German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

138
tasting versus drinking
I once got invited to one of those mammoth vertical tastings of some
Bordeaux, I think it was Las Cases. Fifty vintages, back to the Punic
wars. Me! I never get invited to those things.
It took me all of five seconds to reply; no, I wouldn’t be attending.
“Oh, that’s too bad. Is there a scheduling conflict?” “No,” I replied, “I
don’t choose to attend. But I hope everybody else has a great time!”
I really do not enjoy sitting in some chillingly well-lighted room in a
row with many other people as if we were taking the written segment
of a driver’s test, with ten glasses in geometric patterns on the table in
front of me, little bitty bits of wine in each glass, sippin’ and spittin’ and
combing my mind for adjectives. I don’t enjoy it because I think it’s a
waste of wine, and even worse it is a sin against the spirit of wine, and
I would just as soon not participate.
Give me any one or two of those mature vintages, along with a mellow
evening, a rack of lamb, and the company of people I’m fond of, and
I am a very happy man. A great old wine is such a gift of providence that
it begs to be savored, to soak into your heart. Sitting in some creepy banquet
room and “tasting” fifty old wines not only dilutes the aesthetic
experience, it’s a macho snub of the nose to the angels.
Apart from which I respect the hard work of the vintner. If he knew
his/her wine would end up, fifty years later, being opened in a “tasting”
alongside forty nine other wines for a bunch of earnestly scribbling
geeks, he’d probably hurl a grenade at the winery and run away sobbing.
I have enough on my poor conscience without contributing to that.