Rossodio
Posts: 427
Joined: 7/12/2007
From: USA
Status: offline
|
I was inspired to write this exceedingly long post to share my overall wine story with anyone who cares for a long read about it, and to tie it into my Cellartracker experience. I was inspired by this thread that was put up by Ibetian recently: 18 Years on CT. I was also inspired by BobMiltons Wine Wake thread that made me reflect that life is too short to sit on your bottles, and that even in moments of sadness wine can honor all kinds of situations. I may have written something similar and much more brief as an introduction when I first joined CT. What better time than the present day to update things and catch this corner up on my journey?
Please share your life's wine story here, too. We are all sickos, and it is only proper to share in our pathology together!
I joined CT 2007 at the age of 25, about 2 years after I decided I would get into wine. Cellartracker has been absolutely integral for me, starting with learning how to budget my purchases and track how much monetary value I get out of them; so many wines I have and have had would have cost me a fortune as restaurant purchases or if I had bought them at peak drinking window rather than at release to retail vendors (or occasionally as futures, though the value of this nowadays is questionable). I have bought and still buy wine only as an investment for myself and my family - to be drunk and shared, not sold. When I die I am sure I will pass my collection on to family who will do the same. CT has also helped me immensely in deciding when in my wines' evolutions to drink them through peoples' notes and recommended drinking windows. I have tended to buy one or two bottles of given wines, more recently 4 or 6 bottles of certain wines, along with a smattering of Magnum purchases. Without CT I would have drunken many of the wines I have had too early or too late. CT has helped me judge whether or not a wine purchase makes sense through valuation, etc. Finally, CT has helped me organize my now 550ish bottle cellar much, much better than I ever could have without it. The forums here have helped me out with pairing and restaurant recs, and I have enjoyed Secret Santa for many years as well which has introduced me to wines I otherwise never would have seen or had. CT has enhanced my life in so many quantifiable and unquantifiable ways... I have nearly no regrets in my wine journey so far. I have exercised financial restraint in my wine life and as a result have learned how to purchase in the sweet spot of $15-50/bottle and find an incredible number of earth shatteringly good wines and appellations that otherwise I would never have found. Without CT, it would have been impossible.
My journey with wine altogether started in 2005 when I was invited to an engagement party in a city - Huntsville, Alabama - where I was born and where I had not lived in since I was 5. The engagement party was for the daughter of dear old friends of my parents who was getting married. The only people I knew at the party were the bride to be and her parents. I had not spoken with anyone else in that city aside from a once in a blue moon passage through town to see a small group of my parents and family's old friends since my family moved away when I was 5.
My family was invited to the engagement party to act as hosts at an exceedingly wealthy family's home who knew the bride's family and also knew my parents well but had not met me. For varying reasons, my parents, my older brother, and my younger brother could not go on the family's behalf. My parents didn't even ask me initially as I was in a summer course at the beginning of my second year of medical school. When no one else could go from the family, they did ask me, and it happened to be one of maybe two or three weekends the entire summer when I could reasonably go. A flight was booked.
A blind date was arranged for me by the bride's family and we immediately knew during the car ride heading to the party that there was no chemistry between us even to hang out and socialize for the duration of the party. When we arrived she split off with her friends. I opted to mosey around the gorgeous $5M+ property, eat incredibly intricate and elaborate catered food, and watch people whom I don't know get very drunk while I sipped on bourbon. It was like being a wedding date for a bridesmaid, but umpteen times better since I had even less personal connection to most of the people there and didn't have a date.
The owner of the house, a man in his mid 50's with a glass of wine in hand, noticed me walking around by myself, introduced himself, and exclaimed "You're Papa and Mama Rossodio's son, aren't you?! So glad to have you here. If you'd like to, come on downstairs - the boys and I are shooting pool and opening some great wines." I had been into cooking and baking for some time and already enjoyed fine and practical simple dining both, but my experience with wine was probably 2 or 3 glasses of red or white in my lifetime and a few glasses of sparkling over the years. I wandered downstairs to the ground floor of the home where there were a few guys in their 20's and 30's shooting pool on a 9 foot Brunswick billiards table. All of them had glasses of wine sitting on the tables. There were maybe 200 bottles of wine on a rack outside of a large cellar door along with a bunch of cardboard box cases of wine that were presumably for parties and the like. I wandered into a walk in actively cooled cellar around 30x30 feet with a 12 foot ceiling and racks on all 4 walls from floor to ceiling. An island in the middle of the room had underneath the countertop slide out case storage, 2 cases deep and 3 or 4 rows high, with probably 80 cases of wine laid within. I would estimate maybe a 2-3000 bottle cellar, but not entirely sure. The home owner and about 4 or 5 others were in the cellar, with someone else occasionally wandering in and out. The home owner apparently traveled the world visiting wineries and collecting wine with a strong Italian, Spanish, White Burgundy, and California collection that he was talking about in there. He opened Brunello, Barolo, Amarone, white Burgs, and some Napa cabs that I can recall, many of which in retrospect were heavy hitter labels - at least looking back on it, I remember seeing Gaja, Quintarelli, Heitz, and Silver Oak labels. Much of the lineup was a blur to my wine virgin mind.
