CORKAGE

It's really hard to get my wife to drink a whole bottle of anything with me.  That's a problem.  So much balance is lost by this simple fact.  She always finds something she doesn't like about the wine we're drinking.  And it's not that she's nit-picky per se, or critical per se (she is those things, just not per se).  It's more that her nose and palate are extremely sensitive to a great many factors that can very genuinely mar her experience. 

It was her birthday yesterday and I just happened to be holding a 2004 Chenas Vieilles Vignes from Potel-Aviron -- a cru Beaujolais with 4 years of age on it.  I've known for a long time that some Beaujolais (usually the ones with the name of the cru, or town, on the label) don't have to be "nouveaux" to be drinkable, and that the best producers make wine to age for a few years.  I've tasted a number of these wines, and they've been fine, but I've never had a revelatory experience, an experience that makes me love them.  The sweet fruity-syrupy-liqueury-perfumy taste profile, even when combined with good structure, has never really moved me. 

So, we opened the bottle last night and it was quite nice off the bat.  Reminiscent of those good but uninspiring bottles -- but nice.  That strawberry/raspberry/boysenberry liqueury thing was primary, and with pepperoni pizza, it was working.  It went down easy, too.  I was thirsty and I was gulping the wine, and it was quenching something.  My wife said she liked it, too, despite the "cough medicine" taste.  Uh oh, I thought, that's a sure sign that within a few sips she'll be over it.  Between the two of us, I thought we'd tire of the wine before half the bottle was gone.

But instead, we kept drinking.  I was avoiding the garlicky spinach we ordered with the pizza, afraid it would kill the wine.  My wife said try it, it's good with the wine.  I did, it was. 

Now the bottle was half gone and a wonderful tranformation was occuring.  The perfume/syrupy thing in the wine started to mellow considerably.  Pretty soon it was virtually gone, and had somehow integrated itself as a memory into the greater wine, which became deeper, richer, way subtler.  Now we were really drinking! 

And now I was getting curious.  I examine the label.  It seems the Potel of the label is Nicholas Potel, who is a well-known (and I'm pretty sure a superb) Burgundy negociant.  And this Chenas does not even have the word "Beaujolais" on the label -- but it does have the word "Burgundy".  Obviously a conscious choice.

This wine is pretty damn special.  It's almost gone, and my wife is matching me sip for sip, pour for pour.  A miracle! 

We polished off the bottle in about 50 minutes and were then so chill as we put Danilella to bed.  The usual tension around how much will she rebel from this going to bed thing was gone tonight.  No tension.  We were so Zen, so in the moment, so cool, such superb parents and enlightened human being, letting life be -- and Daniella went to bed with no fuss at all. 

Then so did we, very happy and in love. 

(P.S.  Whoa, check out this price .)