By Bruce Neyers

Tuesday 8th February, 2022

A few years ago, Barbara and I decided to include our kids, one at a time, on a business trip of mine. I traveled often then, and I could take them out of school for a few days if they were with me. The kids loved the idea, so when I scheduled the year’s first trips, I planned for each to include either Lizzie, Ali, or Mike.

The trip with Mike was first. We began in Washington, DC, then took the train to Delaware where he stayed with his grandmother while I worked. We then headed to New York where I had several meetings planned. An old friend of ours who lives in New York agreed to look after Mike during the day and then join us later that night for dinner. We had just sold our Cabernet Sauvignon to a new restaurant in Grand Central Station owned by a legendary NBA icon, and I arranged for a dinner reservation. It was Mike’s birthday as well, so that afternoon we went shopping at the NBA store on Fifth Avenue, where after learning our dinner destination, he selected this famous player’s jersey and wore it under the dress shirt and tie I made him wear. Our friend had spent the day showing Mike around Manhattan, visiting the offices of The New Yorker, Central Park, and the USS Intrepid Museum. Mike was beside himself with glee.

At dinner we were seated at a table overlooking the Grand Central terminal concourse. I ordered a bottle of Neyers Cabernet Sauvignon from the list, and our friend, Bud, gave Mike a birthday present. It was a magnificent piece of high-tech engineering called ‘The Severed Hand.’  It was very authentic looking, and the instructions were to place it under one’s shirt with the hand and a portion of the realistic arm exposed. Then, using a remote control unit, it could be activated to appear to be strangling the wearer. Mike took to it immediately, and being pretty savvy with technical devices of all types, soon had it working as he wished.

The restaurant GM came to our table with our wine, and mentioned that the owner had dined at the restaurant earlier that night with some guests. He wanted to send along his regards, and congratulated us on the wine. I was simply dazzled, especially when I heard he had enjoyed a bottle of Neyers wine with his dinner. Mike knew he suddenly had an important crowd to play to, though, and immediately pressed the ‘Strangle’ button on his remote. The ‘Severed Hand’ slowly came out from his shirt, wrapped its fingers around his throat, and tightened. He embellished his act a bit with a couple of authentic gasps. Our host was nonplussed. “It’s nice to see you’re enjoying yourselves,” he said. At that point, Mike unbuttoned his shirt and proudly showed off his new basketball jersey.   There was a smattering of applause in our section of the dining room, and Mike knew he was the star of the show.

The weather here in Saint Helena this past week has been mild and dry, so I went out one night to my Weber Grill station and cooked a beautiful rib-eye steak Barbara bought from our friends at Sunshine Foods. We enjoyed it with a bottle of 2018 Neyers Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon. I was eager to taste the wine again as we are now shipping it, and I wasn’t disappointed. That wonderful chocolate-cherry flavor I always associate with hillside Cabernet Sauvignon has emerged now, and the early softness that invariably signals a first-rate vintage is clear. We poured it alongside a 2015 Ch. Rauzan-Segla from Margaux – just to get a frame of reference – and the Neyers Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon showed well. I spent much of the night just enjoying the aroma of both wines. This wine is going to be a lot of fun to observe – almost as much fun as watching my son enjoy his dinner in the city.