Sometimes Wine Makes Magic

Recently, my husband and I were watching SOMM TV which featured the Martinellis and a vertical tasting that they did. Martinelli Winery is located in Sonoma. Watching this episode reminded me of one of our most favorite memories of having wine with a meal. This memory comes from the time we had our Greek friends over for dinner. One of his favorite mantras was "planning is overrated" so I'm sure this dinner was an impromptu, spontaneous kind of get together. I wondered what year the Martinelli Jackass Hill Zinfandel that we had was and what year we drank the wine with our friends. My husband suggested that we probably have that bottle of wine on our Wall of Fame. I gave the idea of looking through our more than 150 bottles of wine on our Wall of Fame serious consideration and then I had an epiphany. In 2021, I did a blogpost on the wines on our Wall of Fame and there it was, the 1997 Jackass Hill Zinfandel.
On that evening when we had the 1997 Jackass Hill Zinfandel, we ordered pizza to take out. When we opened the wine, the aroma that emanated from the bottle was indescribably amazing. The four of us all sensed that remarkable event simultaneously. We drank the wine and had the pizza and that event is now indeliably etched in our memories.
Every now and then we recreate that evening, by bringing out a bottle of Jackass Hill Vineyards Zinfandel and ordering take out pizza, but there is really only one magical moment. I still need to figure out what year it was that this dinner occurred. So far I've narrowed it down to sometime between 2000-2006.
Epilogue: Our friends recently went to Martinelli winery and visited Jackass Hill vineyards. There they learned why the vineyard is called Jackass Hill. It was planted in the 1880's by the original founder, Giuseppe Martinelli. The location where he planted this vineyard has a 60-65 degree slope and is NOT terraced. The saying in the family is "you'd have to be a jackass to farm a hill that steep!" So in Giuseppe's honor, the vineyard was named Jackass Hill Vineyard.