And by the way, my understanding is when the original settlers of a town in California named Eureka were told the name had to change, due to another nearby California town already claiming the name, well, they thought it funny to change it to Yreka, pronounced “why-reeka”.
Here’s to Bob 
!
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Now THAT is a setting and a wine for an epiphany!
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I’m lucky enough to have tasted that once. Not as a student needless to say. Wow. What a great story.
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September 11, 2002 - one year anniversary of 9/11 and we are living in Europe. I’m flying from Brussels to Frankfurt for a business meeting and Lufthansa is flying with the cockpit door wide open for the 1:10 flight, I’m a nervous wreck given the timing. Meetings at BASF corporate HQ in the middle of a chemicals manufacturing facility in Ludwigshafen start with lunch, and I’m still nervous from the flight. Along with a delicious lunch, out comes a relatively young 1986 CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva. I’ve been drinking younger Riojas for over a year and my curiosity was piqued.
I have no idea what was said at lunch, I was enthralled with the wine wondering how I could pace myself and be competent in the afternoon meetings. I can still taste the wine to this day. Afternoon meetings went ok (I think?) I did my best, but couldn’t stop thinking about the wine. We flew back to Brussels and my journey for aged Rioja began.
Fast forward to September 13, 2014, I am visiting a dear friend as part of a golf trip in Des Moines, Iowa. At the time I was in a place where I was looking for $25 Napa cabs and splurging at $45. And, after 7 years of drinking great Napa wines twice a year when he was in Houston and not really knowing what he was pulling, he promptly pulls out in sequence a 1995 Arrowood Reserve Especiale and a 2006 Merus. A light bulb went off, and I decided I need to up my game. Worst (and best) decision I ever made. I promptly signed up for more mailing lists than I ever should in two hours and so began my journey into the Napa abyss.
Fast forward again to 2021–We’re into bubbles now more than ever, while I won’t go into detail, our bubbles journey began with a tasting in Napa where the relatively inexpensive French bubbles were far better than the completely overpriced Napa Cabernets. That lead to a trip to Schramsberg six months later and the gates were blown off the hinges!
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Got introduced to wine by my dad in a very passive way. It was always something with appellations and Parker points, so naturally, I brought that with me into my grown life. One night 6 years ago with my best friends in Copenhagen we went to a restaurant but the dish we went for was sold out, and my friend said let’s head over to Pompette — I’d only heard of natural wine but not tried it and was a little against going. Martin Ho brought us in and without judgment of my conventionalist references proceeded to pull out bottle after bottle that did the trick and made us feel like we were the first setting foot on uncharted land. I still don’t know what we drank that night but it made a huge impact. It was an oasis of passion in the early days.
Fast forward a few years to my first wine trip, in Georgia where I tasted so much interesting stuff that I had no idea wine could taste like, and none of them were off — no VA, no mouse, no brett party—just wines with taste and smell like never before. As we drove back to Amsterdam in our Citroen C3, which we bought for the purpose of going, with a constant blinking emergency light on the dashboard, we pulled in every night and proceeded to open crazy bottles that completely freed my mind. When I got home, the girl who was subletting my apartment, agreed to a glass of wine from Okro’s - Sisters Kisi. We’re now married. The wine itself is nothing special but the feeling of freedom and that everything is possible was.
Third and final time was most likely this summer when I realized my palate had ‘grown up’, and that I can very much differentiate the nuances of what I’m drinking. @Claus_Jeppesen had ordered a 2015 Clos Sainte Sophie from Lassaigne, and I really saw what the finer nuances are in terms of fruit, complexity and longevity. I’d had all the other cuvees before but with this being served to me for the first time I finally realised.
Ah when will I learn to get more concrete…
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I dipped my toes in during college and grad school, but started actually tasting good wines after landing my first job in Houston. I started a small tasting group with a few others from the wine subreddit - one whom was a somm at Pappas Brothers.
Several months in, my dad flies down to visit. I wanted to treat him to a nice dinner now that I was finally making adult money. I told my new somm friend what I was trying to do and how much I could afford to spend. He helped us get a table, selected/coursed the wine, and otherwise pulled out all the stops.
The main event was a 1995 Lynch Bages - 24 years old, 20 years older than anything else I had ever drank, and one year older than I was. I had never had a wine where the dominant flavor wasn’t fruit. I distinctly remember how the mushroom flavor of the wine paired against the steak.
