Venezuela in the House!

I get a call at about 10AM on Saturday the 8th asking for an appointment later in the day for tasting. I needed to be up at the winery anyway to work on blending, so I agreed. It was a Washington state phone number - Seattle area code, but the person calling had a bit of an accent. My hopes weren't too high - I've learned that the later the appointment the much higher the probability of a no show. Which is why I never open bottles early any more. People just seriously underestimate the amount of time you typically spend tasting per winery. Right around the time of the appointment I get a call - same person letting me know they're running late but that they still plan on being there. (Note to anyone making an appointment at a winery - we love status calls. Let us know if you changed your mind and aren't going to make it or you're running late or whatever, we really appreciate those.)

So around an hour later, two ladies and a gentleman arrive. Turns out that Irene who had made the calls is a native of Caracas, Venezuela and is visiting her friend Carolina (originally from Venezuela, but now in Seattle) and Carolina's new husband Juan Antonio. That's Carolina on the left in the picture above and Irene on the right. More amazingly, Irene had found and selected Twelve for a visit solely through the web while she was still in Venezuela. Irene knew our story, our labels, and which wines we no longer had. I've never had a more prepared visitor.

So we tried a 2007 Pinot and a vertical of the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Pinot Noir 144 (our reserve) and then Irene asked me about the "ooh-ooh". I figured out that she meant the "Uh-Huh" (which comes from the KC and the Sunshine Band lyric "That's the way uh-huh uh-huh I like it") Just the fact that she knew about that wine meant I had to go find a bottle and open it. I have maybe three cases total of that wine left, but you have to reward people who do their homework. Then we did a little barrel tasting of the 08s.

We shared war stories - Carolina told me about her mother pouring her $200 super high-end Malbec for her friends (who would have been just as happy with a $6 Malbec) and I told her about my wife accidentally using a $90 Chardonnay as a cooking wine. And we compared last names. Irene and Juan Antonio's were pretty easy. Mine - Lenyo - is very rare in the US and so consistently gets butchered (Lenno, Len-ee-o, Leeeno, etc...) that it was immediately ruled out as a name for the winery. But Carolina topped me - her last name, Uzcategui, looked pretty close to something you'd get out of a random letter generator. It is pronounced yoose-kah-tey-ghee and it's a Basque name.

So we took pictures and they headed out to dinner at Tina's. And I can now chalk off Venezuela as a country from which Twelve has had a visitor.