We love wine. We care about it deeply - it is more than our livelihood, it is a comforting constant in our daily lives. We also love to share it with you, but in this new world order, we all need to act responsibly and show that we can adapt, survive and work towards a future where we thrive.
Our primary concern is the health and safety of our customers and colleagues, but we also recognize that these bewildering times would be even more daunting without the access to good wine. For the time being, we will remain open for business, abiding our usual hours of operation. We have always maintained high standards of hygiene, but can assure you that in light of the current situation, we have become even more conscious of the essentials therein (we won't bore you with the details). That being said, we understand and respect your potential preference for social distancing, and perhaps the avoidance of retail spaces. If this is the case, we can still serve you.
Early on in my wine career, I was briefly employed by a regrettably commercial wine agency who was in the process of purging their portfolio of interesting wine. Commissioned with the task of liquidating a few lingering cases of 2005 Gunderloch Nackenheim Rothenberg Riesling Auslese, I naturally took advantage of the situation to pull the cork on a bottle. This precipitated a veritable revelation; the wine didn't just solidify my love for German wine, it turned me into a lifelong Riesling lunatic. Thus, one of my pivotal Riesling epiphanies was catalyzed by a bottle from the Rheinhessen's Rheinfront, or Roter Hang (Red Slope).
I sat down in the barber chair and Joe draped the gown around me. He’s an elderly but hale Italian man who’s been lowering ears at Elveden House Barber Shop since the early 1960s. Usually very talkative, Joe was uncharacteristically laconic on this particular occasion so I took the opportunity to ask a question that had been on my mind for several years:
“Say, Joe? How'd you end up in Calgary?”
It was as simple as that, and I didn't really say another word for the next hour as Joe's story unfolded. (My haircuts usually take less than 30 minutes, but Joe often stopped to gesticulate, ponder a date or silently reminisce).
My wife and I said farewell to our elderly dog, Nika, last week. She was at least 16 years old, and I had the pleasure of spending the last 12 years with her. Her passing inspired me to dig up the following, which I wrote earlier this year and now wish to share with you:
Nika rests while I write this. As she gruntingly exhales and stirs into deeper realms of comfort, I marvel at the simplicity of her methods to improve lives, and the dissonance between the innate, instinctive wellspring of joy that she inspires versus the debilitating “wisdom” that our society has proliferated for centuries.
