Nearly time to Open That Bottle!
Saturday 27th February has been ringed on my calendar for some time. We're nearly there and I'm already looking forward to celebrating the 22nd Open That Bottle Night.
Let me enable you… it's finally time to open That Bottle. You know the one; that bottle that is always either too good for the company or for the food that is being served, the one you bought somewhere special, lugged home in your suitcase and can’t bear to open, the one you have been saving for a special event that hasn’t happened yet… go for it, Saturday’s the night!
Open That Bottle Night was created by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, a husband and wife team who wrote about wine in the Wall Street Journal from 1998 to 2009. They invented OTBN in 1999, and it has been celebrated all over the world every year since then. It’s a worldwide event and always the last Saturday in February. Dottie and John describe thousands of bottles being “released from prison and enjoyed” ; their own 2021 shortlist of four can be consulted here.
Bear in mind their precious advice such as standing older wines for a few days prior to opening, having a back-up and – most sage of all – “enjoy the wine for what it is, not what it might someday be or might once have been.” Carpe diem amici.
This year I will be liberating either an Il Palazzone 1995 Riserva - an historic vintage for the winery since it was the the wine that prompted Mr Parsons to purchase the property back in 2000 - or a Bindi Dixon 2017 Pinot Noir, a tiny estate from the Macedon ranges near Melbourne…. What about you?
