Wow. . . great story guys. Hopefully, one day, I can contribute . . . until then, I’ll enjoy your stories. Thanks for sharing.
A few others in the conversation -
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1945 Port (I think it was Grahams but I am not sure) in the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Club in Hong Kong at a dinner for six people hosted by the publisher of a Chinese trade magazine who was reputed to be the Hong Kong Station Chief for the equivalent of the CIA in 1981 during the British Colonial era.
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My first TBA, the same trip to Hong Kong, at the home of a client’s cousin at the top of the mountain overlooking the harbor, with floor to ceiling windows in the dining room looking down at the harbor.
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1928 Margaux from a plastic cup in 1969 from a bottle that had been bought by my friend’s father in 1951 when his son was born and we drank it after our high school reunion.
My Burgundy epiphany:
Nothing better than sharing a great bottle with friends at a favorite haunt. Add to that, it was the start of my 
with Ponsot.
We got engaged in Napa, so there’s a few that surround that event. I’ll go with our dinner that night at Harvest Moon Cafe, with a great Sonoma coast chard.
The other would be my only bottle, thus far, of birth year wine, an 81 Dunn Howell Mountain, enjoyed 4 days after the birth of our first daughter. Glorious wine, glorious time.
Wow, I had completely forgetten about Le Bec Fin until your post… which also reminded me of Chez Robert in Haddon Twp.
My first post in regard to Maison Ilan.
I originally was going to jump in and write about some cool, memorable wines that I have had the privilege to enjoy, and the more I reflected on it, the more it sunk in that almost all of my wonderful experiences with wine have been because of the people that shared the experience with me.
These experiences include -
My family’s traditional Thanksgiving weekend where my father introduced all of us to fine wine, and now it is a huge thing for the entire family as we are all adults and have kids that are at or nearing drinking age.
My honeymoon in Bordeaux and Loire. Just wow, followed by Provence and Rhone 9 mos. later, when my father rented a villa in St. Remy for the season and we stayed there for 2 weeks and lived liked locals.
My guy’s group I put together about 15 years ago around wine, cuisine and, more importantly, cycling and triathlon. We still meet regularly for major dinners, have an annual cycling trip in the mountains where many wines are popped, and most of us get together a couple times per month anyway, in addition to cycling together most weekends. Plus, our wives and kids are all friends.
My best friend’s 40th birthday weekend back in 2009 where we rolled like Favre, drinking many bottles of '82 Mouton, '89 Petrus, '77 Weinert Malbec (my buddy is Argentinian), his birth year BV Private Reserve Cab, 2001 and 2003 Screaming Eagle, and some wonderful dessert wines with 50+ years of age on them.
My many trips to Bern’s, as it is close enough to reach, far enough where I don’t go every weekend! I have celebrated birthdays here, fun gatherings with friends, business trips, and a recent celebratory trip with a new business partner to kick off our new venture (and spend the first dollar we contributed in capital!)
And soon, my 50th birthday weekend when I will be with a core groups of friends and family doing what we love to do most, being together and enjoying fine wine. While my birth year sucks, I do have a 1965 Mouton to pop along with a 1965 sherry that Uncle Bob anointed with some whooper of a score.
Finally, meeting all of you on this Board. I’ve made great friends here and shared many cool experiences.
SO hard to come up with a ‘best ever’, as I can think of several. Can’t we do a ‘top 3’ or something? 
Stuart, I remember Georges Vernay. When I lived in Switzerland, I used to stop off and buy his generic Viognier in five case quantities. Lovely man; bushy eyebrows, big smile, lots of hand movement and quite a difficult accent to understand.
He would give me goat cheese and try and get me to buy his Condrieu, but I always found it too alcoholic. One day I came in late in the evening, he gave me goat cheese and then changed his mind. I joined him and his family for dinner. When I left, there were a couple of bottles of Condrieu in the car for my “femme” (probably with the hope that she had better taste than I).
Everybody else has. ![[drinkers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/82916bed5ad74ac8470bc04089d9758b0c80c9fa.gif "drinkers"){kind=small}
Easy. It was an over priced 86 point Rose. In fact, so good an experience, we got a second bottle. Best wine experience ever for me, and I have been fortunate enough to have had some very good bottles of wine. Here is my note from that wine consumed in 2006:
2005 Chateau Rasque Rose
24E at La Piazza in Cannes. So this is tough to rate. We are on a corner street café in Cannes. The film festival is going on. Beautiful people and awesome cars going by. Gorgeous warm day with great breezes. The wine is salmon cherry pink. The nose is strawberries. Light to medium bodied. 12.5% Alc. Crisp and cool. Flavors of strawberries and cherries. Refreshing. The bottle is easily drunk. 50+3+11+16+6=86
25 years ago - purchased a case of 1959 Petrus for a customer, he came in that Saturday night, asked me to open one bottle, took a smell, happy with the purchase and out the door he went. Leaving the open bottle for me.
