Que Syrah Syrah

On Saturday night, I had the good fortune to be included in a Syrah wine tasting (and by this I mean just Syrah or Shiraz should you live in Australia). This monumental event took place at Hollaback's new apartment in Inwood. We were all tasked to bring a bottle of said varietal for under $20. A blind tasting took place and we all scored the wines. Hollaback's realtor Elaine brought the winning bottle--it was a Pirramimma from Australia and I have to agree, it was rather spectacular. Hollaback made two lasagna dishes, both remarkable and the company was affable and easy. It was a totally charming evening. The pictures will say more than I can.

Here's our charming host, with the bottles wrapped to ensure objectivity of the voting process.

Here is the charming Jewels (left, occasionally belting show tunes) and the equally charming Declawed, who won me over immediately when she kicked her shoes off. I'm a barefooter too. She is marvelous.
The winning couple! This is Elaine (holding her award winning vintage) and her beau, Chris. He plays trumpet and performs as an orchestra member on Broadway. We dished about the divas who perform on Broadway. He agreed that Molly Ringwald sucked in "Cabaret."

Here's the tasting in progress. Note the intensity of concentration. We took our roles seriously, people!

Here's our colleague Mrs Fabulous with her nice husband, Mr. Fabulous. They are actually seriously fabulous. They named one of their sons Mathiewson after the legendary turn of the century baseball pitcher Christy Mathiewson and that garners them particularly high marks in my book.
And here's Ms. Myra with her sweet dumpling of a baby, DingoBait. With two such gorgeous mugs, can they take a bad picture? I think not! That baby is positively commercial worthy!

Such a lovely evening.