Originally published on October 7, 2010.
A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This turned out to be a very good party. We wound up having it at the apartment, and as the night went on, we wound up on the roof. We needed ore wine so I told a couple friends they could go bring up anything they wanted from the wine fridge. “Anything?” they asked. I did a quick mental inventory and said sure, anything. Of course they came back with the one bottle I had forgotten about: Krug Clos du Mesnil. Yeah, no. Not that one. So they went back down and resurfaced with the bottle I had expected them to come up with: Krug 1996. And it was good. I’m now 50 and still haven’t opened that bottle of Clos du Mesnil. Soon. Soon. Certainly before I hit 60!
A couple of years ago I wrote a post about helping a customer select a birthday gift for a friend turning 40. At that point, the store had been open for less than 6 months, I was less than two months away from popping out my third kiddo, and the big 4-0 seemed a very, very long way away.
And now it’s less than two weeks away. (I actually had to check the calendar to confirm that small detail.)
But while I may not be diligently counting down the days to the milestone day, I have been diligently collecting the wines. I’ve scrounged up several bottles of things from 1970, my birth year. I have the good fortune of being born in a decent year for old wines, so I’m not related to the Port bin for birth year wines.
On tap from 1970:
- Lopez de Heredia Tondonia and Bosconia
- Carema Produttori
- Cappellano
- Chateau d’Yquem
I’ve also picked up some other milestone wines over the years – 1989s for high school graduation, 1993 for college. I love old wines, not just because I love the taste, but because I love pausing to remember what was happening in my life – or the world in general – when the grapes were being picked.
It’s time in a bottle in the most literal sense.