I guess most of the wine nerds lurking here will answer YES to that question. But I have an additional question, that might be more of a challenge. Do you…
…still have the very FIRST bottle intact, that actually started your wine collection/cellar? I do.
This strange world called “wine” had slowly been growing inside me like a seed, planted by my grandfather (who made his own wine) a long time ago but hadn’t really started to blossom quite yet. Sure, I was already drinking wine but very seldom and with not much interest, other than just the occasional “normal” curiosity like any other average consumer these days. But there was something there… I remember a special feeling everytime I passed shelves full of wines in supermarkets as I was travelling the world. There was this something, that I couldn’t put my finger on. Some type of lure, a slowly growing interest in what was behind all those different labels. We need to go back to the early 90s now, when this interest kept growing without me really realising it. I don’t remember every detail but I do remember when I walked into a normal supermarket in Puerto Montt, some 1000 km south of Santiago de Chile, while travelling as a backpacker and while browsing the shelves of vinew decided to buy…this.
It was the most expensive bottle I could find in that supermarket and I thought to myself that it must be special. Despite the curiosity of having a peek what’s inside, as it turns out, I didn’t open it but transported it in my backpack all the way to home sweet home in Stockholm, which I guess is almost on the other side of this Lonely Planet. This bottle was the first wine of what became my wine collection. And it’s still here!
Open it? I just can’t…
Does anyone else have their first sweetheart love still intact?