Tag Archives: wine drinking

Make sure to clean your wine glasses properly!

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As you know, I love using Riedel glasses of the proper shape to drink my wine.  The thought of drinking a Montrachet in anything other than a Riedel Montrachet glass is less seemly than pouring the Montrachet in the toilet bowl and drinking it!  I never drink wine from any other glass than my Riedel glasses when at home and unless I am certain that I can get really good wine glassware in a restaurant, I will bring my Riedel glasses (either my Vinum or my O glasses) along to the restaurant.  There is no excuse for not wanting to get the very best experience out of wine drinking and the right glass plays a huge part in that.

And in that regard, it is important to clean your glassware properly!  When cleaning my decanters, I only rinse them out with hot water or use a little bit of soap.  I then make sure to rinse out the decanter with very hot water and refill and rinse six to seven times to ensure there is no soapy residue.  About every 8th to 10th time I clean the decanter,  I use a Polident capsule (‘Yes,’ the denture cleaner!) to remove any slight build-up of red wine film.  However, the Polident capsule will leave a minty taste to it which could effect the taste of the next bottle decanted unless you make sure the decanter is perfectly cleaned.  Therefore, after using the Polident to remove any film build-up, I wash out the decanter as usual with soap and rinsing it out six or seven times, and then I repeat the process in its entirety again.

I never put my Riedel glasses in the dishwasher as I have a concern that the dishwasher may break or in some way damage them.  I know there are newer, nicer dishwashers in the Miele line that are Riedel-safe and that is great!  I plan on buying one when I move into our own apartment unit.  In my current rental unit, I wash my Riedel glasses by hand.  I have been careful to wash the wine glasses first before using the washing implements to wash other dishes as the washing implements may contain more food particles or greasy or oily residue.  However, I was not as careful and forgotten to do this with my drying towels!

Yesterday, I had used a Riedel Vinum Shiraz glass to enjoy a most magnificent bottle of the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz to go with some great spaghetti my wife made.  I had about a third of the bottle left that I finished off today while writing and doing other work at my computer.  However, when I pulled the glass I cleaned yesterday out of the pantry, I sniffed it and it had an slight odor.  I compared it to other glasses I cleaned previously,  which were odor-free.

But the glass I used and cleaned yesterday definitely had an odor inside the glass when I put my nose to it. I tried to think what had happened and why it had a slight odor.  I often clean and rinse my wine glasses and turn them upside down to dry.  However, I make sure to turn them right-side-up quickly so as to not trap any odor in the globe.  Then I dry them with a drying towel.

The problem was that my drying towel was over-used from having cleaned  dishes the last few days and had built up some food odors on the towel.  Therefore, when drying the Riedel glass, I transferred some of the food odors to the glass causing it to smell.  I always sniff an empty glass before use and you should too.  While rare, this was one time where I had failed to clean and dry the glass properly and it could have caused my otherwise great glass of 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz to be less than perfect due to the odor in the glass.

   

I never store my glassware upside down on a shelf as the rim of the glass will be sealed by the shelf.  If there is any bacteria inside the glass, it can multiply and leave a poor odor in the glass, especially if it is sitting for weeks or longer.  Therefore, I always store my glassware right-side up to allow it to breathe.  I do so inside a closed cabinet so the glasses will not collect dust.  The ideal way to store glasses is upside down (to eliminate any possibility of dust), but by hanging it by the base (see above picture).  This requires you to install a rack to slip the base of the glass into.  While this is the best way to store wine glasses, it does require you to buy and install the rack.  This is not hard, but based on your living conditions, it may be difficult to find an area to mount the wine glass rack and store the glasses.  I just keep mine inside the pantry (see below).

Make sure your wine glasses are:

  • Cleaned properly;
  • Dried properly; and
  • Stored properly

Otherwise, your drinking experience will be less than satisfactory, even with the right Riedel glass and wine!

