** this is a repost from a no longer existent blog called The Wayward Wine Pixie that I wrote back in 2015 **
My work often brings me into our winery’s storage room where I navigate dozens of pallets of wine to pack up custom orders for clients. Tucked away into the corner of this more-or-less tidy space is a haphazard mishmash of boxes: some cardboard, some wooden, but all filled with mystery. This is my employer’s personal wine collection, amassed mostly before the winery building was purchased in 2008 and stashed quickly as harvest approached.
Like the proverbial Eve and her apple, I yearn to open these boxes and discover what rests so peacefully inside. But I’m a good girl, and I don’t touch things that don’t belong to me without express permission. It’s made for a distracting work environment, to the point now that I casually mention this enigma to whomever happens to be in the room with me. And as luck would have it, one day that person on the receiving end of my comments was none other than one of the owners.
She casually pulled out a few bottles as I eagerly peered over her shoulder. Chateau Montelena Chardonnay!! 2007!! Oh, but you must drink that soon! 2005 Pouilly-Vinzelles!! What an outstanding year for white Burgundy!! My excited chirps were impossible to contain. I could have watched her pull out bottle after bottle for an hour, easily. Peeking into the wine cellars of others is my equivalent of food porn for chefs.
She took the wines up to the house to chill them, and I, curiosity partially satiated, resumed my work. I thought nothing more of it until several days later when a cheese purveyor dropped off some samples for the staff, and my boss produced the Montelena to drink along with it – an impromptu staff party as the tasting room doors closed at 5 PM on a Saturday.
The wine started out with a bit of bruised apple on the nose and I was worried, until I tasted it and the fruit and acid were still fresh and bright. Chateau Montelena is a winery that I have fond memories of, having visited the property in this very year that we were now drinking.
The venerable wine was shared amongst half a dozen staff and seemed to get better as it warmed up (and we warmed up to its particular charms). Then, alas, it was gone. But there was still more cheese, so off traipsed our heroic employer up the vineyard to the house to bring down the Pouilly-Vinzelles.
My boss pulled off the capsule to reveal an unsightly mess and announced that things didn’t look so good. I was undeterred. “I’m not scared! It’ll be fine!” I proclaimed. And thankfully, after a thorough cleaning of the opening, it was.
More than fine, the wine demonstrated exceptional grace and balance from the first whiff. What an absolute delight to taste a perfectly evolved wine 10 years on. The generosity of my employers at sharing these wines with staff, trading stories of misspent youth, laughter filling the vineyard as twilight set, made each sip taste all the more silky.