End of my wine collecting career

Barolo - La Spinetta 2000 Campe

I started drinking wine in 1976, my 18th year. Instantiating my journey, my older brother gave me a glass of wine at dinner once. It was a 1974 Napa cab which had just been recently released. For those that don’t remember, 74 was a remarkable year in CA. I was ~18, dumb, and so I said: “huh, this is pretty good" and that wrapped up my experience for the moment. Then, in 1992 or so, I had a business lunch at an Italian restaurant in Montreal – full linen service with 8 glasses per setting and a tasting menu method – that had 50,000 bottles of Italian wine downstairs in an abandoned subway tunnel; this lunch-wine vignette now had my full attention.

Thus began my wine collecting career, one that lasted until maybe 2012 or 2015 with the collection lasting to 2021, so maybe a 20 or 30 or even 40 year wine “thing” depending how we count it but which is now officially over for reasons outside the scope of this post. The bulk of that career was focused on: 1) Napa cabs, since I spent four treasured summers in Calistoga CA, living like a Roman before the fall, and 2) Northern Italian wines (Barolo and Barbaresco) due to my Montreal lunch. 

I then proceeded to build three wine cellars in two different homes while I read every book ever published on the topic of wine and cellaring. My peak cellar was small, let's say maybe 1500 bottles or so, made up of CA reds, IT (Piemonte) reds, and German (small prod Riesling) and French (Loire demi-sec) whites. They sat there for a good long while, even when I moved to FL in 2008. My house sitter finally did me a type of perverse favor in that interval and drank/stole 10 cases of my best whites. My ex wife, I guess, also did me a favor by giving some number away to business associates over the marriage. A bunch of the rest kinda rotted because I did not get to them fast enough. The Barolos, however, lasted because, well, they last forever. I now have maybe 4 cases left -- mostly the Barolos and Barbarescos -- and will try to finish that before I move to MT in 2023. I’m finally done with this whole wine thing. It turned out to be a bit too elite, too wonky or expensive, and too uninteresting on the margin at this point. Plus, I lost my palate (ie hated the taste of wine for a bit...it came back later in terms of Pinot Noir) in, say, 2007 during a stressful divorce and move and I came to understand that this "obsession" was not all that important. I mean, give me a Rye, neat, with a side of ice and I'll be just as happy. Glad for the experience and learning, though. It was a fun ride and I learned more than I probably needed to and that is not to mention what I have already forgotten about all of that. You should see my library, though. 

The wine in the pic above is a 2000 Barolo V­ürsù Campe. I’ve been waiting for this bottle through, what? Theft and time for 20 years? And it well met my expectations. Perfect. From Wine Spectator: “98 points and a Collectible designation from the WS…’A real explosion of fruit on the nose, with masses of crushed strawberries, toasted oak and cedar on the nose and palate, and a hint of fresh herbs. Full-bodied and very chewy, with lots of ripe tannins and a ripe fruit finish. Exciting. Best after 2010.’ ” This is not literally my last bottle, but let's call it so for now. It'd be a good ending. 

Did it bother me to crack it solo? No, the gauntlet this bottle ran in real and psychic life meant that this would, in the end, be a private pleasure for me. There is more on this topic, but not today…but end, it is.