The smell was intoxicating and I remember after taking my first sip of good wine having an instant revelation that it would marry so well with certain foods and that food and wine could elevate each other. That first glass was a Brunello I recall. I stayed in that cellar for the best part of 2 1/2 hours. I was enamored by the transience of wine - that every bottle is its own individual living entity, every bottle slightly different, and every day waited on to open a bottle was another incremental evolution of that wine. I was enamored by how I looked at a vintage on a bottle and it would take me back to that year in my life and in world or local events. He opened a 2000 vintage wine there and I thought of graduating high school, my breakup with my high school sweetheart, and starting college. I thought of the sweltering heat wave in Italy when he opened an '03 of some sort and recalled reading randomly in the news previously about how so many wine workers died servicing vineyards that year. I was enamored by the toxic and inviting nature of the nose of wines especially - I had not really figured out the proper technique of smelling wine but that night I remember putting my nose in the glass, inhaling gently, and naturally almost closing my eyes and getting lost in the perfumed cloud hitting my brain, oblivious for a few seconds or longer to the world around me otherwise. Just getting lost in the moment. I was enamored by the thought of the technical and scientific/chemical parts of winemaking, the process of resting wines in barrels, sorting grapes, and the like. I was intrigued by the home owner's personal descriptions of the vineyards, his orated tasting notes of the wines, and how some of them had changed with years since he purchased certain bottles he served. The differing palates and finishes of different types of wines had me intrigued as well. I was hooked.
On my flight home the next afternoon I vowed when I got home I was going to start exploring wine and learn about it on my own. I searched everywhere trying to figure out the best text to seek out and ended up settling on buying Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World wine course textbook. I followed it as closely as I could on my own, studying and enjoying as I went. I went to the local Total Wine in Charleston, SC where I was in school as I did not know where else to go. I within a few months had read the book cover to cover. I will never forget my first Cotes du Rhone and one of my first ever purchased bottles of wine being a Guigal from the early-mid 2000's. A breakthrough came when I took a woman I was dating to one of the highest end restaurants at the time in the city. During the meal they served bread with far and away the best extra virgin olive oil I have ever had to this day. I asked for the manager where they sourced it since I wanted to get some for my kitchen. They mentioned a wine and cheese store about 15 minutes away. I went there to explore the olive oil but when I showed up I was greeted by the owner of this small shop, a woman 12 years older than me who was friendly and seemed passionate about the store and everything within, including teas, wines, and cheeses. I decided to tell her about my trying to get into wine and she offered me a glass of something she was pouring for some customers. I sat with her that evening and we chatted for about 30 minutes about wine. She had a heavily old world based collection, maybe 85% of what was in the store. From that point I went to the weekly (later twice weekly) tastings she would have at her store of 4 or 5 wines at the cost of $5 (later $10) per tasting almost every week for the remaining 2 1/2 years or so of medical school. I would talk with her and learn from her about the wines every week and would often stay afterwards, hang with her, she would open another higher end bottle from her wares, and chat with her. Sometimes her assistant would stay with us and sometimes her husband would come by after he was done with his own work at a local law firm. I would help her close the store often on many of those nights and we became good friends. Three bottles stand out from time spent with her - a magnum of 1970 Pomerol she opened for her 40th birthday party in 2010, chateau Domaine de l'Eglise (I later got an '05 of it that I opened in the last couple of years); a bottle of 2005 Volnay les Santenots by Alex Gambal (tight as a drum at the time; my first "nice" wine purchase ever at around $50 in ~2007; I opened the bottle Christmas of 2023 to go with a beef Wellington I made and it was heavenly); and 1996 Coudelet de Beaucastel which was 12 years old when she got ahold of a parcel of it in 2008 that taught me that even lowly appellations like CdR could be incredible and potentially age well. I would be remiss to not mention that I discovered Gary Vaynerchuk and Wine Library TV around 2006 or 2007 as well which helped me open my mind to all kinds of under the radar appellations worldwide. I also found what is still my #1 retail outfit that I purchase from, another operation out of New York, around that time.
