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What was the occasion when you first "got it" with wine -- the time when it hit you that yes, there is a difference between wines and some of them are spectacular.
Here's mine:
So a couple who we had met at an art show (one of my wife's pieces was included in the show), invited us over for dinner. The wine was good. I had never tasted anything like it before, but I was ignorant about wine. I bought cheeap cab, merlot and chard at the grocery store. It was okay, nothing special. Mostly, it was just alcohol with a different taste from beer, the thing to have on a special occasion, but I didn't know better.
It was pinot noir. I looked at the label and asked him about it. This was 20 years ago. He went into this long explanation about its origins, the vineyard, stuff like that, and my eyes glazed over. But I appreciated the fact that (i) he knew about wine, (ii) he had selected a wine that he thought was a very good choice (and it was good), and (iii) he thought we (or at least my wife) was worthy of a wine that he considered special.
Being a rude guest, I asked him where he got it and how much it cost.He went into another long explanation about mailing lists and how I couldn't get this wine at the local grocery store, and it was "only" $35. I thought, ya know, it's good, but do I need to pay that much for wine? I said that it was very good, but that I have never figured out why anybody would pay a lot of money for a bottle of wine. Because, like, I couldn't tell any difference between a $5 wine and a $25 wine from the grocery store. They all tasted pretty much the same to me.
So, his wife said, time for dessert and got up, took our plates. Ordered us to sit. He helped with the plates.
He came back with different wine glasses, bigger, fragile. She put a board in the middle of the table with assorted cheeses and a big basket of breads and crackers. Dessert?
He set down a fat glass flask (now I know it is a decanter) with wine in it. He poured a small amount in each glass. He said, here, set your glass on the table and move it in a circular motion like this (we were learning to swirl).
Then he said, stick your nose in the glass and smell. Okay, we're getting kinda dorky now. But it was their home, they had fed us a very nice dinner, and as they both stuck their noses in their glasses, my wife and I followed their lead.
Holy Sh!t! My brain went haywire! Endorphines were surely oooozing out my ears. I looked at my wife. She had that look that she gets just before she has an orgasm.
He said, okay, take a small sip and just move it around in your mouth a bit before swallowing. Savor it. I didn't want to drink it! I wanted to smell it! But I did what they did.
I said something like, wow, this is not like anything I've ever had before. My wife said, and I quote, "This is like bottled aphrodisiac."
Of course, I asked him what it was. He just smiled and said "one of those expensive wines that aren't worth the money."
We gnoshed on artisan cheeses and sipped this wine. And when it was gone, I felt like a child whose favorite toy was just chewed up by the lawn mower.
Okay, so any real wine nut who has tasted a lot of great California wines knows the wine I'm referring to. Not every expensive wine will blow you away like this or cause your wife to crawl on you lasciviously.
But that was my epiphany. That's when I realized that all wines are not created equal. There really are some wines that rise far above others.
Not all expensive wines are worth the money, and some inexpensive wines are very good. But there are some wines that cost a lot and are way better than the rest. They are luxury items. Not for everyone. Not for every day.
On a special occasion, like an anniversary or my wife's birthday, I will pull out a special wine. On our 25th anniversary, I really splurged big time, and ya know what? It was worth every penny.
What was your epiphany like?
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
Follow Ups:
It was during college. I was sitting in my dorm when me and my room mates got to talking about wine. Keep in mind we were drinking the cheapest beer we could get our hands on and Gallo jug wine.
One of the guys says that he's heard that wine should be aired for an hour or so before drinking so the real flavor can develop blah blah...
We get it into our alcohol and drug addled minds (ahhh college) that we will splurge for a bottle of Beaujolais... I remember it was a Louis Jadot and so we went to the store, got a bottle of 84 or 85 LJ Beaujolais and waited for about 30 minutes... and then boom! That first sip was so much better than anything we had ever imbibed from that first Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill in High School to Pink Champale (swanky) to Bush Beer.
It was my first taste of a fine wine from France that really hit all the senses... the color, the smell and the taste were so far beyond anything I had ever tried that I was hooked forever.
Since then I have had many experiences with wine but not even my first taste of Chateau d'Yquem '60something with foie gras (freaking amazing) had the impact of that first simple bottle of light red wine.
Back in the mid 70's I rented a house in upstate New York from a friend who was an investment banker in NYC. He had developed a taste for good wines, a necessity in his business, having to wine and dine important clients. In the basement of his country house where I lived he kept a few cases and some odd bottles of wine. Once while on a visit to check up on some renovations he brought up one of the bottles from the basement to share. It was a Chateau Beychevelle. I don't recall the vintage, but it doesn't matter. That pretty much did it for me.
