10 November 2016
Drinking and Using
An exhortation
By Chin Chin
We all leave our footprints on the planet. In the case of Hadrian it was Roman walls and gateways; in the case of Shakespeare, plays written in immortal verse; in my case it will be a collection of wine bottles full of what was once perfectly pleasant but has now gone well beyond its drink by date.
The trouble is that I am a sucker for the mailshots. “Superb year in the Bordeaux” they scream. “This is your chance to buy en primeur at reasonable prices.” Of course I don’t fall for it all at once. I remember too well those cases from the early 1990s, still sitting in the cellar, long after the wine guides began to describe them as past their best. That followed the years in which the guides pointed out that their best wasn’t much good anyway with expressions like “Turns out to be disappointing”, “Did not realise its early potential” or, more simply, “Yuk!” No wonder that I never drank them. There they sit, enshrined in impressive wooden cases, now just a “piquant little cooking vinegar”. Why, oh why, did I give way to the salesmen and buy wine that was too young to taste? I must have been mad. Still, the lesson was a valuable one. Certainly I will not make that mistake again!
Yes, that is how it starts but then I begin to lie awake at night and imagine the headlines: “The 2015s have become unaffordable,” “Only those who bought en primeur can enjoy this wonderful vintage.”; “Puts all other wine in the shade.” “The true drink of the cognoscenti.” That sort of stuff could make me feel pretty stupid at not having laid in a case or two. Not a large amount, mind. One would not serve the modern equivalent of ambrosia to those who could not appreciate it. No, if I was entertaining people from south of the river, say, it would just be the usual mouthwash from eastern Europe but leavened with a casual reference to having laid in a few cases of something much better, to make it clear to them that they were in the house of a connoisseur.
There would be an implicit hint too that if they changed their status – asked me to a particularly good party or moved north – then they could be in line for a real treat. I forget who said that the key to education is the carrot and not the stick. Well, I think there is a lot in that so I shall buy a couple of cases out of social duty. After all it is not much of a risk. If the wine turns out to be undrinkable, that will be a couple more impressive boxes ageing indefinitely in the cellar. In fact if I made a couple of alterations to the labelling with a felt tip, I could easily give my friends the impression that I was harbouring something rather good. “You shouldn’t drink a top flight La Tour for twenty years.” I could say after stencilling out the wine’s real origin. None of them would get to taste it. I’d say I was keeping it for a special occasion. Who would be any the wiser?
The really sad thing about the wine problem is that it catches the good wines too. If I chance on something really nice or someone brings a particularly good bottle, I put it away in the “only to be drunk on a special occasion” rack. Those words turn out to be code for “never to be drunk at all”. That isn’t deliberate of course. I put the wine away thinking how it will enhance some particularly spectacular occasion. Perhaps a great wine critic will drop by, or a great restauranteur, or a discriminating great aunt who might leave me a lot of money if I impress her. Out will come the bottle, carefully warmed to the right temperature and I will serve it saying “I don’t know if you’ve tried this one. I picked it up en primeur of course. It’s not the sort of thing one can afford nowadays.” Then they will be impressed, at least when they check it out on the computer later, and my reputation for sophistication will be made.
The trouble is that the number of wine critics, restauranteurs and rich great aunts who stop by for a glass with me is very limited indeed, with the result that the wine just sits in pride of place as the wine books move it from “will improve with keeping ” to “drink now”, and then from “drink now” to “past its best”, before moving it from the wine to the vinegar category.
I suspect that I am not alone. If you give somebody a bottle of wine, the higher the quality the more likely it is to be put on one side. The top rows of the nation’s wine racks are full of bottles being kept for special occasions and many of them will never be drunk at all. Of course it isn’t just wine. How many people put their favourite things away for safekeeping to prevent them “spoiling with use”? “I keep great-grandfather’s candlesticks in the bank” you say, “I would hate to lose them.” Yes, but what are you keeping them for? One day you will die and they will pass to the younger generation who will either sell them immediately for the value of the silver or put them back into the bank for another generation who will sell them instead. What is the point of their existing if you are going to do that? Indeed, do they continue to exist? Philosophers have long puzzled about whether a tree actually falls in the forest if there is no one to witness it. Couldn’t the same logic apply to valuables in the bank?
Anyway, even if they do still exist, things which are put away for long periods begin to deteriorate in the same way as a wine which is not drunk. If they don’t do that they probably go out of fashion. The answer is of course to drink the wine and enjoy the candlesticks for, after all, “tomorrow we die”.
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the ShawSheet
