Last night, to me, epitomizes the reasons for which I’ve abandoned the 100-point scale when it comes to rating wine. In speaking with a friend who still uses that scale last week, we agreed that ambiance, company, conversation, mood, and so many other factors play a significant role in our appreciation of any given wine. Last night, I was honored to attend a banquet at which we were thanking numerous Holocaust survivors and WWII liberators from around the country — though many of them local and pillars of the community, for spending this week in Omaha, traveling from school to school, speaking to young people about their lives and their experiences during that dark time.

Yesterday during the day, I took my classes to one speaker, and wrote passes excusing them from a later class to attend another if they wished. I will never tire of observing young people as they sit enthralled by the lives of an elderly person who has lived history, and is there to make it real for them. However I must also acknowledge that the window of opportunity for such things is rapidly closing. Perhaps that thought in the back of my mind is in part what makes opportunities like sharing a glass of wine with a survivor so incredibly precious to me.

The 2015 14 Hands Merlot from the Columbia Valley is a fine example of Washington State Merlot, and checks all of the important boxes. To say more about the wine, I feel, would be to diminish the other, more significant experiences of last night. Suffice it to say that it paired well with meaningful conversations and gratitude, and was, as wine should always be, a compliment to a greater experience, and not the experience unto itself.

Cheers to those who have lived our history, and who so generously share it with the next generation,

Mark