The Pleasures of the Solid Case
Like people who are obsessed with music, the wine-obsessed seem to constantly require something new. This is very much a problem for those of us in the wine industry. It is time to drink some wine. We have to decide: go for an old favorite or try something new? Inevitably, curiosity – and perhaps a dose of hope – wins the battle for your mind, and you go with something new.
This is definitely true of me. To maximize my wine experiences, I am forever tempted to try a new bottle, even if I have already discovered something I love.
But recently I decided that the way to try something new was to stop trying new bottles of wine, and start drinking the same wine over and over again. What I wanted to know is, what’s it like drinking the same wine every evening, like most people in wine regions do around the world? It’s something I had never tried before.
I got myself two solid cases. One was the Piron-Lameloise “Quartz” Chenas 2010. The wine retails for $21.99 at our shop. Back when I wrote about Chenas, I recounted the story of finding a 5-year old case of this Chenas that had been lost in the cellar. I was astounded to discover how what started out as a fairly simple wine had become such a great wine of complexity and pleasure.
Well, the 2010 has now passed its 5-year mark and it’s a pretty great vintage. The price was right. Seemed perfect.
The other case had to be white. I went with Claude Riffault’s Sancerre “Les Chasseignes” 2014. My reasons were simple. It’s an all-purpose white from a great vintage, and Sancerre is a wine my wife particularly likes. But mostly I had tasted it and found it to be damn good.
So some nights I drank my Chenas and some nights I drank my Sancerre. It wasn’t every night. Maybe I was at a restaurant and had something different. And there was probably a serious wine dinner or two in there with some great old bottles of wine. And of course there was some over-lapping – the Sancerre keeps brilliantly in the fridge for a few days so even on my Chenas days I could have a glass.
On the whole, I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience. Here were the highlights:
- The first point may seem obvious, but it surprised me how true this was: It was really nice drinking wine every night that I liked! I guess my normal wine-drinking habits are really quite experimental, and when you experiment there are lots of frustrations and disappointments: wine that was too old or too young, too weird or just not to my liking. It was really nice to go a couple of weeks without these sorts of problems!
- When it was time to head home for the evening, I really loved not having to think about what wine I would be drinking! Yes, those of us who are wine-obsessed spend way too much of our lives doing that.
- It takes more than one bottle to get to know a wine. You need to listen to a great album a few times before you really appreciate it. The same is true of wine. I already liked these wines when I bought these solid cases, but by the time I was half-way through them I was appreciating beauty and nuance that I hadn’t noticed before.
- But this was the biggest advantage: At some point along the way, I stopped thinking about the wines I was drinking. I had figured them out. I knew what they tasted like at the top of the bottle, the bottom of the bottle and in the middle. I knew what they tasted like with salad, with scallops, with salami, with chicken, and with steak. I stopped thinking about the wine. I stopped questioning it. I just enjoyed its pleasures.
Does this mean I am going to forever become a solid case kind of guy? Hell no. I remain intensely curious about the many wines this world can offer and this experience has not deterred me from continuing my explorations.
But it has changed by attitude. More often, I find myself going back to old favorites. All such great friends! No, I don’t drink them every night, but every time that I do it is a good night.
Cheers,
Jeff
Jeff Patten is one of the founders of Flatiron Wines. He has been buying and selling wine, and exploring wine country, for over 20 years, and drinking and collecting it for far longer. He is WSET certified (level 2).