Nope, none of that sissy stuff I had for my eighteenth birthday – none of those dusty old bottles of 1890 Rothschild port. Hell no. Drunken Noodles at the Bangkok Bistro, and a couple of splits of cheap champagne.
Okay, maybe it was a mistake not to have the Rothschild port. Especially of that vintage. But where in hell does a humble blogger from Cincinnati get that stuff these days, anyway? Not at Kroger’s, I can tell ya that.
My father, when I’d turned eighteen, had gotten a case of that 1890 Rothschild port from a Mysterious Somewhere. Not to celebrate my birthday, no. I was special, but…. He’d gotten it several years earlier for his own mother, who liked port, and he wished (being the perfect youngest son) to impress. I got the very last bottle of the case opened for my birthday. Dad and Mom and me had a glass (or maybe two for them, don’t remember).
I don’t know how my Dad stored the leftovers of that bottle. I don’t know even if he knew the basics of storing wine, fortified or not. What I do know is that I drank the dregs of that bottle the night before my wedding, when I was 22.
Bottom of the bottle, yah. You wine geeks out there, you know that. Especially with a wine that old. It had dregs like my inbox has spam. But you wine geeks out there, I gotta ask ya….
Have you ever drunk dregs that tasted like heaven?
white pebble 