Friends might recall how a couple weeks ago, my close call, slightly nearer to death experience on a Megabus changed the way I think about drinking wine (i.e., drink the good stuff now, because you never know). Well, I laid a magnum bottle of this ruby port down in 1998 and sat on it like a dragon sits on his gold until last weekend when I had the opportunity to contribute to my block’s annual wine party.
I told Janis and Don, the dessert wine hosts that I was bringing the port in a big way. I arrived at their house bottle in tow in its fancy wooden box, but without my Rabbit opener. I considered going back for my opener when the waiter’s corkscrew to my horror sank into the cork like a knife into cottage cheese. If you’re cringing right now, you get it.
I’m not a wine snob, but this 750 ml bottle shown below retails for $140 today. My bottle was a 1.5 l monster. The ’95 is a rare find as it is and I can’t find the magnum anywhere. So I guess, double the price. Maybe more. Maybe lots more. One search returned a price of $1800. That’s just insane, but not the point.
I was working to dig out the cork, sweating bullets, flashing back on a New Year’s Eve when dear friends brought a prized bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne to celebrate with us and when we opened it, it smelled like soiled diapers (with a redolence of fungus and aged asparagus).
My bottle. My beautiful bottle. Oh what would it taste like? Spun sugar or vomit? With a sigh of relief I was able to dig 99% of the cork out. I smelled the cork fragments. I smelled the bottle. Con fungi. Good. I could see some tiny cork crumbles in the wine, but these we managed to screen out in the decanting.
There was so much sediment left that it looked like somebody had stuffed whole grape leaves into the bottle. This was a little surprising because at 23 years old, Port is still quite young, a sassy Gen Y’er if you will.
But what did it taste like? I’ve teased you long enough. All I can say is imagine you’re 6 and you’ve never been to a county fair. Somebody hands you your very first cone of cotton candy, you bite in and fireworks go off in the back of your brain. Like that. But 40 proof. If you categorically reject dessert wines because they, um, taste too sweet, I feel for you.
A famous Gallo salesman famously pronounced they’d sell no wine before its time. Last Saturday, as fate would have it, was exactly the right time. And the right group of friendly neighbors to share such good fortune with.
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