Just saw today that famed wine collector & FtWorth neurosurgeon MarvinOverton died in April of this year with nary a blip from the various
wine lovers of the World.
Marvin was a bigger-than-life wine collector who amassed a huge wine collection in the late '70's-early '80's, especially of Bordeauxs. He would receive big writeups
in the WS for the huge extravaganza wine tastings he would host for wine luminaries (obviously, I was never invited) like Michael Broadbent in the '80's. He was quite a
wine celebrity in the US wine world. He had a large ranch over near LasVegas, NM. I was always a bit miffed that he never invited me over to share a glass of wine, being only about 100 miles away.
Alas, he got on the wagon in the early '90's and sold off his wine collection, including some btls he'd acquired from RudyKirawan. He then went on to find the Lord and became a
Pentecostal evangelical preacher up to the end of his life, which, of course, didn't mesh w/ his wine passion.
But he and famed UC/Riverside Physicist Bipin Desai were famous in their day for these extravagant/over-the-top wine tastings they would hold. I haven't heard much of Bipin of late.
I was invited (by PaulDraper) to attend Bipin's Ridge Retrospective tasting in LA in the mid-'70's. Got to know NYTimes FrankPrial fairly well at that tasting.
Anyway, it's the end of an era.
Tom