Michael Hill invokes the memory of a $6.99 bottle of BV, as he starts a new column for The Brew.
Photo by: Fern Shen
It is a question you can ask almost anyone who is into wine: what was the bottle that made you a convert? That turned wine from a background beverage that gave you a buzz into something distinct and different and important?
I can still remember the taste of mine though I drank it 30 years ago, almost to the day.
My wife and I, newly married, had taken a trip with another couple to the south of France and one of my aims for those two weeks was to learn about wine. I knew that I liked good wine but knew nothing about it. In that respect, it was like classical music to me. We were staying in Provence. The local wine region was the Cotes du Ventoux, then a lowly appellation whose products rarely made it to the international market. Now you can find plenty on the shelves of your local wine outlet.
Beyond that was the better-known Cotes du Rhone and the biggest name in the neighborhood was Chateauneuf du Pape. It was March. It rained a lot. We found a great thing to do when it rained was go degustation—wine tasting. We went to various the grower-owned cooperatives of various regions, not knowing that we were missing the good stuff at individual chateaus. We walked the streets of Chateauneuf du Pape – the summer home of the popes who lived in nearby Avignon during the church’s schism of the 14th and 15th centuries – stopping in and trying various local products.
When I got back home – carrying almost a case of wine in my backpack (I even declared it and paid $3.50 duty) – I knew I had drunk some good wine but still had no idea what was going on with this stuff. I started reading some books. I tried a few more wines. I began learning the basics.
A month or so later I was in Well’s Liquors – then considered THE serious wine store in Baltimore – and overheard a clerk talking up some 1974 California cabernet to a customer. One of the books had said ’74 was a good year in California. So, when those customers left, I sheepishly approached the clerk – Bob Schindler, he later moved to Pinehurst Liquors – and asked about the wine, trying to pretend I knew what I was talking about.
Bob was touting several cases of half bottles of ’74 Beaulieu Vineyard George de la Tour cabernet sauvignon. This is BV’s top cabernet. It was a Tuesday. Bob told me to buy one and try it. If I liked it, come back before the weekend for more because once the word got out, this shipment would disappear and there was no more at the winery. I bought two half bottle, $7 each.
The half bottle that started it all. . .
My wife Nancy worked late on Wednesdays then. So the next night, I fixed some filets with Bordelaise sauce and had them ready when she got home. As I opened the bottle and poured out the wine, she was incredulous that I had paid $7 for a half bottle of wine. Then she took a sip. “Go get some more of this,” she said.
I can still taste it, like a wonderful rich velvet coating my mouth. Who knew wine could do this, could open up these worlds of sensual interest and delight? Wow.
That has led to decades of looking, finding, tasting, drinking, traveling, visiting, enjoying, spending, cellaring and talking – all because of wine. It even led to a few years of writing a wine column at the Evening Sun, where I then worked, in the early 1980s. One thing that bothered me was that too much wine writing was pretentious and precious and seemed designed to intimidate, not attract new fans to this remarkable beverage. I tried to do it a different way.
So I begin my second round of wine writing for this publication whose name begs for beer, not wine. But that’s the way I want to look at this, as wine writing for beer drinkers (though there is now plenty of pretense among brewheads). There won’t be too many obscure words, and I hope the explanations will be straightforward. No 100 point scales, just a range from fantastic, through really good, down to decent, terrible and such. I also know that this is a Baltimore blog, so I’ll try to emphasize local products, people, places and issues, though I will range far afield when that’s called for.
Above all, I hope that this medium – unlike The Evening Sun – will allow for a conversation with all of you. Start off by telling me about the bottle that got you started. I still have one of those half bottles of 74 BV George de la Tour down in my basement. I think it’s long past its prime. But looking at it brings back a very nice memory. Which is one of the many great things wine can do.
A half-botttle of BV George de la Tour cab, back in the day: $6.99. A lifetime of wine pleasure: priceless.
