(#94) NEYERS:

Edition of 2141 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300, 26 are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and five sets are signed as progressives.

October 1, 1981 Three colors 15-1/4" x 24"

Client: Bruce Neyers, Neyers Winery, 200 Taplin Road, Saint Helena CA 94574. Telephone (707) 963-2745 A-Z: Artist's own use. Progressives

Where would we be without wine? What a tedious life we would be condemned to lead. Wine is a spice that you add to the entire meal. Without wine, food would be nourishing enough, though indeed dull and spiritless. Wine is in that regard a form of salt, which imparts its savor not only to the food but to the company.

What a great pleasure it is to sit at leisure and eat and talk with friends over a bottle of wine. Should the conversation flag, why, you can always talk about the wine: wines we've had, are having and shall have. Wine helps us to get words past the gates of our teeth that would otherwise stay bottled up; to open up to each other and share our joys and sorrows.

Where would we be without friends? Like a good wine, friends too improve with age. Even when friends cannot be seen again; cannot be spoken with again, their treasured memory sleeps cellared in our hearts and warms the dark small hours of the soul. Let us now raise a glass: Here's to present company and absent friends. Ave atque vale.*

* Ave atque vale, "hail and farewell." Ave was the Roman equivalent of "hello," and vale of "good bye." Catullus (87 - c. 54 bc) used this expression in closing a poem on the death of his brother, "Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale." "And forever, brother, hail and farewell." (Carmina, CI, l. 10).