Epiphany Wines - Share Your Stories

I thought it would be fun to share “epiphany” wine experiences. The wines don’t have to be expensive (but they can be), but they should be the wines we’ve tasted that we will never forget and that changed the way we think think about wine. Even better if people have recent stories to share.

I’ll start.

In 2016, I was travelling in Europe with a close friend. I was very early in my wine journey at the time – I liked wine but had very little experience drinking complex wine and even less experience with properly aged wine. We went to a wine bar in Prague and asked the server for a recommendation in the $100 range that she really liked, and she brought a 1999 Musar. The wine absolutely blew my mind. I’d never had something with the meaty, funky, earthiness that is Musar and certainly not with the complex red and black fruit flavors that go with it. And to have that in a $100 bottle in a wine bar astounded me. I told my friend it was the best wine I had every tasted - he scoffed at that statement (lol), but I will never forget that bottle of wine and today have 3-4 cases of Musar in my cellar. I’ve re-visited the 1999 vintage 3-4 times since then with varying levels of success including one time several months back where the wine reminded me exactly of that time in Prague.

A year or two later, I had the house to myself and it was the week of my birthday. I had a bottle of 1983 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars SLV that I had been saving. 1984 is my birth year and 1983 was the closest I could find for the occasion. I drank the bottle quietly over several hours savoring every sip and analyzing every nuance. At 35ish years old, the wine still had a ton of fruit that was still quite ripe and had a mature “sweetness” some wines get. It’s very hard to do the bottle justice in words, but that was the wine that turned me on to old napa cab. Since then, I’ve been on the hunt for the same bottle and recently was able to score 2 bottles of 1983 Cask 23 - one of which I drank recently that was also incredible (I also shared tasting notes here on the forum).
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1991 Chateau Souverain Reserve, 1988 Breton Chinon, 1996 Tollot Corton Bressandes was for Burgundy

A little less than 3 years ago (I think June or July 2018?), I was mixing sound on a documentary shoot in southern California, and after one of the days of filming, we stopped by to visit the producer’s mother-in-law, who lived nearby.

She said we should grab something nice from her wine fridge to have w/ dinner. My producer friend found some mid-level Napa Cab, and she was like “I said to grab something nice.” He said “I thought this was something nice!” She went over, dug around on some shelves, and came back w/ a '95 Pichon Baron.

I knew nothing about wine at that time, had never tried an aged wine, and had no idea it could taste like that. Just an absolutely revelatory experience, a complex web of flavors, and a finish that lasted forever. I remember just focusing so much on the tasting that there was a moment where my friend was saying something to me and I did not even hear him.

That’s what started me on my little journey.

A few of other epiphany moments: '85 Lafite (first time I tried a first growth), '70 Lafleur-Petrus (oldest wine I’d had at that time), '47 Borgogno Riserva (oldest I’ve ever had), '90 Raffault Les Picasses + '01 Joly Coulee de Serrant (started me on my Loire exploration), and '04 Musar Blanc. Not sure I have any specific stories to go with them though.

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I almost forgot my first real epiphany was a bottle of 40 year old Prum.

Ravenswood Cabernet - Gregory’s Vineyard - 1990 or 1991 vintage - not sure. The nose was full of eucalyptus. Made for quite an interesting wine.
In 1994 I visited Ravenswood. While driving, I saw a sign for Gregory’s vineyard. The road along the vineyard was lined with huge eucalyptus trees. Talk about terroir.
The wine itself was OK - so not truly an “epiphany wine” - but there was a eureka moment for me in seeing the connection between site and wine.

Years later, I met Joel Peterson and Morgan Twain Peterson. Told them about my story and that connection with the wine.
They chuckled and told me how the vineyard workers would get covered with eucalyptus tar every time they worked in the field of that vineyard. Not only was it on the grapes but on their clothes, hats, boots, etc.

Thanks to my iPhone I can pinpoint the exact date of my wine epiphany. It was November 7th 2016 and I was 5 weeks shy of graduating undergrad. I took a few wine classes my junior and senior year but I hadn’t been seriously wowed until I drank this Joseph Drouhin Chambolle-Musigny 2008. At that moment I realized I might like this whole wine thing and this experience was a catalyst for me starting a career in the wine industry and taking a deeper dive into wine education.
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Three years ago? Or 2016? Okay… travel a little farther back in time with me.

