Initiation in the Loire:
I have to say I have never seen or had such a “wine” experience and it has to be mentioned as one of my favourites of all time. We were invited to visit a private cellar for a tasting, not knowing what to expect. We arrived at what looked more like a hide-away cave from the outside than anything that would be a worth while experience. But as we started to descend into this underground “temple” I was discovering that this was going to be special...and it was.
The private cellar of Patrick was a combination of small caves all connected with passages and everywhere you looked there was just bottles of wine stacked up, arranged by country, region and vintages. There must have been more than 30 000 bottles hidden in small corners and passages. Unbelievable! Wines dating back to the beginning of the previous century and even older. All kept perfectly at optimum temperatures and humidity...I mean, we were at least 20 or 30 meters under the earths surface.
After walking around and getting lost in all the small corridors, it was time for the serious business to start. The tasting and the sharing of Patrick’s fortune. We started with old vintages...1983, 1979, etc. Then he opened a bottle without telling us the vintage and told us that we must guess which year. It was clear from the tasting of this specific bottle that it was older than the previous bottles but little did we suspect that it would be THAT old...1928! I could not believe my eyes. The wine was still in good (if not better than just good) and enjoyable condition...80 years after its birth. Simply exquisite!
What followed was a bit against the run of play, but I guess one of those incidents you just laugh about. We were told (after enjoying some more good wines with Patrick) that first time visitors had to go through a small initiation process. There was no time or place to argue with a 100-plus kilogram Gaul keeping in mind that we were some serious meters underground. So what happened was that he picked again a very good wine and made us drink half a bottle at once out of a very big glass. We were given 2005 Sauternes, one of the sweetest wines in the world and very expensive. It was a bit of a waste to think about it, but I don’t think I would ever be able to afford that amount at that price in my life. So without thinking or hesitating twice, I downed the almost 500mL of liquid gold and joined the club with a smile.
I have to say I have never seen or had such a “wine” experience and it has to be mentioned as one of my favourites of all time. We were invited to visit a private cellar for a tasting, not knowing what to expect. We arrived at what looked more like a hide-away cave from the outside than anything that would be a worth while experience. But as we started to descend into this underground “temple” I was discovering that this was going to be special...and it was.
The private cellar of Patrick was a combination of small caves all connected with passages and everywhere you looked there was just bottles of wine stacked up, arranged by country, region and vintages. There must have been more than 30 000 bottles hidden in small corners and passages. Unbelievable! Wines dating back to the beginning of the previous century and even older. All kept perfectly at optimum temperatures and humidity...I mean, we were at least 20 or 30 meters under the earths surface.
After walking around and getting lost in all the small corridors, it was time for the serious business to start. The tasting and the sharing of Patrick’s fortune. We started with old vintages...1983, 1979, etc. Then he opened a bottle without telling us the vintage and told us that we must guess which year. It was clear from the tasting of this specific bottle that it was older than the previous bottles but little did we suspect that it would be THAT old...1928! I could not believe my eyes. The wine was still in good (if not better than just good) and enjoyable condition...80 years after its birth. Simply exquisite!
What followed was a bit against the run of play, but I guess one of those incidents you just laugh about. We were told (after enjoying some more good wines with Patrick) that first time visitors had to go through a small initiation process. There was no time or place to argue with a 100-plus kilogram Gaul keeping in mind that we were some serious meters underground. So what happened was that he picked again a very good wine and made us drink half a bottle at once out of a very big glass. We were given 2005 Sauternes, one of the sweetest wines in the world and very expensive. It was a bit of a waste to think about it, but I don’t think I would ever be able to afford that amount at that price in my life. So without thinking or hesitating twice, I downed the almost 500mL of liquid gold and joined the club with a smile.
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