How to prepare a 20 year old red wine for drinking

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“Just open it and drink it,” many of you would say.  But a 20 year old iconic red wine certainly deserves more care and ceremony than that!  A number of seemingly small steps can make the difference between the wine being ‘passable’ and exceptional.  And it only takes a few more minutes to make it exceptional, so you would be foolhardy if you did not give it a chance!

Granted, the wine will be good or ‘not good’ mostly based on how it has been stored for the last 20 years and what has happened with the micro-oxidation that has gone on in the bottle during that time.  This will be heavily influenced by the cork quality and if it has been faithful or not.

While you are no longer in control of the previous storage or the cork quality, there are four things you have control over in preparing the wine for drinking, all which may influence if the wine is suitable or not:

  • Removing wine from cellar / storage, stand up-right and let rise to room temperature
  • Choosing to use an Ah So cork remover as the cork will be fragile (any cork after 12 – 15 years tends to become saturated and soggy (unless the cork grain is very tight) and is at risk of breaking apart.  See picture in my post ‘A disappointment, but one moves on!’) of a crumbled cork from a 17 year old bottle of wine.)
  • Decanting the wine, avoiding the use of a filter or aerator if possible.  If required, use a filter, but never an aerator for a 20 year old wine
  • Let decant for only 30 – 60 minutes.  Then re-bottle if not already consumed, and  consuming the wine within several hours

You should remove the wine 3 – 12 hours before you plan on opening it.  By allowing it to come to room temperature slowly before opening the bottle will put less stress on the wine as you decant it.  And standing it up allows any free sediment to settle to the bottom of the bottle, potentially removing the need to filter the wine while decanting.

Perfectly preserved cord after 20 years!

The Ah So cork remover is far better for delicate corks than more traditional cork screws as it provides a grip on the outside of the cork (instead of drilling down through a soft cork center) and also ensures the cork has been ‘twisted’ to separate the cork from the bottle.  Over time, the sugar in wine can crystallize, attaching the cork to the bottle and make it difficult to separate and remove.

Now if you have no sediment and no cork floating in the wine, you can decant slowly without using a filter or aerator.  If you do have some indication of sediment or cork, then use a filter but not an aerator.  The structure of an older wine becomes very fragile and will start to separate in a short period of time, further losing fruit flavor and its integrated texture, and an aerator worsen this effect noticeably.  (While I am a big fan of aerating most wines, never aerate a ‘museum’ wine.

Let the wine decant for a short period of time, maybe 30 – 60 minutes.  This old a wine does not usually require much more air to make it ready to drink.  You usually just want to get any older smells entrapped in the bottle out and let the wine breath a little.  If you are not going to drink the wine immediately, then re-bottle it, but make sure to consume within several hours.  This old a bottle of wine will not last the day without some deterioration.

There are a few exceptions to this rule for very robust, built to last wines, but this is the general rule.  You can test a sip or two every 15 minutes to see if the wine continues to improve or not and once it shows no further sign of improvement, then re-bottle.  Some wines such as an older Penfold Grange and the 1987 Lindeman Pyrus require a long time to decant to reach maximum potential.

I used the above process to open a bottle of the 1992 Lindemans Pyrus.  This is a beautifully-aged wine made of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc.  This type of blend has great potential to last a long time and beautifully mature in terms of the complexity and integration of flavors.  Thanks to the cork being in perfect condition, the wine is exquisite!  It would have been slightly better 3 – 5 years ago and has lost just a touch of its fruit flavors, but still very flavorful.  It has big plum flavors with a trace of tobacco which I really enjoy in an aged red wine.

The structure of the wine has held up well, but is fragile and will not last long.  Therefore, I need to drink this wine today.  I am craving a pizza to go with it, or some nice lamb, but we planned to have leftover black bean soup, some corn-on-the-cob, and a salad for dinner.  But it seems almost sinful to have this great wine with a spicy black bean soup!

Cheese/meat plate with 1992 Lindemans Pyrus and Rockmellon

Therefore, we decided to make a last moment change (as the soup, salad and corn-on-the-cob will last until tomorrow) and made up a cheese and salami / prosciutto plate instead which will suffice for dinner and be more enjoyable with the wine than black bean soup!

