"Drinker's Block" No More

I recently came down with “drinker’s block”.  It was brought on by a wine of much greater value than that which I normally consume.  Two year’s ago, my husband and I were fortunate enough to be given a 1999 Chateau Mouton Rothschild.  Despite working in the wine industry, and having studied wine intensely for several years, it is very rare that I am given the opportunity to just enjoy a bottle of this prestige.  One would think that knowing the value, appropriate pairings, and peak drinking years of the wine would enhance my enjoyment of it, but somehow in this instance this knowledge was suffocating.  I needed a worthy occasion, the perfect meal, and detailed research on the vintage before I could even go near it.  So I waited for that perfect convergence of factors to fall into place. 

Somehow though, it didn’t happen.  I thought that perhaps we would open it when we got engaged, but we were out to dinner instead.  Then we decided we would open it upon my husband’s completion of the Bar Exam, but it turned out I was traveling for work.  Then we planned to open it when he found out that he passed the Bar Exam, but his parents ended up in town and had other plans for us.  Sometimes there was the right occasion, but we were having the wrong meal.  We had the wine but not the steak that it should be paired with...and so on and so forth.  But time crept on and as we neared the end of 2009, I knew that the peak time for the wine (which has a shorter aging potential than many Bordeaux wines) was running out and that we had to drink up soon. 

Now don't get me wrong, ample bottles of more affordable wine were consumed while this one sat.  We had fallen victim to the pressure that comes with the value of this bottle and were suddenly unsure of how to just relax and enjoy this delectable bottle, something we usually mastered.  Finally, with both of us in the midst of job searching, we decided that we would open it as soon as one of us received good news.  Well...again...time crept on.  As our frustrations with the job search grew, the beautiful bottle with a Raymond Savignac painting on the label gathered dust. 

This all came to a head one cold Tuesday evening.  My husband and I had both received bad news about our respective job searches that day, and we were begrudgingly trying to come up with something healthy, affordable and maybe, good, for dinner.  As boring chicken recipe after bland pasta dish scrolled through my head, suddenly the wine caught my eye…and that was it.  We may not have had a reason to celebrate, or a top quality cut of meat on-hand, but we had a first growth Bordeaux and it was high time we enjoyed it.  We did the best we could to pull together a meal worthy of the wine, and on a Tuesday night for absolutely no reason, we savored every last drop.  With notes of ripe berries, currant and a finish of cedar and dried herbs, the 1999 Mouton Rothschild was indulgent enough to lift our spirits, and complex enough to be worth every penny.  So while a landmark accomplishment or life milestone may seem like the more appropriate time to crack open something special, don’t be afraid to splurge for no occasion at all.  After all, a good day will not be ruined by some cheap wine, but a bad day can be turned to good with the help of great wine.