Last week, the New York Yankees inked one of the MLB’s top pitchers to a multi-year contract. Gerrit Cole signed a nine-year, $324 million dollar contract with the world’s most popular baseball organization.
Obviously, the contract is the main reason that Cole signed in New York, but the Yankees offered a few extra gifts to help sweeten the deal.
The club brought Andy Pettitte, one of Cole’s childhood heroes, to their meeting in California, but a very special bottle of wine made the biggest impression. Yankees manager Aaron Boone brought two bottles of wine to his meeting with Cole in New York, one of which was a 2004 Masseto.
Cole and his wife shared a bottle of 2004 Masseto in Florence, Italy on an anniversary date a few years ago. It is considered one of the world’s best wines, and Cole had no idea how Boone knew about it.
“I’m really good friends with Lou,” Cole said. “He’s just about as classy as it gets. I’ve been fortunate to work with some really great guys in the clubhouse. I love Carl Schneider, I love Scott Bannett. There are some visiting clubhouse guys that are really close to my heart and Lou is one of them. You walk into a foreign atmosphere and you need someone to take care of you, and that’s what those guys do.
“I always come into Lou’s office when I got nothing to do and I kick my feet up on the table, and we just talk about stuff,” he continued. “We were talking about my trip to Italy with my life the other year, and he always likes to know what I’m cooking because I like to cook at my house. I showed him pictures of a meal that we ate in a cellar in Florence and there’s a picture of a bottle of Masseto. He asked me what the bottle was and I said, ‘It’s Masseto, it’s probably acknowledged as the second-best red wine in the world.'”
“Aaron brought a couple of bottles of it and one of the vintages they brought was one of the exact same vintage from the anniversary dinner that my wife and I had in Florence,” Cole said, confused by the situation. “I was a little bit back on my heels. I remember trying to stay focused on the meeting and not thinking about booze the entire time, but I still couldn’t figure it out.”
“When I came home, I was telling Amy, ‘How the [explitive] did they pull that off?’ Not many people in the world know that that’s my favorite wine,” he continued, starting the put the puzzle pieces together. “I laid my head down at like 11:30 at night and didn’t sleep much that day. I flew back up and I was like, ‘LOU!’ I remembered the conversation and I guess it went from Lou to Boone.”
The 2004 Masseto is described as showing “wonderful aromas of flowers and berries with hints of vanilla and Indian spices,” as well as “full-bodied and powerful with layers of chewy tannins and a long, flawless finish.”
It is currently priced at $900 – a small price to pay for Cole’s admiration.
Welcome to New York, Gerrit Cole.