I am now 2/3rds the way through the bottle (and finished with this post!), so you do not need to be concerned if I finish the wine today or not!

[Post-writing update:  I stand corrected.  I saved the other 1/3 rd of the bottle for a day later, and it was still surprisingly good.  If a wine is very well crafted such as the 1992 Lindemans Pyrus was, then there is less of a concern about it deteriorating quickly.  This wine is still a star the day after opening!]

What I am drinking right now – food optional!

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Wine, of course!  Food is optional this evening.  My wife has done such a great job feeding me over the last few days and we have had some very nice wine matching her great meals.  Two nights ago we had a beautiful spiral pasta with chicken and pesto and I opened a 2007 Annies Lane Coppertrail Riesling from the Clare Valley.  Last night, we had a tremendous meal of pork fillet with steamed vegetables, mash and gravy.  While I would usually open a Pinot Noir to go with a pork fillet, we opened a 2008 Glandore TPR Tempranillo.  Tempranillo is a secondary grape, originally from Spain.  It is heavier than Pinot Noir, but went very well with the pork, especially when covered in gravy!

Tonight, we are not really cooking and I may make a sandwich later or just have some fruit while blogging.  But for now, I am enjoying finishing off the open bottle of the Annies Lane Riesling and then the rest of the Glandore Tempranillo.  Both are great wines to drink on their own which I am currently doing.

The Annies Lane Riesling is a great example of how you can buy an excellent Clare Valley Riesling for $15, cellar it for several years and have it drink like a $40 bottle!  And there is a sweetness to the Tempranillo, like the taste of a strawberry jam or marmalade.  It really is a nice change from my regular red grapes of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.

We are looking forward to going to our place in the Hunter Valley tomorrow evening for an extended four-day weekend and some great wine drinking and reflection.  We will have four days up there with little distraction.  I will use that time to write another in the series of Five Best Wine Meals Ever and finish the other part of “Can we really describe how wine tastes?”  I am looking forward to that.  These posts deserve several dedicated hours to get right.

We will also have a great lunch with good friends at Bistro Molines this weekend, one of the very few hatted restaurants in rural NSW.  Brilliant views, brilliant food and brilliant ambiance – and dinner to be replaced by nap!  Lunches at Bistro Molines tend to be a three hour affair.

Well, back to drinking and getting this post published for you to hopefully enjoy.  And let me know what you are drinking right now!

The wine lifestyle without drinking wine!

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We went to our place in the Hunter Valley last weekend.  It was the first time we had been there in about two months.  We did not tour wineries, we did not drink wine, we did not go out (we ate every meal at home) after we arrived, but we still enjoyed the ‘wine lifestyle.’  Surrounded by vineyards, taking in the greenery of the newly budding vines, and watching regeneration start to bloom was extremely exciting.

Hiking the Great Northern Walk through Mount View, NSW

I went hiking along the Great Northern Walk, we also hiked the Hunter Valley Gardens (where we have an annual pass for the very reasonable price of $85 per year and visit many, many times), we watched The Bourne Identity, and mostly we just chilled in our place taking in the great views, reading, and a little bit of blogging.  It was wonderful and we did not spend any money!  We just had a wonderful time utilizing what we already had – a house to stay in, the use of the annual pass and food in the fridge.

View from back porch in Hunter Valley

With the unbelievable quiet, we slept like babies and shared quiet time together and without any constraints of scheduling anything in advance, we were able to choose what to do at a moment’s notice.  I completely shut down my ‘work’ brain and was able to relax.  And we are going to do it all again this upcoming long weekend.  We will have four straight days in the Hunter.  We do have one meal scheduled with great friends for Saturday lunch and we will be drinking more wine from our cellar.  Again, there will be limited schedule constraints and no cost (other than what we have already spent) to enjoy time in the Hunter Valley.