Now 3 years into my wine journey, I moved on to residency and fellowship in New Orleans and was there for 6 years. By that point I was literally hosting wine tastings for co-residents at my condominium and getting others into wine. People at the tastings were blown away that if you know what you are doing you can find hella good wines at the $15-40/bottle range. I was at a different local wine tasting in the city by myself in my intern year and talking with someone from the shop about a wine when a man walked up to me who was unbeknownst to me a prominent collector there. He mentioned that I sounded like I knew what I was talking about with wine and he and I chatted for a while. He mentioned a wine shop about 10 minutes from downtown where folks would "brown bag" wines on Saturdays. I was now 27 years old and living on a meager resident salary. He mentioned the price of admission was at least something around $50/bottle and gave me an informal invite to this informal weekly event. I went to a local store and picked up and decided to show up with something in the $50-75 range - a bottle of 2002 Pavillon Rouge from Chateau Margaux, mainly to see how what such a great label would do with such a poor vintage. I showed up to a room of men and a couple of women ranging in age mostly from 50 to 75, including one of the most hard nosed and strict attending physicians in my residency program who recognized me immediately as one of the interns. He was trashed and immediately made sure I felt welcomed into the group. I made damn sure to not rotate as one of his interns or residents while I was in the program and he and I shared a deep mutual respect for one another for the remainder of my time in the program. The group of typically around 10 people at these informal tastings would do brown bagged blind tastings of wines brought from their/my collections (sometimes "triple blinded" - poured into dark cups after having been at their homes double decanted into different bottles - for example, a Bordeaux being poured into an Alsace bottle to hide its identity further) and the owner of the store would join in with his own bottles, we would buy bottles from the store while tasting as well... it was about 70% Burgundy there, with healthy doses of Bordeaux, Riojas, other Spanish wines, occasional Italian wines, and only very rarely new world selections - though there was one local successful physician who had a prolific Penfolds collection and would bring old St. Henri, Grange, and the like from time to time. The guys in there especially with Burgundy could often name the vintage, producer, and appellation. They could do the same at times with certain other regions (Bdx and Lopez Riojas in particular). It was incredible. I recall having the oldest wine I have ever had while there - a madeira from the 1860's. I was introduced to how great and varied Calvados can be there, and Cognac and Armagnac as well. I recall the first time a California wine ever fooled me for a Bordeaux - it was a 1990 Dominus. I thought it was a 1990 Paulliac. So I had the vintage correct but otherwise was so far off. I was given a bit of a pass on the $50+ price of admission every time I came in given they knew I was living on a resident/fellow salary. I would bring in ringers, Mercureys/Vire Clisses, wines from Southwest France, Madirans and the like, and other outside the box selections and such, to stand up against their big boys. I was there often enough and challenged there enough in my six years of residency and fellowship to the point where I was able to start guessing producers, appellations, vintages on many wines.
I since then left and am practicing medicine in South Carolina. Married, with two children, now 5 and 9. New friends in our demographic all in our 30's to late 40's now, so many interested in good food and good times, often look at me as the guy who knows old world wine (and cognac/armagnac, calvados) more than they but them knowing many other boozes, beers, mixology, certain types of cuisine and cooking, and other such ventures and other aspects of the good life moreso than me. I love nothing more than sharing my wines and wine knowledge with them and learning from their fortes, and trying to get them to catch the wine bug like I have. Sharing with my wife and in laws and seeing how much more enjoyable moments are with the help of fine juice enriches my life and theirs. It is so much fun. I don't hesitate to find excuses to open my own interesting or well aged bottles or to prepare good food to share with it, never with pretentiousness, or to send my wife off to a meetup with her girlfriends with a cool bottle. A now second year medical student who shadowed me for a year at my office when he finished college I have gotten into wine as well and he has thus spread his interest with his own friends and I hope strongly that I am seeding my city and many future groups that will move elsewhere with interest in the universe of wine. I have heard from him secondhand of my indirect influence on the up and coming older Gen Z'ers/youngest millenials and hope that they learn to enjoy wine more as a result, in addition to my own older millenial/younger gen X demo. I have through random encounters and good fortune wound my way to where I am in my wine journey, old world heavy (should be obvious why after reading how I cut my teeth on wine) but still appreciative of and enjoying new world offerings; I am passing it forward to younger generations, and cannot wait until some day in the future when I am sharing the joys of wine with my own children and that up and coming class of physicians and their own friends.
Wine is an endless pursuit even for the most deep pocketed and open scheduled, and new experiences occur every week with wine for me still. I enjoy the simplest and most interesting wines both, so long as served with good company, and intend to continue for as long as I am able.
< Message edited by Rossodio -- 1/22/2024 3:55:20 PM >
_____________________________
- Rossodio
USA
Click below to see my profile on CT:
|
Printable Version
17 Years on CT, and my life's wine journey. Share your ... - 
RE: 17 Years on CT, and my life's wine journey thus far... - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread