leave that topic for future posts 😉

We met in the first month of our university education so I didn’t have the frame of reference yet to fully appreciate how impressive she was.  I do remember I was a little intimidated by her.  She didn’t act like she was 18.  She was so much more confident and pulled together than the rest of us.

We have now been friends for 31 years and counting… what is really incredible about the friendship is that we have lived in the same city for maybe 2 years of the 31…  I blame her for my penchant for long distance dating 🙂

There have been many moments that have added glue to our bond but one of the first happened long ago, in our early twenties.  She had a summer job in Lethbridge.  I had a summer job in Calgary.  So one weekend I went down to visit her.  It ended up being a pretty interesting weekend… mostly because I lost her for a while and was the first person in Canada to understand some random Scottish soccer player with a wild Glaswegian accent.  Hey, I loved Bill Forsyth films – and I didn’t need the subtitles!  So by the time I got reconnected with Yvonne I was trying to make sure my new Scottish boyfriend wasn’t going to pick a fight with one of her male friends for talking to me…

But I digress… even though the Scottish soccer player falling madly in love with me just because I could traverse his thick accent is a good story, the memorable part for me was hanging out with Yvonne… and her declaration at the end, “it was so great to see you.  I have met some people this summer but they don’t really KNOW me.  You have been to my hometown, you have met my parents, we dated brothers from the same tiny small town in Manitoba (and we both had a girl crush on their much cooler sister)…

She taught me the true net worth of your life is the sum total of the relationships and the people in it.  It’s the people who know you and participate in your life – in the good times and the bad – that give your life meaning.

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life philosophy, shining examples, travel stories

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the origin of friendship

February 25, 2012

This afternoon I had a wonderful, much too brief, visit with an old friend on his way from the airport to his mother’s 90th birthday in our favourite city.  I first met him when I was dating his best friend, 20 years ago now.  Yikes!  But we know I’m old so the interesting part of the story is that when I broke up with his friend, he asked if WE could still be friends.  I am pretty unconventional so it was fine with me.  But not a very typical way to acquire friends…

For whatever reason, that seems to be my norm.  I never gave it much thought until friends started playing a party game called, “how did you meet Marla?”  I had this eureka moment that most people develop their friendships from a very limited set of channels.  The typical ones are school, work or sports.  There is nothing wrong with these channels, of course, but it means that most of the people at the party will already know each other.

And likely have a lot of similarities.  How I started throwing parties is another story but I have thrown a lot of them and it’s always a diverse group.  People have commented on how much they enjoy my parties because it’s such a broad mix of people.

I think that stems from my lifestyle.  I have always been a gypsy child.  I spent my first six birthdays in a different town every year so I became used to new people.  But I guess I also yearned for more stability in some ways so once I got old enough to afford stamps, I would stay in touch with anyone I met who really caught my attention.  My criterion was an interesting conversation rather than shared interests or contacts.

I never really set out with a plan to acquire friends.  Just to meet people and treat them well.  But it’s ended up being a wild, wonderful ride.  Some of my best friends have rarely ever lived in the same city as me.  One friendship developed because we always brushed our teeth at the same time in university residence and would invariably end up on the sink counter with our toothbrushes chatting into the night.  Another was my random roommate for six weeks during a summer job in Calgary – we didn’t talk very often but when she taught me the longest word in the English language I knew she was one of my tribe 🙂   Yet another was acquired after I had been instructed to meet new people at an Australia Day party – by another friend who I acquired via a friend I met on a boat cruise by mistaking him for someone else…

You get the idea!  I would encourage everyone to make a goal to try and acquire at least one new friend each decade that you didn’t make via the normal channels… someone you met randomly at a bus stop maybe… we’re still going strong 30 years later… and I am really hoping she will be able to fly in for my 50th birthday party 😉

architects love chicago 🙂

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life philosophy, travel stories

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that minority feeling…

Not long ago I was part of a conversation that included the phrase, “oh, you mean the white girl” in trying to identify a new staff member.  I’d never thought about it but realized that the majority of the employees are not “white” and “a white girl” was an easy identifier.  Really made me think about how cool the world has become 🙂  And my experiences being a visible minority.

The first time I realized how oblivious I was to skin colour was decades ago in a bar in LA.  I was there on a business trip and hanging out with a young colleague.  I wanted him to feel comfortable that he wasn’t stuck with me all night so I said, “you can just tell girls that I am your sister.”  He looked at me quizzically and I got the point so I said, “OK, tell them we don’t have the same father” 😉

I have been a minority a number of times now but one of the experiences that really stands out for me is going to China in 2008.  It was just after the Olympics and China was in the news all the time so it seemed like everyone was traveling to China.  But once I arrived, I quickly noted that, as a little white redhead, I was a huge novelty.

I first clued in to that on my run up the Great Wall.  I took a tour and was convinced to do the more challenging route so was practically running up the Great Wall to reach the high point for a panoramic photo quickly enough to get back in time to not miss the bus back to Beijing.

I’d just taken my scenery shot and was about to head down when some teenage boys made hand gestures that suggested they wanted a photo.  I assumed they wanted a photo of the two of them at the top of the Great Wall.  But the hand gestures implied something was off.  They wanted ME in the photo!  Hardly my best look but the first boy seemed quite pleased so his friend, who was obviously more shy, decided that he wanted to pose with me too.  It became a theme of my visit and how I learned my only Mandarin – xie xie – thank you…

The coolest part of my trip to China was coming back to Vancouver and randomly walking down Seymour Street just as the language schools let out.  It was pretty obvious in China that I was a minority but I walked for at least 5 blocks feeling like I was still in China… and it wasn’t jet lag 🙂

The world is changing.  It used to be run by old white guys.  I would really encourage everyone to get out of your own neighbourhood – where you are likely the majority – and be a minority – at least for a week.  It really expands your perspective to get out of your comfort zone.  Enjoy being a visible minority while you have the opportunity 😉   My goal is to encourage the world to intermix so successfully that the concept of being a visible minority – or a “white girl” – will become obsolete…

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social commentary, travel stories

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I’m with the band :)

February 23, 2012

Will Hoge popped up on my ipod today in the random mix.  “Rock n’ Roll Star” – about a young kid being lured by a recording contract.  Made me smile.

As previously noted, music will be a serious element of my birthday party and this song will be part of the soundtrack.  Will is famous in Tennessee but I expect it will be a pretty obscure choice for the Vancouver crowd.

It all started when my friend and I were pleasantly surprised that the opening band for Midnight Oil were so good.  We started seriously listening and bought their CD in the lobby at the end of the show.  I bought a couple extra to force on other people to support Will 🙂

At that point they were four young kids touring North America to promote their first CD.  I have this habit of engaging people in conversation so my effusive enthusiasm scored us a place on the guest list for the next evening’s concert.

It was the first time a band had put me on the guest list!  My friend had a bit of a crush on the bass player so I managed to convince her to leave the house for a second night in a row – on a Sunday.  To support my boy Will – and to see Midnight Oil for a second time (they have a whole story of their own…)

Just goes to show.  Channel my grandmother and engage young people.  Be supportive when they are starting out in their careers and they just might put you on the guest list!  And even if they don’t, you will have connected with someone and helped to give his career – and self-esteem – a boost.  It’s a reward in its own right.

http://willhoge.com/wired/

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artsy stuff, life philosophy, social commentary

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