Happy 90th birthday to the 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush — a.k.a. “Bush 41.”
A little over a year ago, Texas winery Messina Hof honored the former President by releasing a “George Bush” Cabernet Sauvignon, vintage 2011. It commemorated the 15th anniversary of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, as this video describes.
The Presidential Library hosts an annual wine auction, and President Bush has signed bottles for that and other fundraising events.
President Bush is a wine drinker, but not to the extent that President Thomas Jefferson was. History shows that Jefferson not only drank wine, but grew grapes and made his own wine. Even so, as this blog reported, there’s a vinous connection between the third and 41st Presidents.
“It is a little known historical fact that just as wine has played an increasingly important role in American society since Thomas Jefferson dared dream that one day his country might produce varietals and vintages equal to those found elsewhere, wine has also played a crucial role in the life of the Bush family,” President Bush told Washington Whispers.
Remember when Bush 41 made that parachute jump back in 1997? It happened only because of a glass of wine — consumed by the Former First Lady, Barbara Bush, after being told of the plan.
“Her sharply opinionated reaction, at first, momentarily called into question whether such a jump might actually happen,” President Bush said. “But then, at that critical moment, I offered her a glass of dry white wine, changed the subject, and the rest, well, is history.”
Some years earlier, when President Ronald Reagan and then-Vice President Bush were working to end the Cold War with the Soviet Union, they sipped wine from Sonoma County’s Iron Horse estate with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Hmm… Has the time come for Presidents Obama and Putin to get together and uncork a bottle of vino?
