Open That Bottle (Any) Night

Ten years ago, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, the husband-and-wife team who write the column "Wine Notes" for The Wall Street Journal, conceived "Open That Bottle Night." Every year on the last Saturday of February, they encourage all of us who have "Hotel California" cellars ("You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave") to take one of those "special occasion" bottles out of the cellar and drink it on that night.

The point being that there's never an occasion special enough to open those bottles. Thanksgiving? The whole family's together, but the food clashes with most wines. Christmas? The whole family's together, but Uncle Bill will pour his glass to the brim, and Aunt Jill only drinks sweet wines, and Aunt Pill thinks she's allergic to sulfites. . .

So, the point being that opening that special bottle is a special occasion, and it's about the wine, not someone's birthday, graduation, wedding, or promotion--all fine occasions for celebration and certainly wine should be involved, preferably Champagne. But the subtleties of a fine, aged wine are rarely appreciated when crowds, commotion, and exotic foods are involved.

My special bottle-occasion night would involve standing up that bottle for several days beforehand. A younger wine I would decant; a really old bottle I might not. Although it would undoubtedly throw a fair amount of sediment, an old wine might have a very short window of life once it's opened and decanting would hasten that. I'd make the food enhance the wine. Roast beef or roast chicken without dramatic spices or capsaicins put the focus on the wine not the food.

And, for Pete's sake, let's do this more than once a year. Maybe once a month is more like it. And, don't worry that the occasion is not special enough. None is. And, if the bottle has emotional meaning (and what long-aged one doesn't?), drinking it will heighten and focus that emotion but not end it. When the wine is gone, the bottle, label, and memories remain, including now the memory of drinking it.