Haven't posted since about 1998 or so.

"Chugged"????

Jeff, welcome back! I have been posting here occasionally since 2000, so we have never "met".

But I hope I speak for all of us in wishing you a hearty welcome back!

I saw your subsequent post, and your list of fabulous wines. I was saddened about your wife's illness and death.

It's probably uncomfortable for many of us here to acknowledge the problem of alcoholism, but it does exist and it's something we all have to deal with, with our friends and perhaps, as wine lovers, ourselves.

A few years ago, I was frightened that I might be losing my hearing.

At home many evenings, I love to listen to music on my stereo headphones.

I love light classical and "World" music (from Tangos to Cuban to Samba), but my passion is for the American Popular music and jazz of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

I go into rhapsody, ecstasy, when I hear this music. It's a drug. Two glasses of wine and an earful of Louis Armstrong, circa October 1930, or very early Tommy Dorsey, or Bing Crosby from 1932, just sets me off.

[There is a fantastic streaming audio website, which contains online a great part of the collection I have made, painstakingly, on CDs over twenty years. [ If you go there, check out, in my opinion, the greatest dance band of all time, Isham Jones. Just listen to "China Boy" (1934) one or two times, and you'll be hooked. Or, go to Fletcher Henderson, the great black bandleader, and listen to some of his work during 1932-1934. You'll become a Believer! [This is really GREAT music, and it's the one major cultural gift which America made to the world in the 20th Century: Jazz.]

I was cranking up the volume on my headphones to earsplitting levels, listening to and grooving to the music, all the while blissfully happy.

A few months later, I began to worry about my hearing. I wasn't catching some bits of conversation. I was asking people to repeat themselves.

There was no "ringing" in my ears, which people going deaf complain about, but I thought I would just like to have my hearing tested.

As it turned out, I passed with flying colors. However, I told the doctor about my headphone music hobby.

He cautioned me to be careful. I said, "But I'm just listening to acoustic instruments---NOT heavy metal".

He said it doesn't matter if it's an electric guitar, or a tuba recorded in

1929, or a violin section from a symphony. These sounds, if loud enough, will deafen you eventually.

Which is my roundabout way of saying: You can become an alcoholic by drinking "great wines", too. It doesn't need to be cheap stuff (although, for economy, that seems to be the usual path).

I welcome you as a witness for us all to the dangers of alcohol, understanding, I hope, that you yourself still appreciate a great wine once in awhile.

If that is not your motive, then I still wish you the best. Most of the great wines of the world are not imbibed by alcoholics, just as the best of ANY of lifes's pleasures are not exclusively the province of addicts. But I thank you for reminding us that they can be.

Sincerest wishes to you and your family,

---Bob