Went home that night, wifey had a couple girlfriends over, yelled out “In the mood for a glass of wine?” - she said no, they were making Pina Coladas.
Went into my office, closed the door and had sex with a bottle of 1959 Petrus.
To many to pick a favorite . Actually - I can’t wait until next best ever wine experience - it will hopefully happen soon!
Hmm, hard to pick just one.
- Every bottle I have ever had with my wife.
- Every bottle we drank while in Italy, even the five euro house wine by the liter.
It was the atmosphere. - 1989 Pichon Baron in Charleston. Brunson was there. That was the beginning of my wine folly and the end to early retirement. Frecking enabler.
A few that jump out for me. Winemaker dinners at CLONYC (TRB, Mike Smith & Russel Bevan). 82 Bordeaux dinner at Bouley. Screaming Eagle vertical dinner at Eleven Madison Park. A couple of private dinners at PerSe. Also a couple of wine dinners at Elecen Madison Park where the dinners were matched to our wines.
Favre 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0… 
Since everyone else is cheating I’ll go with three that are about a tie for me, and none are really about a specific all-time wine:
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Staying at the Perrier Jouet maison in 1999. My wife sells the stuff and arranged a visit to the winery and they told us they’d get us accommodations for the night. A few days before we arrived they told us we could stay at the maison. We ended up getting engage the night before in Paris and were on a high. When we pulled in they had the American flag flying and when I asked what other Americans were there they said it was only us. We stayed in an awesome room and the house is decorated with all sort so of great art nouveau furnishings. They made us a great dinner with all sorts of vintage wines shared with the winemaker. They asked us if we liked dessert and my wife told them I loved dessert especially ice cream. Ten minutes later I see one of the butlers come in with a bag and just thereafter dessert arrives with a bunch of extra bowls of ice cream for me.
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My now brother in-law gave us a 6 litre of 87 Caymus Special Selection for our wedding in 2001. We got a bunch of mag decanters and had the staff take it around to the tables so that everyone interested could share a glass with us. It stretched just perfectly with small pours so that everyone that wanted it had some, and friends still talk about the wine and food at our wedding.
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Greek Theatre 2000. My best buddy Tom and I met up and were too late for dinner prior to a Sting show. He and I got into good wine together back in college, had shared a lot of bottles and a lot of hedonistic times together. So realizing we had no vessels whatsoever, but we did have a corkscrew, we drank a 94 Pahlmeyer Proprietary Red out of the bottle. It didn’t do justice to the wine but was the kind of stuff we’d done together for decades. Tom passed away young four years ago and I always get a kick out of that memory.
On the high end:
Probably the honeymoon dinner I put together with Francois Audouze in 2002. The single best Champagne I’ve ever had (1964 Veuve Cliquot Rose), the best food/wine match I’ve ever had (1943 Chateau Fortia CdP with duck in an old fashioned blood sauce), and the single best wine I’ve ever had, a 1967 Yquem.
Life experience:
Drinking a 5 liter jug of red wine on an overnight train from Bordeaux to Nice while Eurailing with my buddies in 1984. Finished it off on the beach the next afternoon. These many years later I know it was almost certainly 1982 BDX. Good times.
Single greatest wine experience was the DRC Romanee Conti dinner we had a few years ago for one of our great mates 50th birthday.
2 of my top 5 wines ever that night ('90 and '99 RC), plus Krug Ambonnay for the first time, '63 Nacional, and far too many other great wines…
Most memorable 2 bottles were a 1990 DRC Echezeaux 15+ years ago that first got me seriously into Burgundy, and an amazing bottle of '45 Mouton that totally changed my ideas on old wines (and Bdx)…
Fairly similar for me. It’s a bottle of '90 DRC Grands Echezeaux in 1996 got me interested in Burgundy and a great great bottle of '45 Haut Brion in 1995 got me hooked into Bordeaux, till this day, still the greatest bottle of wine I have ever tasted.