This past Friday was the first day of Fall, a time to reset for the upcoming winter, a time to put away the bathing suits, and a time to start thinking of Chili, Pumpkins, Football and “Sunday Roast”.   I must admit, I need a bit of a reset as well.

On Sunday, I cooked our first Fall dinner of the season, it’s traditional in our house to sit together on Sunday evening and have an English style roast dinner.  Medium rare beef, Yorkshire pudding, mushroom gravy, horseradish, roasted veggies and Claret.  To be more precise, Leoville Barton 2001.  A five star wine that I wrote about in the spring.  Quietly maturing in my cellar for 10 years, it has rewarded my patience.  I am not going to go into tasting details, you can read my previous post on this awesome Bordeaux.  Instead, I am going to wax lyrical about the pleasures of cellaring a wine, watching it evolve and then opening it at precisely the right moment, with the right people.  It tastes exponentially better.

It’s been kinda rough for us lately and I wanted to refresh, relax and just enjoy some of life’s little pleasures.  Mission accomplished.  I really enjoyed the dinner.  The food and wine were superb, more importantly- I had my wife and children all sitting down at the table to have some quality family time.  No I-pods, beepers, cell phones- just us and the charm of a cool Fall evening.  It’s one of the few meals that all six of us likes.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, just take an evening off from your busy schedule and revert back to the basics for a change.  Happy thoughts!

Leoville Barton 2001