Magic

There was magic in the air that night.  You might say it was merely a gathering of friends and neighbors in a pretty room to taste some very nice wines, and you would be right.  But it was more than that.  The friends and neighbors were the finest vintners in the Napa Valley; the pretty room was the elegant grand hall at the Far Niente Winery; the very nice wines were a dazzling selection of rare and precious burgundies from the remarkable cellars of the House of Leroy.  Oh, yes.  Madame Lalou Bize-Leroy, her husband Marcel and her daughter Perrine were also included in the friends and neighbors, for although their home is France, they are friends tied by a common bond of winemaking.

There was a murmur of quiet anticipation in the Hall as the guests arrived and joined the crowd.  Madame Leroy was in the cellars, with her wines.  The treasures.  She had brought with her 25 red and white burgundies, from a youthful 1978 Meursault to the last flight -- a 1949 Musigny and a 1949 Richebourg.

A formal white cloth had been laid the length of the great hall, each place carefully set with arcs of glasses.  When everyone was seated and the preliminaries finished, the first wines were poured while Madame Leroy presented a slide show of the vineyards and towns where the wines were grown.  She spoke in French, for she was nervous with this group and unsure of her English.  Her words were translated as she spoke, as she tasted each of the wines in their turn and offered her own opinions of them.

Magic is the only word for it.  The energy of the event spilled electrically through the room holding all in its spell.  The spell of being present at such a momentous affair, not really earthshaking on the surface yet momentous, nonetheless.

Around 1982. Written then.