Chardonnay vines on our place in Hunter Valley

I love walking among the vines, love watching the early stages of the wine production process, and am filled with hope for a great vintage and the upcoming season.  Taking in nature and the views and being able to let my mind room free was a tremendously relaxing and recharging experience.  Yes, I could have an unencumbered weekend in Sydney, but I would not feel like we were getting away, nor have the quietude we achieved in the Hunter Valley.  Plus being among the vines, driving past the great wineries and smelling the fresh air made me feel I was living the wine lifestyle, even when not drinking wine.

But that will change for this long weekend.  I have some great wines planned, including sharing a bottle of the 1999 Meerea Park Alexander Munro Semillon and the 1992 Lindemans Pyrus with our good friends at Saturday lunch.

Sharing your ‘last’ bottle makes it extra-special

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I have had three experiences lately in sharing a ‘last’ bottle of great wine with others.  One was intimate and at home, only sharing with my lovely bride, the last bottle of the 1996 Wolf Blass Grey Label.  We were fortunate to purchase three dozen of this magnificent wine a long time ago and very inexpensively, but it proved to be one of those ‘regular’ wines that was superior far above its branding and price range.  My bride considered this her every day drinking wine and we have enjoyed it over the years.  About a month ago, we opened and shared our last bottle together, eating at home and greatly enjoying the remembrance of this great wine.  The second to last bottle we had was at her 40th birthday party (and made it as part of the Best Wine Meal I have ever had!) a year and a half ago.  This was an occasion that was special to us as a couple and needed to be shared as a couple, not with others.

The other recent experience was with my BPAY team and the meal we had at The Cut Bar & Grill.  One of the bottles was the 2000 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz.  It was my last bottle and I wanted to share it with the team as respect to them and what a great team that they made.  It was one of many great wines that evening and the meal achieved #4 Best Wine Meal ever.  I will be writing in detail about that meal and the wines during this week.

Today, we are going to our good friends for one of their typical Sunday lunches (which means we usually finish lunch and drinking wine well after dinner!).  We and this couple really enjoy each others company and sharing a good meal and wine together.  They both have great palates and he, in particular, loves his Cabernet Sauvignons.  Therefore among other things, I am bringing  my last bottle of the 1999 Zema Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.  Like the 1996 Wolf Blass Grey Label, this wine was superior far above its branding and price range and just got better over the years.  And since he loves great Cabernet Sauvignons and we love them, we are bringing this wine to share with them.

I try to make funerals about the celebration of life well lived, and not about loss and sorrow.  It is a time to celebrate the passing into the great beyond, the release from our bodily hurt.  We need to celebrate with each other and remember the great times we had with the deceased.  The only problem is that the guest of honor no longer with us to celebrate.  Well the great thing about that last bottle of a great and special wine is that it is there with us to celebrate!  And I keep the bottle to remember the great memories throughout the year that accompanied drinking that wine.

Today we will also bring a great bottle of the 2009 Bouchard Pere & Fils Puligny-Montrachet Chardonnay and a bottle of the 1995 Penfolds Adelaide Hills Semillon Trial Bin (which was one of the trial wines for Penfold’s White Grange experiment which resulted in Yatarnna).  I have four bottles of this wine, but have never tried one.  This will also be a great thing to share with good friends, hopefully because we find out it is a real treasure that has been overlooked.  But the featured wine today will be the ‘last’ bottle of the 1999 Zema Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, a great wine with great friends.

How long will an open bottle of wine last?

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Many of us never reach this situation as we polish off a bottle (or more) the first day we open it!  I love to drink wine almost every day, but not that much.  And if it is just my wife and me, we may want to share a bottle over a few days.  Given what we have for dinner, what wine is leftover may not go with the meal the next night, so I may open another bottle to better match the food.  Then I may have two or even three bottles of open wine sitting around!

