Vintage

When I met Ann, her mom Jane was living in Paris. How she landed there is one of the more poignant stories in our extended families’ lore. But that’s not mine to tell. At least not today.

Ann and I visited her Mom as often as we could, which sounds grander than it actually was, as I quickly learned that seeing family in Paris wasn’t so different from seeing family in say… Milwaukee. The reason being that the expectation of any long distance mother - no matter where she is based - remained the same - nonstop time with them.

Those early days in Paris were not spent hand in hand strolling down the Champs Elysees but rather filled with grocery shopping and endlessing walking Jane’s rude and ruddy toy poodle, Pipi. Dinners weren’t at a café overlooking the Seine, but around a table on Rue de Paradis, catching up on cousins’ kids I hadn’t met yet, eating meals that tasted more like an old fashion Americana supper than fine French cuisine.

Nearly three decades later, there’s a quiet hindsight ache for how brief our time with each of our mothers turned out to be. But back then, a new couple in our early thirties, we craved a little time to explore on our own.

So, on our second trip, Ann and I negotiated one night away, just us. We booked a room at a hotel we became mildly obsessed with called the Buci Latin. Each room in the hotel had a distinct feel - and we chose the one with a claw foot tub, plush turkish robes that matched the wallpaper, and windows that looked onto the Saint Germain. It basically screamed romance.

We also booked an intimate dinner at La Rotisserie d’en Face. It was a step up from our usual fare, but still a place locals actually went. Being Midwesterners, we showed up early, and got seated along a row of two-tops close enough that you had to hold hands and lean in to talk.

The occasion called for something memorable, so we asked the waiter for a splurge-worthy wine recommendation and landed on a bottle just under 100 euros, the most our early thirty selves had ever spent. It was worth every penny as it tasted like young love. By the time Ann’s moules and my chèvre salad hit the table, we were floating.

That is, until the duo from Belgium arrived.

These two men caught our attention the moment they walked in. Not because had style or flair - rather the opposite. They looked like a European version of Napoleon Dynamite But, in lieu of Vote for Pedro t-shirts, they sported short-sleeve button-ups with fully loaded pocket protectors that included their ballpoint pens and business cards poking out the top.

We nodded politely as they sat down, then turned back to each other. However, they clearly missed the memo, mistaking two women deep in conversation for two women open to their company. They tried, more than once, to break in with the kind of small talk that makes you want to disappear into your napkin - even after I brought Annie’s hand to my lips and kissed it, gently.

Relief only came when the sommelier finally approached for their order, and, without consulting each other, one of them glanced at the wine list and said, “We’ll take the 1985 Margaux.”

At which point, it was as if every thing went silent. After an extended pause - the sommelier’s face lit up so fully it was as if the ceiling had opened and heaven shone directly upon our table mates. Within moments, two waiters appeared carrying a small gilded table, on which sat a beautiful crystal decanter. When the chef himself came out to personally deliver this revered bottle, I began to reconsider how hasty we had written off these potential new friends.

Moments later, my mouth still agape at the wine spectacle, the Belgium brothers offered all of us a taste of the wine. Annie began to wave a “no thank you,” but I held down that hand I’d been kissing just moments before, and nodded eagerly. While the pour was small - the experience was otherworldly. If our wine had tasted like young love, theirs tasted like lustful rapture.

Over the decades, that night has become one of the stories we often pour out along with the table wine at our weekly Shabbat dinners. Every so often, I’ve looked into buying that coveted 1985 Margaux, hoping the years had made it reachable. It never was. Now, that bottle is long past its prime, a vintage that exists more in memory than in any cellar.

I have been thinking about that a lot these days as next week Ann and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We decided to mark it with something chill - renting out our favorite neighborhood bar and gathering close friends and family for tacos and karaoke.

But then last week while I was at a wine store, I found and bought a 2001 Saint Emillion - a vintage from the same year we were married. While it did not cost much more than that 1985 Margaux did back in the day, it still was far more than I have spent on a bottle before. I justified it to myself - and my wife - that 25 years married deserved something to be enjoyed by just the two of us.

To be clear, the wedding anniversary we will celebrate on Wednesday isn’t the anniversary of when we became legally married. We don’t actually know that date, as that was simply the day the government finally caught up with our vows.

The one we honor is the anniversary of the day our fathers walked us down the aisle to meet under a chuppah. The day my mom cried, finally recognizing not only the realness of our relationship, but also the wholeness I had found with Ann. The day 150 friends and family surrounded us, their presence a lifelong commitment to support our union.

I bought that special bottle for us to toast the anniversary of the day we signed a ketubah - where we promised each other a life filled with things that had already become staples of joy - like, “dancing in the living room, mornings in Maine” – as well as things we could only imagine then: like, “kids, and cats and dogs, and chaos.”

To date, that future we created - which has somehow morphed into the current and past - has indeed honored those promises. And, if we are lucky, that future we hoped for is still less than half over.

The Paris we envisioned before we lost all our parents and became parents ourselves - when we were just wide-eyed thirtysomethings hungry for one stolen night - doesn’t exist anymore. That restaurant closed years ago, its two-tops and cozy lean-in tables replaced by a four-story apartment building. Even the hotel we snuck away to has changed hands, new owners, updated rooms with far less charm.

What has emerged, though, is something - like our relationship - that is entirely our own. We no long measured time in stolen nights, but rather often in reflective time togehter. We still go back to Paris often where do not stay with family on Rue de Paradis, or carve out a single romantic dinner between obligations. Now the whole trip is ours, days that stretch without a schedule to negotiate around. Just us.

And while we likely will open that 2001 bottle just the two of us as well - I’ve doubt it will feel as if we are toasting alone. We’ll be toasting almost three decades together, twenty-five of them with the same wedding bands on our now-aging hands. And in a fitting twist - we’ll probably do so in our Wildfang short-sleeve button-ups, a staple of our wardrobe now, and something our two Belgian dinner companions would surely approve of - wherever they are, undoubtedly drinking something far more expensive than what’s in our glasses.