In the spring of 2000 something happened with a credit card company and their travel miles and some kind of notice went out that the unused miles had to be used soon or they would be lost.  I don’t even know if that’s the story, but I know this.  I had to fly from Terrace, British Columbia, to Vancouver for a training course and my dad had these extra air mile points that he couldn’t use so he asked me if I wanted to upgrade to first class for the trip.  Fore sure! Awesome!  The flight is only about an hour, about 500 miles over mostly ice.  Terrace has always reminded me of the David Lynch creation “Twin Peaks”.  A logging town with a bit of a weird side to it.  The plane that usually flies out of Terrace holds about 50 people,  and I didn’t even realize there was a first class.

I don’t know why I did this, but I guess it’s my nature…

I decided to dress up in a full on business suit for the trip.  It was the heady days of the dot com stock market too.  I waited in the tiny terminal in my super awesome business suit and when they announced boarding and first class I was the only passenger to board first class!  I sat down in my big soft seat, I think there were 8 first class seats, and relaxed.  Then I purposely pulled out the newspaper and opened it to the stock summary page, you know–really businessman like.  That’s weird actually if you think about it, do they still print stock prices in the newspaper and if they do, what the hell for?

So when all the regular passengers started boarding there I was, mr important business traveler reading his stocks and bonds in the newspaper…I could see the other travelers out of the corner of my eye sneaking a peek at me…all the while inside I was laughing my ass off!!  The plane took off and then the in flight services began.  Now this is the awesome part:  I had my on personal stewardess!  She asked me if I would like some wine, and I asked what kind it was.

“Wolf Blass Presidents Selection, 1998”

I’ll have a glass, thank you.  It tasted awesome! that’s really all I remember because right after I finished that glass the stewardess brought another and I realized we were already half way through the one hour flight, so I began to drink faster and faster.  All of a sudden the business schtick was gone, and I was just a guy trying to guzzle as much of this delicious and expensive wine as possible before the table trays had to go up.   So I drank that whole bottle  in one hour, which isn’t really a speed record but I was sure happy when I wandered out of the airport.

Just looking at snooth.com while I am writing this, the 1998 Wolf Blass President’s Selection was rated 95 points by Wine Spectator and 93 points by wine advocate and is currently going for $244 a bottle, although I think it was closer to $90 when I drank it.    If I could, I would do it all over again!

snooth