Open Your Bottle Night

Open a bottle with comfort food

Years ago I learned about the Wall Street Journal’s Open That Bottle Night. The concept is why wait to open that “special” bottle of wine for a “special” occasion. Instead open it now – it could remind you of a past special occasion, it could make this occasion special just by opening it or…you may find out you opened your bottle just in time. I loved this idea and often did just that – opened one of the bottles from my modest cellar to enjoy with extraordinary meals and ordinary meals. I never wrote in about my experiences but I loved reading others.

What made me think about it was a dinner I cooked the other night. It reminded me of that column in the WSJ that I haven’t read since I left the Finance Industry to work in the Wine Industry in 2004. A lot has changed since then. When I worked in Finance the wine in my modest collection was “precious”. Now that I work in the Wine business we have a lot more wine at home and I’d actually forgotten about the “precious” wine. It’s stored in two small wine refrigerators in our laundry room. There is so much delicious stuff that I bring home, or friends from other wineries bring over that we wind up drinking that. So…back to what happened. I was whipping up a cozy Shepherds Pie in response to the dark rainy day. We were going to settle in to watch the Oscars with this comforting ground beef and mashed potato dish. When I was sampling the pie as I assembled it I thought – this could pair great with a good red wine. Down home everyday food doesn’t need to be paired with everyday wine does it? Hmmm…it was time to get into the “precious” wine. I was excited to enjoy one of these gems with this dish. First I tried a Meritage from Napa - turns out I had waited too long to try it – it was flat as could be – it’s taste could only be described as “blah”. Next a Cabernet from Walla Walla, Washington. Strike two. The wine was tired. Really tired. Finally I spotted a bottle a bottle from Big Horn Cellars – it made me smile when I pulled it out remembering it had been a gift from a friend 7 or 8 years ago. I popped it open poured it in the glass and took a sip. It was delicious. I couldn’t wait to have it with dinner. When I tasted it with my Shepherd’s Pie I thought wow this is a great wine – but then I thought maybe it’s so great because I’m remembering my friends that gave it to me. And this is why I thought of the WSJ column. Two of my bottles of wine had passed and one brought back warm memories of how I got that bottle.

Share your story with me. I hope more than occasionally it’s a bottle of Michel-Schlumberger (we know those are gorgeous with a little age) but I’d like to hear about all of your experiences (good and bad) and memories of where the bottle came from or where you first enjoyed that wine. You can post it to this blog as a comment.