Wine, spirits, and the slow education of the palate. On drinking well, not often.
The colour is what one hundred and thirty plants leave behind after they have been steeped, distilled and left in oak. Nothing in the bottle has been dyed. Two monks hold the list, and in 2023 the order that owns it told the world there would be no more.
Someone asks what the greatest Champagne ever made is. The room divides immediately. Krug, says one. Salon, says another. Dom Pérignon, says a third. The argument that follows will last at least as long as the bottle.
The flutes are set before anyone arrives. A bottle of Champagne is already cold. The host opens it quietly, without ceremony. This is not the wine of the evening. That comes later. This is something else: an opening movement.
A friend who is a seventh generation winemaker once said that decanting an old bottle is like asking an old man in a wheelchair to jump up and sprint. The image contains a complete theory of old wine service.
I have been buying Prüm family Rieslings from the 1970s and 1980s with some regularity and find them, without exception, remarkable. The market has not yet arrived at the price this quality deserves.