There are several ways to store wine and keep it reasonably fresh and drinkable for several days.  I use the Vacu Vin pump and stoppers.  Similar models are made by ScrewPull and others, but they all basically work the same.  The newer models have a clicking sound to alert you that you have pumped as long as required and have removed the air from the bottle.  Make sure you get the newer model!  It works far better than the old ones.  The newer stoppers look like the ones to the left.  The older model stoppers look like the ones below and to the right.

There are very expensive systems that will keep between two and four open bottles fresh for a matter of several weeks.  However, they cost from $1,500 – $7,000 based on capacity and quality.  But the Vacu Vin or similar models may be purchased for $20 – $25 inclusive of pump and several stoppers, and certainly will keep the wine fresh for several days.

I had opened a 2005 Stags Leap Black Label Petite Shiraz a full week ago, and because of the meals we had during the week, I did not get around to drinking more of the Stags Leap until last night – six days after the bottle was open.  It was still very fresh, and tonight I am finishing off the last of the bottle.  It has very slightly diminished in freshness, but still an excellent wine.

I should point out that lasting a full week has to do with the quality of this wine.  It is about $60 – $75 per bottle in Australia and has been built to last.  It is unusual for a wine to last this long in an open bottle when using the pump and stopper method.  This is the sign of a very good quality wine.  Most wines in their optimal drinking range will be good for two to three additional days at the longest after opening the wine.  Once a bottle is open, you should always try to drink the wine within one or two more days after opening.  Better quality wines in their optimal drinking range should be able to last two to four days, but I would not normally push it beyond that.  I was lucky with the Stags Leap!

A great, big wine with some age on it will mellow and may even be better after another day of being opened.  This was certainly true of the 1987 Pyrus I discussed in another post entitled “Should you decant wine?”  This wine tasted better the second day.

However, you need to be really careful with older, more fragile wines.  The structure is much less tight than for a newer wine and will break down quickly.  An older wine should be drunk in its entirety the same day, or certainly the next day.  It will lose flavor quickly and have noticeably deteriorated by the second day.

To use the pump and stopper, place the stopper into the bottle completely flush, and then put the pump over the stopper, holding the pump down onto the stopper to provide a seal.  Hold the base of the pump with one hand and lift the handle of the pump up and down until you start to hear a clicking sound.  This will indicate that you have removed the air from the bottle.  Do this each time you open and then close the bottle.  As the wine in the bottle becomes less and less, the amount of time to remove the air increases slightly.

This process will allow you to get more enjoyment out of your wine, even if the bottle has been open for several days.  Drink well!

(BTW, this process is not necessary for fortified wines (alcohol over 20%) as the air does not create the bacterial effect it would with wines which are 16% alcohol and under.  You may just stop up the wine with the original cork.  However, make sure to stop the bottle somehow as if left open, while not turning to vinegar, a fortified wine will still lose flavor.)

Chardonnay with chicken one night, Riesling with chicken the next!

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Last night we had some magnificent Chicken Pot Pies for dinner.  My lovely bride has posted the recipe in her blog DAZ in the Kitchen.  Make sure you enjoy these tummy warmers before spring gets truly on top of us (here in Australia – in the US you are now moving into Chicken Pot Pie season!).  These pot pies are easy to make and simply delicious!  Don’t just throw a Swanson frozen pie in the microwave if you are in the US either!  Follow the recipe and provide yourself a real treat!  (And serve Chardonnay with it!)

From my post yesterday, you understand that we choose a beautiful Chardonnay, the 2006 Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna to go with the Chicken Pot Pies.  Tonight we are having Orange Chicken for dinner, yet having a Riesling instead of Chardonnay as it will match with the food better.

So, why not just do Chardonnay again?  Yesterday, the food was tasty but mild, had a creamy sauce and a light pastry crust on top.  Not wanting to have either the wine or the food outshine the other, we choose a mellow Chardonnay to go match equally with the food in terms of taste and texture.  However, tonight’s meal is Orange Chicken, which uses a tangy-er orange concentrate, some balsamic vinegar and a few other ingredients.  Therefore, we needed an edgier, sharper wine and therefore it made sense to select a Riesling.

