We went to Cafe Fino last night to celebrate the contributions of Jukka Soikkeli, a senior member of Nokia Research Center, who is retiring. As I wrote in a post on my primary blog, passion was a pervasive theme (for me) throughout the evening. As I also briefly noted on my primary blog, one of the dimensions of my passion that was flowing freely was my love of Amarone.
Upon arriving at Cafe Fino, I saw that the red wine that was being offered was a Chianti Classico, which tends to be a bit light for my tastes (as I've noted before, subtlety is lost on me, and [so] I seek out bold flavors). I was starting to think about beer or other libations, when my colleague Ramin said something about my penchant for wine. I expressed my dilemma about whether to drink the Chianti, given my preference for big wines ... and got to talking about Amarone as the exemplar of all I love in wines (and proceeded to tell Ramin, Deborah and others far more than they probably ever wanted to know about the history of Amarone and the way it is produced). I asked whether the restaurant carried Amarone, and Vito (shown in the photo, and now my friend for life) brought out a bottle of the 2003 Cesari Amarone so that I could better share my passion for this wine.
I don't know how broadly my passion for Amarone was shared among the other Nokians at the party, but the Chianti (which was a 1997, and much better than I expected, though no match for an Amarone) was soon replaced by the Amarone as the selection of the night ... and so everyone there now at least has shared the experience of Amarone, if not the passion.
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