BOGUS
WINE
HUFFINGTON
08.12.12
THE SEDUCTIVE
CELLAR
RICARDO DEARATANHA / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Don Cornwell grew up in Denver
and attended the University of
Georgia on a debating scholarship.
While attending law school at the
University of Virginia in the late1970s, he found summer work as
a clerk in a major Los Angeles law
firm. It was there that he was accidentally introduced to the joy, pleasures and frustrations of fine wine.
Cornwell likes telling this story. He and a friend had agreed to
housesit for a partner at the firm
who was going on vacation. “Well,
behind his bar he had this little
room built in, which was his wine
cellar, and he brought us over there
and he said: ‘Feel free to drink
whatever you want.’”
When Cornwell and his friend
invited two girls for dinner one
night, they purchased a large bottle
of jug wine for the occasion, hesitant to indulge in the more expensive bottles stashed in the cellar.
But when that was gone, the night
was still young. “My friend Jay
said, ‘Let’s go to his cellar and see
what he’s got most of. And we’ll
drink some of that and then we’ll
replace it.’ And I said, ‘Great idea!’”
Kurniawan
in his element
at a winetasting event
in 2005.