There are a lot of great Australian Rieslings, especially from Clare Valley, SA.  But my favorite Riesling of late comes from Alsace and Hugel.  We are drinking the 2009 vintage and it is a spectacular wine for the money.   We paid $30 per bottle for this.

I have some great Rieslings we paid $15 – $18 per bottle for, including Ladbroke, Leo Buring, Annie’s Lane, and Mamre Brook, but I did not have one of those chilled.  After this bottle of the 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling, I will need to be more selective as I only have four bottles left and this is a truly spectacular wine.  In fact, this wine is so good, it is part of my second best wine meal ever!  I may need to see if I can source some more.

The 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling has melon flavors and a long finish.  And dare I say, a slight taste of banana.  (Or maybe the banana impression is coming from the baking of banana bread by my wife today that is sitting on top of the kitchen counter!)

As an aside, the other thing I love about French wines, is the corks!  They still use corks more often than not (I am not sure I would find an Australian Riesling from 2009 with a cork – can anyone help me out here?), and such beautifully labeled corks.  I keep all of my labeled corks in a big basket (which I hope is filled some day!) and the French are helping me out here.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the value and the risk-adverse approach to using screw tops, but there is still an ambient experience of opening a cork, and looking at how it held up that is difficult to beat.  It is just one more small, but nice element to complete a lovely Sunday evening meal.

My 5th best wine meal ever!

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In a recent post, I list the wines that were consumed in my Top 5 wine meals ever.  They were all great meals, and you will notice that three of the five took place at The Cut Bar & Grill.  This is my favorite steak house in Sydney.  They have a great sommelier and wine list and a great menu.  It is a perfect place to host a business meal, or a personal celebration.  We frequent it regularly and usually order wine off the menu, but sometimes we ask if for a special occasion, we may bring our own wine.

The reason we do that is because we want to make the night even more special by having spectacular wine and being able to match the wine to the occasion and the people involved.  When we do this, The Cut Bar & Grill charge $25 per bottle for corkage which is very reasonable as they decant the wine, pour it for you and have to clear and wash the glasses and decanters.  It saves us a great deal of money also and allows us to spend more on their great food!

That is why The Cut Bar & Grill is one of our favorite places and is the venue for three of the Top 5 wine meals ever!  Make sure to frequent them and check them out.

For my fifth best wine meal ever, the situation and wines consumed were as follows:

#5 evening – My 59th birthday – November 26, 2011, at The Cut Bar & Grill

  • 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon
  • 2000 Waverley Estate Chardonnay
  • 2000 Houghton Museum Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
  • 2000 McWilliams Mt Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz
  • 1975 Lindemans Porphry 

We shared a great evening with best friends, Owen and Lucy, Ric and Cristina, and Kevin and Yanna.  The eight of us often share a great meal and wine together and everyone has a pretty good palate and enjoys good wines.

When at The Cut Bar & Grill, we usually start with oysters, a plate of cured meats and a plate of salami.  Plus they have the most amazing Sourdough bread served with oil and butter.  We will serve up the white wines with this course and relaxed conversation.

This is typically followed by our selection of some fine red meat, either the slow roast (prime rib for you Americans in the audience!), or a Waygu New York Strip or Scotch Fillet, or one of the other great steaks they serve .  This gives us ample time to enjoy the reds.

And finally, we move onto dessert from their great dessert menu and have an assorted cheese plate to go with the Sticky!

Each of the wines that evening was superb in it’s own right and made a good line-up for the evening.  The 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon is among the best ever made – just look at all those gold medals!  This wine is crisp, yet polished and beautifully balanced.  It went great with the oysters.  While the famous 1999 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon is the iconic vintage, the 2005 vintage in the Hunter Valley was truly outstanding and in another ten years, this may pass the 1999 in reputation.  (Hope I can make my remaining few bottles last that long!)

