Rossodio
Posts: 427
Joined: 7/12/2007
From: USA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Hollowine
Holding an 1875 Madeira with the thought of opening @ 150 years in 2025. If Covid keeps chipping away at the decade, may accelerate my plans and just find a reason to share with close friends.
Drank a few special bottles of sentimental value this past August for 30th Anniversary.
What exactly does it take to become a close friend of yours? I am willing to convert religions and learn some pretty solid party tricks if that would get me in on the list. The oldest wine I ever had the pleasure of tasting was actually an 1868 Berry Bros. & Rudd Madeira. No detailed notes but I remember the taste of that wine like it was yesterday when I had it... at 140 years old in 2008. Nothing like an old Madeira, and that one outdated the next oldest wine I have ever consumed by 96 years.
I actually got a special bottle of sorts... volunteered for a local wine auction when I was 26 years old and in my intern year after medical school and living off of caffeine and very little free cash. Along with 4 or 5 quite lovely women, I was the sole male in the rotation picking bottles up from backstage and putting them up on the pedestal and standing behind them as a wine model in my nicest suit while people bid on these incredible gems from the small auction catalog for a TV station in New Orleans. I didn't look the part, but I sure as hell played it hard and enjoyed getting to handle bottles that I will never be able to afford. Phone calls would come in for bids as I or one of the women stood behind them before moving the bottles off set after bidding was complete for each. I actually arrived 2 hours pre-auction and scouted the entirety of the auction catalog prior to it starting and with permission from the folks running the show I decided to sit back in a bidder seat as a particular lot approached. While perusing wines pre-auction I noted that the people running the auction had mislabeled a 1990 Dom Ruinart as a non-vintage Ruinart blanc de blancs. I did ask the auction managers about the mislabel and they said it was too late and they would just auction it off, having no idea what they were doing, I believe. It was a Katrina wine that had been underwater in a hotel restaurant's cellar during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The label was well worn and it was unclear how it would drink. But when it was presented late in the auction with a difficult to read label and bidders already buzzed from the free wine that was flowing into their glasses in the audience, I was hoping no one would notice what it actually was. I walked out of there at the end of the night with bottle in hand for $70,
Like many Katrina wines it drank perfectly well as if nothing had ever happened to it. My note follows... but the full story is not included:
"This bottle was flown to Connecticut for my brother's wedding. It was shared with the groom, the other groomsmen, our father, and the father of the bride, the night before the ceremony. There was some question of provenance with this particular bottle, as I purchased it at auction at home in New Orleans. The cellar which donated the bottle for auction was a local hotel, and it was likely that the bottle suffered through Hurricane Katrina; the label was scuffed badly and potentially water-damaged. Nonetheless, as it was mislabeled in the auction guide as a non-vintage Ruinart BdB, and was one of the last lots, many folks were uninterested, tipsy, empty-walleted, and not paying attention. I picked the bottle up at a ludicrously low price.
My fears about the storage conditions of the wine were allayed as I removed the firmly-planted cork. A strong hiss came forth as the cork was dislodged intact and with no signs of seepage. Immediately, medium-sized bubbles rose lazily to form a beautiful mousse, seemingly ignorant of their voyage through arguably the worst natural disaster in American history, with hundreds dying in inhumane conditions within less than 5 miles of the bottle's cellar. The bottle itself likely went through weeks without power in a flooded cellar during a scorching summer, but one would never know this as the bubbles ascended to the tops of the cups and glasses as I poured, bursting into beautiful aromatics delightfully. I reflected briefly on the voyage this wine has had as others in the room immediately commented on the beautiful aromas that permated the room. The nose carried with it honey, buttered toast, white flowers, and butterscotch atop a firm foundation of crisp chalkiness, rounded citrus acidity, and a bit of minerality. The palate presented this flavor profile methodically, stepwise, and smoothly, with the full range of the palate expressing itself over the course of many seconds in the mouth. The sweeter flavors were bracketed with well-balanced light chalkiness as the fizz presented beautiful miniature breaks from what the juice itself offered to the palate. The finish showed each of the flavors gracefully bowing out over 45, 60 seconds, or maybe more. All in all, the experience was enjoyed by everyone involved, and this wine certainly did its label justice.
I don't know that this wine will evolve much in the next few years, and the richer parts of the flavor profile struck me as possibly being at the tail end of their peak; I wouldn't keep this wine for 10 more years, but it certainly has a few more good years left if you have a few bottles. It is drinking very well at this moment, however, so if you have a bottle, by all means, pop the cork and enjoy it!
A great bottle enjoyed with great company."
The secret here is that the hotel that all of the wedding party were staying at refused to give us a bunch of wine glasses to take to a hotel room. We all were standing in my brother's (the groom's) hotel room with only my brother and the father of the bride having swiped glasses from the hotel bar for themselves to enjoy the wine out of. The rest of us did indeed drink this wine out of small styrofoam cups, myself included. I will say, however, without a doubt that this was the best champagne I may ever have had the pleasure of trying, despite the styrofoam cup part of the experience. An appropriately shared and enjoyed wine of its class and caliber, I don't think it would have tasted bad out of a 150 year old well bucket with pond scum lining its inside walls.
That is probably my most special bottle and I am glad I got to enjoy it in exactly the way that I did.
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- Rossodio
USA
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What about that very special bottle you have ? - 
. How many of you actually respected that very special wine for that moment ? My question remembers me of the movie Sideways and that Cheval Blanc 61 that is opened in a burger joint and drank in a styrofoam cup PRICELESS !!!! 
It's nice to be in both.
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