My husband and I are big Mets fans, and I grew up rooting for Tom Seaver a/k/a The Franchise. Without going into the specifics of Seaver's Hall of Fame pitching career, suffice it to say that Seaver was one of the all time greats.
In his retirement, Seaver has become a wine grower, and a couple of years ago his GTS Vineyards issued its first release. My husband and I purchased some of the wine, and to our surprise and delight one of the bottles (the one on the left) arrived autographed.
That posed us with a dilemma - to open the autographed bottle or not? My husband would have left it untouched, but my feeling is that wine is meant to be consumed. Ultimately I won out, but we had to find an appropriate occasion to consume such a special bottle.
The occasion came that summer. Our youngest son celebrated his Bar Mitzvah on August 22, 2009. By coincidence, that was the date that the Mets were celebrating the 40th anniversary of its first World Series winning team. So after the Bar Mitzvah reception, back at our house with just a few friends, we opened the bottle - at the time the Miracle Mets celebration was going on we were toasting our son's transformation into a young man.
If that wasn't the appropriate occasion to open this particular bottle, there never would be one.