Waverley Estate is known for their aged white wines, both Semillon and Chardonnay.  Their 2000 Chardonnay is spectacular.  This wine drinks like a Montrachet, but at about a quarter of the price!  It is rich, smooth and buttery.  This wine relaxes you after the crisper, more vibrant 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1.

We then opened the wine of the evening, the 2000 Houghton Museum Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.  I have never had a better Cabernet Sauvignon (except the 1991 Caymus Special Reserve from Napa Valley now that I think about it).  This wine is perfectly balanced, large fruit taste with the slightest taste of  smoke and leather.  I had a few bottles of this previously and it is ethereal.  This is one of those wines my wife would say is like “sex in the mouth” when drinking it.

I always like to start with the slightly lighter, more elegant red before moving onto the heartier Shiraz, which this evening was the 2000 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea.  This wine was a real treat.  I only had two bottles and this was the first one I drank.  The other was polished off last week at the #4 Best Wine Meal with my BPAY teammates.  This is an excellent wine, with good tannins, and lots of refined fruit and spice.  It is perfectly integrated and the amount of age on the wine was perfect.

Another highlight from this evening was the full bottle of 1975 Lindemans Porphry.  Wow, what a treat that was!  Any time you are drinking a 35 year old wine that still tastes as fresh as this one, you are in for a treat.  I am delighted to know I have another three bottles of this!  It has a rich honey taste which almost sticks to the inside of your cheeks.  Needless to say, it went well with dessert.

When drinking a line-up like this, it is important to get the wines in the right order, generally going from white to red to Sticky, and the lighter, crisper grape to sturdier, heavier grape (for example, the Cabernet Sauvignon before the Shiraz), and younger to older vintages.  Then the anticipation and satisfaction continues to build throughout the evening.

While this was a great evening, it does not compare to the four others I have mentioned.  Stay tuned as those will be described in future posts over the next several weeks.

When to open that truly special bottle of wine

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It is always difficult to determine when to share a truly special bottle of wine and who to share it with.  We recently gave our good friends a bottle of 1993 Penfolds Grange for their wedding and within four months, they wanted to open it and share it with us when we came over to their house for dinner last week.  While honored that they would love to share such a special bottle with us, we convinced them to save it for a more special purpose like their first anniversary, getting their Australian citizenship, having a child, or something like that.

I have had some truly great wines over the years where I have originally bought a couple dozen bottles, but as I have consumed them and gotten down to my last few bottles (and knowing this vintage of this wine can never be found again, except possibly at auction or in a private cellar), the responsibility grew as to when to serve this bottle and with who to share it.

When I was less mature as a wine drinker (and less mature as a person!), I would want to target a truly special occasion for that last bottle of a truly great wine.  It actually got to the point where it was a burden to decide instead of the joy it should have been.

Recently I have changed heart and instead of putting on the pressure to find the a special event to justify that special bottle, I am now looking at how I can consume that special bottle to make an ‘ordinary’ event much more special.  Let me give you two examples of that.

I have a group of guys that formed a great team on the last big project I worked on and they are respected and trusted colleagues and friends.  Six of us are getting together next Wednesday for a reunion and a great meal out.  While the place we are going is not a BYO (Bring Your Own), I know the owner and the sommelier and because I bring a lot of business to them, they are happy to allow me to bring my own wines for special occasions.  I have done that for my and my wife’s birthdays for example.  And I am doing that again for our reunion.  Because of the respect I have for this team of guys, I am bringing some great wines to the meal.  It is not a matter of waiting for the right occasion to break out the great wine, but how to make every occasion much better by opening and sharing those special bottles.  That is what will make an ‘ordinary’ reunion that much more special.

If we keep waiting for a better occasion, we end up either dead or with a ‘dead’ bottle because we waited far too long.  This recently happened to someone with a 1962 Penfolds Grange which was no longer any good because they waited too long.

