This post was originally published on April 30, 2015 on the now-defunct Wayward Wine Pixie blog

Ohhhhhhh..... now I get it.

Most serious wine geeks can remember exactly the time and the wine that converted them from happy, carefree wine drinkers to obsessive about why some wines are heads and shoulders above the rest. For me, that was a bottle of 1986 Chateau Sociando-Mallet. The year was 2002, and the location was an upscale fishing lodge on the west coast where I was doing a summer serving stint.

At that time, I was a Cosmo girl — I drank fruity martinis, and a lot of them. Wine seemed silly and pretentious to me, and I thought it was total nonsense that some people would pay hundreds of dollars (or more) for a SINGLE bottle of the stuff. As fate would have it, our restaurant manager was a sommelier and insistent that staff all learn a thing or two about wine before we opened our doors for the season. I took the course; I listened; I understood a little bit more about what I liked and why. But I still drank martinis.

A few weeks later, a high-rollin’ Alberta oil man sat in my section, along with his fishing guide and their wives, in to show off a little flash I presume. I approached the table, asking for a cocktail order. Oil man barked back: “What year is your Dom?” “Well, sir, I believe it’s a 1992.” “If it is, I’ll take a bottle.” Before they’d finished their appetizers they had polished off two bottles of Dom Perignon at over $200 each. I was smiling.

Then he wanted my recommendations for wine with dinner. Eeek! I sent my sommelier supervisor over, who suggested, opened and decanted some old French bottle for them. All I knew about it was that it cost another $200or so. While they dined, I continually topped up their glasses from the decanter, and when it was empty I dutifully picked it and the wine bottle up and carried them to the service station.

My boss stopped me: “Didn’t they want the rest of the bottle?” “I thought it was empty; they didn’t say anything when I took it off the table.” Silence. Then: “Go get a coffee filter and two glasses.” OK then. I watched, mesmerized, as he poured the last two ounces over the coffee filter, catching fifteen years’ worth of sediment and leaving a clean wine in the glass. He handed one glass to me and instructed me to pay attention to what I was tasting.

As I said at the beginning: Ohhhhhhh..... now I get it. Never in my life had I tasted something so elegant, sophisticated, and complex in beverage format. I was hooked.

Fast forward thirteen years, and I am wandering around a Trader Joe’s in San Diego and see a familiar name. It’s not the same wine, but maybe it’s from the same house? A second label of sorts? The price is right – under $30 – and the vintage is excellent for Bordeaux, so I stash it in my basket and drag it home to Canada with plans to put it away in my long term storage.

Then mom came to visit. She doesn’t like whites or soft reds, the types of wines I usually have kicking around the house. It’s been a long day and we are hungry and I know she wants something a bit chewier than what she’s been exposed to so far. I see the Bordeaux that I had planned to save and I am torn. I had wanted to share it with my daughter at some point in the future as it’s from her birth year. But my mom is thirsty, and I want to be a good host.

I open it. Mom loves it. It’s pleasant, but young. It has hints that it could someday turn into something so much more than it is right now. Someday after many years tucked away, but now that day will never come. Drinking the wine felt like it was falling off a cliff inside my mouth. It was savoury and chewy and flavourful... and then it was gone. No lingering finish, nothing. Just gone. Too young? Or never meant to age in the first place? Thanks to courteous hospitality, I will never know.

Ohhhhhhh..... now I get it. Wine is a total mindf*ck.