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Won't someone think of the children?
It might sound odd to invoke the ankle-biting generation when discussing wine, but I always get a little paternal when I consider what passes for my wine cellar. These wines are like children to me – how could I possibly pick a favorite? Metaphorically running my hands over their dusty labels, I catch myself by turns reminiscing about when they came into my life and anticipating the tremendous fun we will have once they are old enough.
How do you choose, though?
Thankfully, an actual child makes the choice for me – my daughter, whose birth is celebrated by the wine I am nominating as the best in my cellar (or at least the most emotionally connected wine in my cellar). It is from her birth year and was bought specifically to mark that momentous occasion – the 1994 Jim Barry Armagh Shiraz.
Before I get to the specific circumstances of how I came to have it in my possession, I must declare that I have always had a soft spot for this wine.
It's an Irish thing, I suppose; the Armagh vineyard is named for a creek that is, in turn, named for the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland. The vineyard is situated in a place with another Irish reference in the name – Clare Valley. Although that beautiful part of South Australia bears very little resemblance to the Irish county, famous for being, in the words of the 17th Century English military commander Edmund Ludlow, "a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him".
Quite apart from the "ould sod" paddywhackery, there is also the quality of the wine. The Armagh has been one of Australia's most consistently excellent wines. The eight acres of vines were first planted back in 1964 and the ungrafted rootstocks provide the basis for an Australian classic that first hit the shelves back in 1985. It has an aggregated critic score of 94 across all vintages, putting it on a par with Dom Pérignon, Château Angelus and DRC Grands Echezeaux, but an average price of just $229.
True, the 1994 might not be the best vintage ever, but it is no slouch. I managed to acquire a few cases when I owned a wine shop in provincial New Zealand in the 1990s (which, at that time, was either ludicrously optimistic or commercially suicidal; take a guess which) and, when the 1994 vintage became available, I thought it would be nice to have something that could be shared with my daughter when she turned 21.
I looked at what I had in stock and decided on the Armagh and a case of De Bortoli Noble One from the same vintage, on the basis that they were likely to last the distance. (As for the Noble One, that particularly beautiful botrytized Semillon is no more, unfortunately; I drank the last bottle on my daughter's 21st, some five years ago, and it was incredible – it was the color of Oloroso Sherry and tasted like ancient beeswax and honey.) I was all set and I could already picture my daughter and I toasting both her birthday and my foresight in a distant future.
The trouble with kids
Of course, nothing ever turns out as planned – things rarely do – and various travails all too common in life came to nibble away at my collection like mice; an unexpected windfall here, the sudden arrival of an old friend there and, before I knew it, there was one bottle left, which I resolved to crack with my firstborn when she achieved her majority.
But life had yet another indignity in store for me. The one thing I hadn't counted on was obvious, in hindsight: what if my daughter didn't like wine? How could I possibly share it with her if she didn't appreciate the work that had gone into both producing that wine and keeping it for so long? How could she be so cruel to the Barry family and to her own father?
So now I am waiting – more nervously by the day – while my daughter tries to acquire a taste for wine. It's not the waiting that worries me, necessarily, rather the nagging feeling that this wine might be past its peak and on the road to decline. It's a robust wine, right enough, and should have a long life, but even a member of the Barry family told me a while back that it might be an idea to get a move on.
And decline is a relative term with this wine, which I remember as a blockbuster of fruit and tannin in its youth. Also decline is a slow process and there is no definitive peak drinking date, so I comfort myself with such crumbs, while my daughter tells me that under no cirucmstances am I to drink it without her.
She also assures me that she'll get around to the whole wine appreciation thing as soon as she has a few minutes to spare, and she'll let me know when she's ready. Meanwhile, I sit here uneasily drumming my fingers on the tabletop and mutely praying for the phone to ring.
And trying to ignore the inisistent ticking coming from my last remaining bottle of Armagh.
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July 26, 2020 at 07:00AM
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Child's Play Choosing a Wine Cellar Favorite - Wine-Searcher
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