Something for a cold fall night that we can all relate to.
It can be anything from the Champagne that helped you pluck up the courage to propose, or the one you downed when your divorce papers became final (I know at least one person who would go with that one). It could be the epiphany wine or the first time you sat next to a winemaker. Or the perfect wine and food pairing or the ancient bottle of wine that you opened without much hope, and it was glorious. I am sure there are some great stories out there…
I don’t know if this was #1, but it is certainly in the conversation:
The wines (not your style):
2010 Schrader RBS
2007 Saxum James Berry Vineyard
2013 Sine Qua Non In The Abstract
2009 Paumanok Late Harvest Riesling
2004 Dom Perignon
2013 Sine Qua Non And an Eight Track
1999 Pol Roger Winston Churchill
post-harvest August West dinner at Gary Danko in 2008. Ed and Michelle, Elyse and Jeff, me and Christine (and some other folks who i can’t remember…apologies). great food, excellent service, and a bounty of wine that, looking back, i should for having the chance to taste.
i do remember a magnum of Montrachet - though i can’t recall the producer or vintage - that completely blew my mind and gave me insight to what Chardonnay can be.
Dinner at Ch. Margaux with Paul Pontallier and Corinne Mentzelopoulos after a tour and tasting there in 2005. 1988 Krug and 1961 Margaux in magnums were among the vinous highlights. It wasn’t just the wine and food and setting. It was like having dinner with good friends.
Or maybe dinner at Maison Bouchard with Bernard Hervet and Francois Audouze after a tasting and tour of the cellars. 1929 Pommard Rugiens and 1961 Montrachet were the high points wine-wise.
Or maybe the Millenium dinner put on by a close friend. Oh the wines he opened that night…
Or any one of a number of tastings with the TanninPigs, a group of raucous friends who were mostly in the enthusiastic early growth phase of our learning curves.
There are some phenomenal winemaker attended tasting-dinners I hosted for CLONYC that would be hard to match in terms of greatness. Thomas Brown, Mike Smith, Mike Hirby, Michael Twelftree and Russell Bevan just to name a few.
At the peak of Asian Financial Crisis in 1998, we were losing our pants financially, seem to be staring into the abyss. Decided to the heck with it, might as well go down in style. These were the wines I could still recall and missing a few others especially Champagnes and white burgs since I had absolutely no interest in them. The lunch started at 12:30 pm and finished at 10pm.
I owned a vacation company, and did a large group for the Millennium taking over a hotel in St. Emilion. We did an Haut Brion vertical going back to the 1950s, and I had a private firework display on the lawn, which was really a gift to my wife who loves fireworks. We toasted the New Year in with glasses of Salon 1982, and my six year old son enjoyed his first Champagne.
A Fete de la Fleur at Mouton with Placido Domingo singing and six bottles of 1982 Mouton on the table for ten. Good fireworks at the end as well.
At Vinexpo, one of the highlights is a dinner of all the Grand Cru Classes for the journalists. The chateaux all dig deep and pull out old and venerable bottles. This one at La Gaffeliere we never did get to eat, a mini hurricane destroyed the beautiful temporary dining room they had set up, as well as the food. We ended up in the cellars for shelter, the wines were opened, and somehow the owners had woken somebody up in the town and managed to get hold of bread, cheeses and salamis. It was wonderful.
The first would be getting up before the sun on our Honeymoon to pick grapes in the finger lakes. The calm, quiet, cold air, and working one side of the row with my new wife on the other created an internal tranquility that I can’t adequately express.
The second being a visit to Iron Horse on a beautiful day in the fall of 2002. We dropped in without a reservation like any other tourist and saw the appointment only sign, so asked the first person we saw if we could taste. That just happened to be Joy Sterling and she explained that the signs purpose was to keep away the busses and we could come on in and taste.
We were having a good time enjoying the view and have tasted through a few things when we noticed Joy and another man leading some obvious VIPs to a private room in back. A few minutes later she appears and pours a barrel sample and spent a few minutes explaining what it was before excusing herself and heading back with the VIPs. She repeats this 5 or 6 more times staying longer with us each time. We also notice after the second or third visit that we are the only ones in front being offered the barrel samples.