Here’s mine: I was 15 or so. Grew up in Bay Area until 12, but moved to SoCal for a few years. We came back to visit friends before yet another move, this is late '70s. Family friend was what passed for a collector of Napa wines in that time. We arrive at his house before dinner on a Friday, he arrives home from work, says, let me change out of my suit and grab a bottle of wine. Comes back with a 1968 BV Georges Delatour Cab. Asks my father, “Can the kid have some?” Of course. As a kid, I drank wine at weekend dinners, and had plenty of decent, but not spectacular wines. The BV absolutely blew my mind. Just leagues better than anything I had to that point. After that, I’d always stick my nose in when we ordered a wine at a restaurant, read what a kid could, but we moved to a place with no wine culture except at the very high end. But I didn’t forget that bottle. Hardly drink Cab now, but when I find one made in the pre-Parker style, it takes me right back.

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My first epiphany wines generally aren’t great stories, but my first burgundy epiphany was fun. I sourced a bottle of 1990 Pousse d’or 60 Ouvrees many years ago for a friend’s wedding without knowing what it really was, and drank it with him (I couldn’t go to the wedding, which was abroad). I had no idea a wine could have such depth, concentration and vibrant fruit despite that much age. It’s as if blackberry juice had minerality, alcohol and complex flavors and aromas all in one. I can still remember how that wine tasted and I’ve loved old Potel wines ever since.

Originally written as my wife’s epiphany but applied to both of us.

Back in 1994, I took my now wife to a pre-auction tasting for a Chicago wine company auction. Up to that day, she was happy drinking a 3% residue muscat made at the winery where I worked part time that we sold direct for $7. At the auction, we tasted through few whites together and then we went to try the reds. The reds were in a large room and I went right towards the Bordeaux, she went left. A few minutes later she returns with a glass saying “try this. It’s like velvet.” I ask what is it, but she doesn’t know. She goes back to check and brings me another glass to taste asking if we can buy this one. Turns out both wines were from Leroy, the first was the 1955 Volnay and the second the 1991 Musigny. While I couldn’t afford to buy either, she also never went back to off dry muscat after that day.

It was also worth noting that on that day she got to try a birth year Lafite which she called thin and boring with too much green pepper (1970).

'99 Feuillatte Palmes d’Or that my wife and I shared on our first New Years Eve together. First time trying any sort of aged champagne. Could taste it for three days afterwards.

'70 Chateau Lafitte that we discovered in a secret wine stash in a basement in Utah. It was a pristine kaleidoscope of scents and flavors that completely challenged what I thought a wine could smell and taste like.



I guess the verdict on 1970 Lafite is you love it or you hate it…

Remember like it was yesterday…1994 Williams Selyem “Rochioli”-still adore new world Pinot.

This one is easy: 2005 Bodegas Valdemar Rioja Conde de Valdemar Reserva. Served at a fancy dinner at the local college, it was the first time I had a perfect pairing of food and wine. It was a real “aha!” moment. That $12 wine is probably why I prefer to buy multiple bottles of the same thing instead of a bunch of singles, so I can keep fine tuning the food/wine pairing.

I was in New York in the mid-90’s going to a tasting/dinner with some very generous winos. The wines were outstanding One kind person brought a bottle of 1990 Margaux. It was then that the heavens opened. Still my top wine moment after all these years.

I had just started selling fine and rare wines. At the Chez Panisse Cafe, a 1967 Ch d’Yquem’s sensory circus enveloped my brain and being.
Lift off achieved.

1971, my first taste of wine was an auslese from Les Amis du Vin opened by a friends father. It was amazing. Shortly after a bottle of 1949 Chambolle Musigny also from LADV was mind blowing. All downhill sine then.

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1994 Whitehall lane Morisoli vineyard for my 21st birthday in Vegas, August 2015. From then on I was hooked

As soon as Quebec changes their liquor laws (my bet is on the year 3474), I will open a wine shop and call it Epiphany Wines. All staff members will be snarky and snobby. Margins will be insane. Welcome to Epiphany Wines!

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2012 Paolo Bea Santa Chiara - my first orange wine. I wasn’t far into my wine journey and bought this on clearance because I had heard good things about Bea. After tasting: I didn’t know wine could be like that. And I have since learned that very few skin-contact wines are indeed like that.