That moment of "being done in".
...when my wife and I started dating in 1980, we had been to Napa and liked Sutter Home's new white zinfandel.
Being the wine connossieuers we thought we were, we'd buy it by the case - it became our house wine.
Then in 1982 right after we were married, I pulled out a 1979 Lytton Springs zinfandel I had been saving.
Best wine ever.
Started me on my California wine trip focused on zins, especially from Dry Creek, and now toward CA and OR pinot noirs.
About the same time we had a Grgich Hills chardonnay that seemed like ambrosia which has focused her on CA chardonnays leading to Ferrari Carano and Rombauer.
Since CA wines are so close and accessible, I have never been much interested in French or European varietals.
I personally would expect a dessert wine if my host(ess) stated "it was time for dessert", but that's just me. A sublime wine is a sublime wine and I'll not say the Pahlmeyer meritage wasn't so as a pairing with a nice cheese/bread serving like the OP has stated.
My personal wake up call with wine revolved around a beautifully prepared apricot tart and a nice aged split of Rieussec sauternes while dining at a friends home. We are still very good friends with the couple that shared that special bottle with us in 1993 and we share dinners and many different types of wine on a pretty regular basis to this day. It's fun to enjoy wine with those that appreciate it and I have my friend and his wife to thank for our indoctrination into the world of wine.
Mike
First was a German Spatlese. I have no idea which vineyard, what vintage, etc.. Just know that up until that all I had ever had was Mateus or Lancers Rose. I was blown away that wine could taste this good. I had just started to work at a cheese and wine shop. I was hooked.
Over the years the wines that still stick out as "Wow!" moments:
1974 Ch. Ste. Michelle Cab., 1974 Joseph Phelps. I still remember this as a vintage you had a hard time finding a bad Cab. These were before the "ripeness" takeover.
Haut Brion Blanc, don't know the year, but the finest glass of dry white wine I have ever experienced.
1970 Cos D'Estournel. I had saved it for years and was lucky to try it at it's peak. Great Bourdeaux is hard to beat.
German Eiswein. Once again, can't remember the exact one but every sip was a new experience.
I think mine was a Heitz Cellars Martha's Vineyard Cab. I don't remember the vintage but it was before the vineyard was replanted (phylloxera).
My wife used to work with a lot of ex-major league baseball players and dinner was almost always at a steak house and involved one up man ship of ordering Cali cabs. That's how we moved from drinking mediocre Italian mass produced wines in favor of better (and usually pricier) wines.
Ice wines? Check out the Olsen Estates Golden Berry...I have a 2008...not sure about other vintages.
It's a botrytised rielsing...individual berries are picked from the cluster only if they are infected...wonderful stuff and reasonably priced.
But at $55/split and $18 shipping, a bit out of my range.
> Okay, so any real wine nut who has tasted a lot of great California wines knows the wine I'm referring to.>
I've been drinking good California wine for nearly 30 years and I have no clue what wine you're talking about.
Why so secretive?
Sorry, I wasn't intending to be smug. Pahlmeyer meritage was commonly referred to as "sex in a bottle" in SF and NY when I was living in those cities back in the 90s and early 2000s. I just assumed that description was prevalent everywhere. Guess I was wrong.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
In your original post you write that the wine in question "was pinot noir" (sic). Yet in your reply to Mike you state that the wine was Pahlmeyer meritage. Problem being, PM does not contain Pinot Noir. Rather, it's a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot and Malbec.
I must not be a wine nut because that was nowhere near what I would have thought of.
...NY cult thing.
Probably not SF.
I have heard of Pahlmeyer, but not the "sex in a bottle thing" and I've lived an hour from Napa and 30 minutes from SF for those 30 years.
Rombauer "Crack"?
Still can't wait to go by their tasting room and drop that story on them.
I'm assuming it is Far Niente "Dolce". Pretty ubiquitous as a California sweet wine.
Don't know if he's being smug or doesn't know any other dessert wines.
...I've tasted some desert muscats, but the only sweet wine I like is port.
over on music and then steal my thread idea and post on wine?
DUDE!!!?
It's all good.
There is the old adage that "plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery." As Josh Billings once said, "About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment."
But I'll post an official apology to you on Music Lane, because you are obviously pissed off. I'll try to avoid offending you in the future.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
I meant the last line.
It's good to see someone else posting over here other than Mike, Steve, and me.
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