In My Mother's Hand

My mother had beautiful handwriting - even quickly scribbled notes had an air of the artist she was. As a child, I got my first intimation that Santa was a myth when I realized he wrote gift tags exactly like my mother did. I get a painful little twinge of loss every time I come across something written in her distinctive hand.

We found this recently, shoved into one of the cookbooks from her kitchen that I brought home when she went to heaven almost twenty years ago. Mr. Mondavi used to come to my parents' house for dinner when he was on marketing tours to Hawaii 'way back in the '70s, before his business really took off and changed the face of California winemaking. He brought wines for them to try and kibitzed Mom's cooking; not many men did that and lived to tell about it. He must have had great personal charm.

Apparently, he also gave her tips on wine pairings. We slid the card into a baggie and taped it inside our wine cabinet for future reference. This may come from the dark ages of the Napa wine business - I'm sure things have evolved since then - but I can't think of a better recommendation. Especially when written in my mother's hand.