CORKAGE

Sorry for writing about a $1000 dollar bottle of wine, but it’s not like I bought it, I just drank it.  And the point is, you can drink similar things.  I go around talking about how much I LOVE wine, so people invite me to things. That’s key – serious wine drinkers want to share their wine with people who LOVE wine -- and who are willing to sit there, while drinking, and talk about HOW MUCH they love it.

So, last night, David Rubin's wine tasting of the ’97 California Cabs was awesome.  After tasting about 20 red wines, most of the tasters went home (fools), and four or five of us went into David’s study and smoked pot, cigars, and even cigarettes.  Wine, plus pot, plus cigars equals not only palate fatigue, but extreme dry-mouth.  Nothing more to do but go to bed, and drink some water if you remember.  But no, Rubin pulled out the ‘86 Chateau d’Yquem.  We tried to appear calm, but were quivering with excitement.  D’Yquem is considered the greatest desert wine in the world, the Holy Grail, and '86 an extraordinary vintage. 

We tasted.  Wow.   It “cleansed the palate” like an industrial floor buffing machine, it bulldozed the tongue, it said ‘f... you’ to everything we’d eaten, drunk, or smoked.  It wasn’t just a drink, it was an action, it was phenomenally alive .  And delicious beyond description.  So, so sweet, yet with such electric acidity it didn’t taste sweet.  And it was huge, it felt like a gold-colored bowling ball filling the mouth -- how can a liquid have so much SIZE?  

Unlike a lot of great wines, this wine did NOT inspire conversation.  We were not  talking.  We were giggling like idiots.