To this day I have no idea why we were provided this extra attention but it felt genuine and really made it a special visit.
a few times–a bottle of 90 Leroy Musigny by myself, one of the very rare times I have drunk alone. Two angels joined me, hoisted me on their shoulders, and flew me around the room. A bottle of 45 Vogue Musigny at a little neighborhood French bistro with my best friend–a magical bottle with duck livers and other French cuisine. A Bipin Desai tasting called the Great Nines, from 1999 back to1929 wherein I tasted 29 Vogue Musigny–looked like orange juice mixed with dirty bath water but was magical like the 45. The best, though, on a trip to Burgundy where Christophe Roumier hired a three star chef who cooked at Christophe’s home. Christophe served a Bonnnes Mares vertical back to the 40s. I was tagging along w a group who was good friends w him and was very lucky to get to go. Wrote it up on ebob long ago but don’t have archive access.
When I was younger my parents used to have large Thanksgiving dinners with all kinds of friends and family. My father would spend the year thinking of wines to serve at these dinners and we had a lot of wonderful wines. In Thanksgiving 1985, both my wife and my sister were pregnant with what would be each of our first children, my wife’s family was down visiting for Thanksgiving (from Providence, RI to Savannah, GA), my sister’s husband’s family was there, etc. All told over 40 people. It turned out to be the last of these events as a month later my father was diagnosed with cancer. While he lived a number of years, these types of events were too much for them anymore. While we tried to keep some of this alive in other ways, it was never the same.
My wife and I have had three wonderful visits at Truchot, my favorite winery. The first was in 2002. I was with my wife and two kids. It was truly magical. We tasted through a nice range of their 2001 Burgundies in barrel with Jacky and Liliane Truchot and their adult son Alexander. Best winery visit I ever had - not only was the wine fabulous but so were the people. The other two visits I had there were also special, but there is something magical about your first time at your favorite winery when everything goes right.
About a year ago (November 2014), my wife and I were in Bordeaux for the first time. We visited a number of wineries, of course, and went to Haut Brion. While there, we were on a tour with three other Americans. Started talking with them and found out they lived in my home town of Savannah. They had known my parents, said wonderful things about them, and knew some of my cousins and friends. This was a very unexpected magical moment and, coming just a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and how much I miss our old celebrations (which I had mentioned to my wife just that morning before we left the hotel), I have felt for a year that I was somehow getting a message from my parents.
I think one of the most memorable moments I’ve had in wine has to be a 17 vintage Vertical of Musar Rouge that was done early last year. While there are moments that have changed my concept of wine and what great wine is or can be…that was a time where I was with a great group of friends and a rare wine I’m not sure I’ll ever get a chance to taste again.
If it was not that then I’d have to say that there have been many “great” nights with wine in my life…but I think the night where I finally “got” Champagne comes to mind. It was New Year’s Eve in 2010 with a couple that has truly become some of my closest friends over time. The night was full of great wines, Keller GG’s, Raveneau, old Sauternes, and some great bubbles. This was the night I discovered the 1996 Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill…
My first best experience was with a 92 (?) Cain Five Meritage in Santa Monica. I rolled my eyes with this. I was dabbling in wine at the time; but after this experience, I started going into deeper water.
I organized a wine dinner at Masa in San Francisco (circa 2002) in the private room. Rather than waste money on the pairing, I gave the Som a budget to pick the ‘perfect’ bottles.
I have many “Best” ever wine experiences with so many memorable wines, people, events and at so many amazing places.
I’m not a drum beater but this conjures up a few thoughts.
The wine that set it all in motion for me and got me passionately invested in real wine and burgundy appreciation was a 1973 Domaine Maurice Ropiteau Meursault Perrieres in 1976. Never could find more than a few bottles after the first experience and when I looked for later vintages they were never as good and then there was no importer. That wine was unreal.
It’s been a great ride for me for sure and thankfully continues.
I stopped drinking for a few years caused by a health issue that is fortunately under control and now drink white wine and champagne and occasionally fully resolved old red wines, and when Becky Wasserman found out I was abstaining she wrote to me the following.
