When my first child was born, I decided that I wanted to celebrate, years down the road, when she would be able to share a drink with me. In Ontario, that meant that she would be legally able to buy and consume alcohol in 2020, when she was 19.
Of course, DW and I let her try booze, off and on, long before then. When she was about 5, we let her have a sip of wine. She didn't care for it. When we took a vacation to Italy, in 2009, we let her sip our wine, once again. She didn't mind it, so when we returned home, we'd occasionally pour her about an ounce of wine when we all sat down to holiday dinners (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter).
When she was in high school, we talked to her about underage drinking. We suspected that she would be invited to parties where alcohol would be involved. We let her know that experimenting with booze was a right of passage, and that if she was to be presented with alcohol, that we would be there for her if she ever drank too much or needed a lift home. We encouraged her to be open with us, that we wouldn't judge her.
She actually didn't drink at a party until just a couple of weeks before her 19th birthday. (She had tried some alcohol when she and her best friend travelled Europe, in the summer of 2019, when they were 18.)
In late 2003, I went shopping for a bottle of vintage port, hoping to find one from 2001. Vintage port is bottle-aged for two years or more before it is released. Also, not every year is declared a vintage year: the harvest must yield exceptional grapes and the Portuguese vintners do not like to have subsequent vintage years: maybe two years in a row can produce vintage ports, but rarely could you declare a vintage port three years in a row.
Every so often, I would check the bottle to ensure that none of the liquid made its way out of the top. With each inspection, I noticed more and more dust accumulating over the top. That was the only change that could be discerned from my inspections.
As my daughter's 19th birthday approached, last March, I reminded her that I had this bottle, and that on her birthday, I'd like to make a Brown Knowser video of us opening the bottle, sharing the first sips. She wasn't keen on being in a video (she doesn't often like having her picture taken) but she told me that she'd like to open the bottle with her grandma and grandpa over, so that we could share it with more people who matter.
Unfortunately, by the time that her birthday arrived, we were at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and everybody was in lockdown. Her grandparents couldn't come over, and so she asked if we could wait until things improved and we could have company again.
Last Saturday, my folks came over to my house for the first time since February. It was a beautiful evening, so we set chairs at a safe distance in the back yard, got our propane fire pit started, turned on our fountain, and had a lovely visit.
About halfway into the evening, my daughter said, "Hey, can I open my bottle of port?"
"Of course you can," I said, "it's your bottle."
She asked me to open it and stated that she didn't want to document the occasion with photos or video. She just wanted to share the bottle with family.
Because we had all been drinking before then, we agreed that each of us just wanted a small glass. I pulled out our dessert wine glasses, which are also perfect for drinking port. I slowly poured equal measures but also decided to decant the rest of the bottle. Nineteen years of resting on its side was going to mean that there would be a lot of sediment.
As I poured, I could smell the rich, intense fruit. Cherries and plums, with a bit of toffee hit my senses. In the glass, the colour was a deep garnet. Not a speck of sediment made it into a single glass, nor in the decanter. About a half-cup of the fortified wine was wasted, about half of which was a silty sediment.
On the palate, rich cherries and prunes brought the mouth alive. This vintage port was at its prime, could have even held on for another year. I loved it but my main concern was to know what DD19 thought of it.
"I'm going to have to sip some more of it before I decide," she said. That was a good sign: whenever she sipped beer, she handed the glass back, saying, "Yup, that's beer." Her face screwed up, it was obvious she wasn't a fan.
As her port glass went down, she asked me, "Can I save the rest and invite my friends over tomorrow?"
"Of course, it's your bottle," I said again. "Can you save me one more glass when you and your friends enjoy it?"
She saved me two ounces.
I've decided to keep the bottle. Apart from the neck, which I cleaned off before pouring, it's still caked in dust and dirt from the sixteen-and-a-half years that it lay at the bottom of my wine rack. Like the first tooth that she lost, it's a milestone worth keeping.
No comments:
Post a Comment