One of my wife’s all-time favorite wines is the 1996 Wolf Blass Grey Label (which is a blend of 30% Shiraz and 70% Cabernet Sauvignon similar in style to the Penfolds Bin 389).  These blends are iconically Australian and make for a tremendous drop.  We were fortunate to have bought three dozen bottles of this excellent wine in the late ’90s and I think we paid about $16 per bottle for this wine, but I can’t remember for sure.  Several years ago, we put this wine up against the Penfolds Bin 389 in a vertical tasting and compared the 1996 Wolf Blass Grey Label to the 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2004 Penfolds Bin 389, and the consistent pick for the best wine that evening was the 1996 Wolf Blass Grey Label!  That is how good this wine is!

Well, now a decade later, we have one bottle left and I have been thinking about the right time to have it, but I am waiting no more.  Instead of finding the right occasion for the wine, I am just going to have the wine tomorrow night as I wanted to make the night more special for my wife and myself instead of it just being an ‘ordinary’ Saturday night at home.  We are not sure if we are making spaghetti bolognese, wagyu beef burgers, lamb or whatever, but we know the night will become special because we will be sharing that last bottle of a great wine together.

Therefore, instead of waiting for that absolutely special occasion, my recommendation to you is to look at how you can make ‘ordinary’ occasions far more special by bringing that great bottle of wine to share!

Looking back, I now believe it was a mistake to pass on the 1993 Penfolds Grange at my friends house and we should have made the evening more special by enjoying it together.  And (hopefully!) the next time he offers, I will say ‘yes!”

What to drink with Bangers and Mash?

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We are making up a meal of bangers and mash for this evening.  This is the first time cooking this dish at home and I am really looking forward to it tonight!  And we are also looking forward to spring time, but still in the throes of winter and some warm mash in the tummy will suit me just fine this evening!

Several days ago, I wrote about a ‘medicinal Pinot Noir’ and described what a great Pinot Noir the Bannockburn is.  My first introduction to bangers and mash was while living in Melbourne in 1998, and interestingly enough that was also my first introduction to the Bannockburn Pinot Noir!  I can’t remember the vintage, but it was that tasting that encouraged me to buy two dozen of the 1998 Bannockburn Pinot Noir several years later and for which I am forever grateful.

When having bangers and mash, the mashed potatoes feature prominently as do the sausages (we will also have a side of salad with caramelized balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing).  The mash is creamy in texture and when mixed with butter and truffle oil, it deserves to be matched with a slightly lighter red wine such as a Pinot Noir or a Cabernet Sauvignon.  Many Shirazes could overwhelm the bangers and mash and we would not want that.  (However, the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 is such an elegant and slightly thinner textured Shiraz and would go beautifully!)

Therefore, I selected the 1997 Lindemans St George.  I was tempted to open a bottle of the 1996 Lindemans St George which is even better than the 1997, but that seemed too elegant for a simple meal of bangers and mash.  The 1997 St George would be considered an off year compared to the brilliant 1996 and 1998 Lindemans St George.  One of the reason I choose the 1997 Lindemans St George is I thought it was more suitable than the 1996 or 1998 Lindemans St George when matched to the food, and the other is that it will not last as long and  I have about two dozen of the 1997 Lindemans St George and only four of the 1996 and six of the 1998 Lindemans St George which will last another six to ten years.  I am guessing I need to drink all of my 1997 Lindemans St George within the next several years.

When decanting the wine, I noticed that the tannins were well deposited on the side of the bottle and there was a lot of tannin.  The wine seemed a bit tight upon first opening it, but after 20 minutes, it opened up and became smoother.  This wine is still surprisingly robust, yet very mellow with little fruit flavours, maybe just a hint of blackberry.  It does have some light smokey and leathery smells.  The grapes come from the Coonawarra region in South Australia where a number of great Cabernet Sauvignons are grown.  Overall, this is a very nice wine, but not a great wine.

The wine should match up very well with both the mash and the sausages.  I would explain what flavoring is in the sausages, but frankly we forgot what type of sausages they were when we froze them, so will have to find out upon eating them!  But I know the wine on its own is great to drink and it is a great match for the buttery mash with truffle oil, so I expect the meal over all to be outstanding!