WTN: 1988 Chateau Pavie St. Emillion Bordeaux France.

WTN: 1988 Chateau Pavie St. Emillion Bordeaux France.

Medium red color, deep hue, no bricking apparent, lovely aroma of fruit and spice, very good fruit, spice and earth tastes, well developed and mild tannins, very light acidity, wonderful balance, medium mouth feel, long, lingering finish with a tannic finish on the tongue, quite a pleasant wine. Janet loved the aroma and the taste. 4*.

This wine has continued to please this summer. We worked late, then had a simple dinner of grilled chicken, green beans and broccoli. The wine made our dinner special.

At 10:00 I stepped outside to glance at the Pleiades Shower -- not much hope with a brilliantly clear sky but a very bright moon. Ten seconds later a brilliant fireball raced from the south east to northwest, at least 120 degrees, brilliantly yellow. The best meteor I've seen in six years. The meal, the wine, the company and the sky were winners last night. :-)

Regards, Bob

Nice note.. don't know about the '88, but the '01 is pretty damned nice right now!!

Sounds like a peaceful summers night, Bob. Nice.

It was one of those perfect days, Bill -- we got an enormous amount done, and then that unexpected meteor -- life is so good. :-)

We probably could have used an engineer in planning this project, frankly. We are putting an eight by ten shed under our deck -- it sort of snaps together with the roof pieces sliding into place. As a result, we couldn't put it together under the deck.

Instead I decided to mount it on a couple of sheets of 3/4 plywood and then roll it on pipes into place. Tolerances on the sides were all good -- we measured and measured the dickens out of them. Theoretically the height measurements should have given us three inches of clearance, but we couldn't lay the shed out and check that dimension.

Once built, we found our tolerance is only 3/4 inch without considering the thickness of the pipes we planned to roll over the flag stones. If the pipes are 1/2 inch thick ... well, even a lawyer can see that the least little bump in that beautiful flagstone can bring us to a screching halt.

In any event, I'm sitting here tonight, trying to decide what and how much wine to have with grilled chicken, cole slaw and grilled sweet corn.

Probably best to get plastered tomorrow night -- win or lose -- sound like a good engineering approach to you?

Regards, Bob

"don't know about the '88, but the '01 is pretty damned nice right now!"

Thanks for the feedback, James. According to my inventory, we've finished the '88 -- it's nice to know the '91 is drinking well.

2+" is alot to loose to tolerancing, Bob. Was the structure that much taller than the specs?
If you do get stuck, instead of the 1/2" pipe, a thinner approach might be a sheet of plastic layed down with 1/4" dowels on top of it. I'm concerned that something that thin might just crack with uneven pressure though.
Good luck!

[Jenise]

Great post, Bob, emphasizing the importance of context. Those 88's are drinking fabulously right now, aren't they? I wish I'd bought more of that vintage when I had the chance and no one else was buying Bordeauxs. Like, three years ago I bought a whole set of the 88 First Growths for $750. Try that trick today.

"2+" is alot to loose to tolerancing, Bob. Was the structure that much taller than the specs?"

We lost an inch and a half to a cap that goes over the ridgepole, Bill. I talked to the folks in Canada that pre fabbed the shed -- they made that clear in a revision of the instruction manual -- they fixed a couple of other errors in the text as well-- we ended up with an extra piece of steel two feet by four inches by two inches -- it was a lintel strengthener that they forgot to describe. Luckily we were able to get it into the frame without taking the shed apart.

In any event, the shed weighs about 2,500 pounds including our plywood sled. We had thought we could lever it along, but with such a little bit of vertical play, I'm not sure. Teodoro likes the plastic idea, but the flagstones were too rough when we tried it with a bag of cement and a piece of plywood -- ripped apart immediately.

We'll grease our two by six foundation supports once we get the shed past the flagstones -- the first part of the journey will probably be pretty slow -- inch at a time kind of progress.

We're waiting out an early rain storm this morning -- the proof of our tolerances will arrive in the afternoon.

I'll revert.

Regards, Bob

Success. The ridge cap proved to be flexible vertically. We levered the front of the shed up a bit which cleared the rigid end of the ridge cap, then the beam pushed the cap down along most of its eight foot length about a quarter of an inch, then we levered the back corner up enough to clear the rigid front end.

Made the shed sort of a seesaw. :-)

Reminded me of one of my practical discoveries many years ago. A trucker got himself stuck under a railroad bridge. Wrecker couldn't pull him out, and they were thinking about cutting the top of the truck.

I suggested they let the air out of the tires -- worked like a charm.

Made the mistake of bragging about it once -- "Everyone knows that, dummy." :-(

In any event, success today!

Now to think about opening a nice wine tonight to celebrate. Thanks for the good wishes, Bill -- I'm sure they helped. Bob