"Dear Chet
You and I both have had the distinct pleasure of having imbibed more than our fair share of the worlds greatest wines. "
This is so very true.
I still have a bottle of very old and special red burgundy in my cellar I promised to drink with her in New York.- most likely I’ll have to carry it to bugundy to consume there.
Blessed to have consumed this past weekend some 08 Deutz Blanc de Blancs and 92 Fabien Coche Batard Montrachet, at Nomad in NYC. Both were great as was the restaurant and the experience.
Honestly can say with aged hindsight,… those were the best, as it doesn’t get better than what I consume today.
I have a lot of wonderful wine experiences. Just a few:
–Back when I lived in DC, I met several local wine geeks. Even though I was early in on my wine journey, they took me in and shared many wonderful bottles, including some classic Bordeaux from the 1960’s and 1970’s.
–Opening a bottle of SQN Papa for my father during a visit to Michigan several years ago. Then attending a SQN vertical dinner some years later organized by Jay Selman.
–Visiting France for the first time in 1984 and tasting wine in Champagne, the Loire, the Rhone, Burgundy, and Bordeaux. In fact, riding a rental bike in the Loire and cycling along the river to see the sights and taste wine was a trip highlight.
In terms of a wine tasting night, this was up there - took a limo to Cut in Beverly Hills, drank Dom on the way up, tasted a lineup of first growths including 89 Haut Brion, stood next to Sidney Poitier while checking in:
I’m not sure in terms of the “great moment in life that had wine involved” version. I’ll have to give that some thought.
Though neither revolves around “bottles”, but events and people…I think of three memorable ones:
When my wife and I were engaged, our best man and his wife took us to Le Bec Fin (then and for a long time, Philadelphia’s finest restaurant) on Valentine’s Day 1983 to celebrate. My wife had lived in France and was in charge of choosing the wine. She thought she was choosing by price, but chose by inventory number…and it cost a lot more than the budget: a 1976 Faiveley “Clos de la Marechale”. We all loved it and even laughed at the goof (he was a great guy and I miss him). I said to my wife, we have to visit this region on our honeymoon that June. We did.
In fall 1985, we were visiting France and friends in Montpellier. Our young host took us to visit her friend’s winery…she knew nothing about it than the name. It was CNdP “Vieux Telegraph”…After our stay there, we hooked up with a recent friend who was then the Philadelphia Inquirer’s wine writer. We traveled for 4-5 days to the N. Rhone and to Burgundy…just before Thanksgiving with him. First time we’d visited wineries and tasted out of barrel and older wines, etc. We stumbled onto Truchot-Martin (first of many visits) and bought some 1983 grand crus which we carried on the plane (People Express). We are planning to open one of our last ones (not sure which cru) with our now very close friend and his wife…in a few weeks…at an intimate dinner at our place (with d’artagnan magrets and some foie gras) to mark the 30th anniversary of this transformative few days–wine and friendship wise. Maybe we’ll let him choose which grand cru. Why not.
In 1996 during a “dinner” visit to Georges Vernay with Jean Luc Colombo and an importer friend and some great Condrieus with Mr. V, I noticed that Mrs. Vernay was serving charcuterie, cheeses…and no vegetables. So, I asked if they ever ate vegetables. A few minutes later, Mrs. Vernay brought a jar of cornichons on a fancy plattter and put it in front of me. Georges said" that’s the only vegetables we eat here; why bother when we can eat the “good stuff”. Everyone roared, including me. It was a wonderful, warm evening of great wine and laughter, mainly centered around the laughter.
Thanks for pulling out these memories. I initially thought that I had no “best ever wine experiences”, but…though tangential to wine…they are great experiences to conjure.
In reality, no wine or wine consumption really stands out as much as the people experiences around them. At least, I can’t think of any such wines or wine consumption, per se. That’s not really how I think of wine, I guess.
for having the chance to taste.![[mouth-drop.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/cb6e7b1a33d9283fbdd244c98735e5d3be11476b.gif "[mouth-drop.gif]"){kind=small}