Been chasing that dragon ever since. Still recovering from the bill too!
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The jaw dropping moments I’ve had with wine have been sort of varied.
I had the 13 clos de la boudriotte during a party at a my friends condo, out of large libbey Bordeaux stems. It was the first wine I’d had that had this perfect weightlessness of palate and such pure fruit and super finish. Like everything about it was perfect that night, even with probably the relative lack of body.
I had the 2005 Nicolas Rossignol Chevret at Republique a couple years later with friends. It shared a super pure fruit and transparency kinship with the Ramonet CDB but had just SO much velvety power as well.
I had the 2010 La Tache and RSV in NYC and despite having had a lot of other DRCs before (the first wine I ever drank was DRC) I’d never hit the perfect sweet spot of aromatics that had so much impact that they had physical force.
The 76 Rousseau Chambertin I had several years ago was another hauntingly beautiful aromatic wine that had an incomprehensibly pretty nose.
I’ve had a lot of more complete wines, and maybe even qualitatively better wines on balance over the years, but those are the wines that have been sort of seared into my sensory memory.
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Early 80s, my gf, now wife had her first apartment, and Sutter Home White Zin was the latest thing, and our house wine lol. One day she splurged, and brought home a bottle of Beringer white Zin. An epiphany, and our wine journey took off from there.
Ok, that’s a bit facetious, but was probably the first time I paid any attention to who produced the bottle of wine I was drinking.
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Can’t remember an epiphany My greatest bottle was a ‘61 Chateau Latour, served as the last bottle of an estate tasting done 25? years ago. Great line up of 30+ vintages at an afternoon tasting. The tasting ran long and my table bailed at the end, leaving me with the entire bottle. Spent an hour with it
Changed a lot
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Legendary 
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My first Allemand Reynard in 2002. It was a 1996. And it it still brilliant. Shines over other Syrah wines
Also a 1966 Leroy Chappelle Chambertin is unforgettable. Best pinot I ever had
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Yes Aunte Sophie is special😊
Looking forward to next time we meet
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I’ve had a few such moments. Around ten years ago some colleagues and I went out for dinner and ordered a magnum of Sandrone’s Le Vigne 2005. It was (somewhat unexpectedly) amazing and I think it was the first time I realized how cool “silky” tannins could be. For white wine two such moments spring to mind: randomly ordering a Grünhaus Kabinett (2015 vintage, I think) and being lost for words at the marvels of Riesling, which until then hadn’t been on my radar, and Giani Boner’s - yes, it’s a real name;) - 2005 Completer in 2017. My overall, most amazing wine experience: Tasting all 2015 DRC GCs just after their release; both a massive privilege and very educational.
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I’ve had the 2007, only once. One of the best white wines I’ve tasted. An extraordinary wine.
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Never had the 2007, but drank a 2013 last week and it was fantastic. It’s become really hard to get hold of and prices have gone through the roof: the most recent vintage available, 2017, cost 125 CHF ex domaine. The vines are so old that they only carry grapes every second year, hence the odd-number vintages. Randomly this changed in 2018 - not sure why (frost?).
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In 1997, my wife was pregnant with our daughter and was having a baby shower at our house in San Carlos. Since I was persona non grata for that event, I decided to visit the ‘trinity’ of wine shops in the area to kill time…K&L in Redwood City, and Draeger’s and Beltramo’s, both in Menlo Park.
Beltramo’s was having a tasting of 1994 Bordeaux, which included a few first growths. Birth-year vintage for our son, so I forked over the $15. The wines were what you would expect – tight, backwards and not giving much fruit, but with such a different flavor profile than California wines that I was used to. They intrigued me! What I did not know was that they were pouring the 1990 D’Yquem, for $25. In those days, $25 was what we would spend on a nice bottle of wine, much less a taste. Seeing that we were getting ready to move to a bigger house due to having a 2nd child and money was going to get tight, my wife was probably not thrilled at the outlay for a taste of wine!
But what a wine it was! I had never tasted anything like it. It opened my eyes up to Sauternes as well as sweet wines in general. And it started me on the path to trying more Bordeaux, which is now a large part of our cellar. I have now tasted a few vintages of D’Yquem, and consider myself very lucky any time I have the opportunity to taste one.
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