A wine novice, a vineyard tour, and (another) cosmic coincidence . . .

Hey friends, a quick travelstack (something on the lighter side) as Niloo and I make our way back to the U.S. 

Let me start with an admission: I’m not much of a wine guy. If you’ve followed my work over the years since retiring from the the Department of Justice (as I was not allowed to speak publicly about my work while I was at the DOJ), you’ve likely heard me refer to myself as a gutter kid from Jersey. I didn’t exactly grow up around “the finer things in life.” For me, that phrase translates to “the more expensive things in life.” In reality, I think family and friendships are the ACTUAL finer things in life. 

My parents didn’t really drink wine. My dad – an Army vet, an All-American college football player, a boxer, and a lifelong high school football coach – was more of a beer guy, as was his dad/my grandfather. So I’d like to think my taste for things like Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) is a product of my DNA. 

My dad didn’t play golf, we didn’t really travel, we rarely ate out at restaurants. As an adult, when someone would ask me, “Do you golf?” I would generally say something like, “Growing up, I never even saw a golf course. We played games like stickball and kick the can. I don’t even know what ‘greens fees’ are, but I know we couldn’t afford them.” I admit, it’s a bit of a Jersey smart-alecky thing to say. I guess you can take the boy out of Jersey . . .   

So I never did learn much about wine. Still, Niloo and I decided that touring a local winery would be a nice, relaxing way to spend our last day in Austria. 

And it turned out to be the right decision, for several reasons. First reason: the vineyard we toured, Fuhrgassl-Huber, in Vienna’s District 19, was as lovely and beautiful and picturesque as (I would imagine) a winery gets. Second reason, we met and became fast friends with Katharina Napokoj, a charming, engaging, smart, and entirely wonderful woman, who spent the afternoon educating us on wine-making and showing us around the vineyard. Third reason, when Katharina mentioned who her neighbor was, we experienced another one of those  cosmic coincidences that seem to lurk around every corner. 

But before turning to the cosmic coincidence, attached pics are: 1 – 3, pictures of the vineyard. Pic 4 is of Katharina pouring us some wine as we walked the vineyard (after tasting 10 or so wines in Katharina’s tasting room, or as she called it, her “chamber of torture”). Pic 5, Niloo and I feeling quite . . . content after a full afternoon of wine tasting. 

And the surprise twist: at one point, Katharina mentioned that her neighbor will often come to the winery and, even though he is a well known person, no one bothers him or pesters him for an autograph. She then said, have you ever heard of the actor Christoph Waltz, he won an Oscar for Inglorious Bastards? 

Niloo and I looked at one another. I said, “Katharina, this is a crazy coincidence, but Christoph Waltz made a movie (his directorial debut) about one of the murder cases I prosecuted. The movie is called, “Georgetown” and Christoph played the killer, Albrecht Muth, whom I prosecuted for murdering his wife, Viola Drath.” I then I couldn’t help but add, “an actor named Paulino Nunes actually played me in the movie.” 

So . . . pic 6 is of the movie Georgetown from the website IMDb. And pic 7, also from IMDb, is from the cast of actors: Paulino Nunes as “Prosecutor Kirshner.” I never did find out if the misspelling of my last name was intentional or accidental. Fun fact: in the movie, Georgetown, they changed the names of the homicide detectives, the defense attorneys, and the judge in the Albert Muth case. But for some reason, they used my actual name (minus the “c” in Kirschner). 

By the end of our afternoon together, we all promised to stay in touch (and we already have). 

If you are ever in Vienna, whether you are a wine lover or not, I urge you to tour the Fuhrgassl-Huber winery (pic 8) and enjoy /learn from Katharina, our friend in Vienna.

As I said in an earlier travestack . . . it’s ALWAYS the people.