I'll bring a bottle....
If you are bringing a bottle to an occasion where there are friends present who really know wine, you want to bring something that will generate some interest and a strong emotional response. Deciding what to bring is I find a revealing exercise. Suffice to say i have many wines in my collection that I likely would not bring. I have started to wonder if I should pay a little more attention to this in deciding what I buy.
I would not bring a mid level red Burgundy. I would not bring a Crozes Hermitage. I would not bring a Fifth Growth Bordeaux. I would not bring Chianti. I likely would not bring a Chinon.
But I might bring a wine from Etna or Puglia or Campagna. I might bring an exceptional wine from Alsace. Perhaps a Chablis. Or something made with Furmint or Godello or Albarinho. I might bring a Garnacha from the Sierra del Gregos or Mencia from Galicia or a blended white from the Collio. Or a wine from the Canary Islands or Corsica. These people drink a lot of wine, so I want to bring something truly interesting that they may not have drunk recently or perhaps at least not with a lot of bottle age.
My point being that for the same money there are wines that really wine knowledgable friends drink frequently and with which they are so familiar that in the normal case these fail to excite and there are other less familiar wines that are much more likely to surprise and stimulate. One could of course bring Haut Brion - which likely will also generate a good deal of enthusiasm - but in Bordeaux one has to spend a lot to induce such a truly emotional response from people very familiar with it. So you bring something a little different and unusual.
It is not that I want to impress with what I bring. I want to generate a passionate response. I want to stimulate a sense of excitement - that the wine journey never ends. There are always new things to try and surprises around the corner.
But even within the currently acknowledged classical wine regions there are wines to be found that meet this criteria. These wines are classic for a reason and a carefully considered selection will surely elicit the desired emotional response. I find, however, that when bringing to a dinner a wine from a classic region, you have to bring a wine of real and evident beauty. A perfect village level Chambolle Musigny or a Volnay is more likely to move the response needle than a wine from Morey St Denis or Nuits St. George or Corton, however good those wines. I prefer to bring a wine that speaks with conspicuous and overt beauty or that has a really strong personality. It is not that Bordeaux does not have an inner beauty. But Bordeaux’s beauty is delivered more intellectually, with more reserve and with less passion. You have to concentrate and seek it out. And likely in my opinion, if you are to generate a truly passionate response, you will need a high end Bordeaux . Whereas a well aged Barolo, which needs you to have three noses fully to appreciate its varied aromas and whose flavors change every time it is sipped, can be had for a song. Barolo really brings it and is an example of a wine with strong outward personality. Aged Brunello, I think, can have a certain rugged personality.
The guidelines are these -
Don’t bring wine of a type with which your friends are very familiar
Bring a wine that has an outgoing personality or an evident beauty or grace.
If you know, bring a wine that goes well with what you are going to eat. And Champagne works well if you don’t know.
“This wine is really very good” is not what I want to hear. What I want to hear is “OMG this wine is outrageously good - SO beautiful - I love it !”
So perhaps this is what my cellar should mostly contain. Why would the measure of what I myself drink be any different ?