“Overall, the 1986 vintage was lackluster for much of the world but some regions got lucky.”
“A very good if slightly underrated vintage.”
“Largely good but stopped short of
excellent.”
Looking on my wine closet, there are some stragglers still hanging on from 1986. One red wine from Friuli, a couple of reds from California, a Colheita Port and “from way out in left field,” a Texas red. No more Bordeaux, Burgundy, Tuscan or Piedmont wines. All gone, drunk up. I mean, look at what the experts said?
One of our children in our fam-pod turns 35 today. Exactly half of what I’ll turn in a week. We’ll celebrate 35 and 35x2 later this week. My but the time she does fly, doesn’t she? Did you ever think, in Your Wildest Dreams, that we be here in 2021? I didn’t. I thought getting to 2000 would be the biggest deal.
1986. That was one hell of a summer. I was single, a dad, a single dad. My son was out in California for the summer with his mom. I turned 35, was restless, and wanted to have some fun. And I did. It was a hot summer in Texas. We did some cooking that summer. I wasn’t looking for some Higher Love.
It was the summer I learned to make pesto. I learned to Walk This Way. I also learned that some women Give Love A Bad Name when they loved wine too much. What did I know? I thought wine was good clean fun, to go with all the crazy good food we were making.
Now we know the signs better. Now we know wine, like an alcohol-based beverage, should be handled carefully. Not too much. Just enough. And the fine line where those two intersect, before the Sledgehammer comes down.
Don’t Get Me Wrong, the experts are not mind readers. They can’t see into the future. Most of the time, they are making educated guesses. But now we know many of those experts are full of crap. The younger generations figured it out real fast. Us older-gen Typical Male types, it took a bit longer to see through the fog of our conditioning and biases.
Lackluster, underrated, short of excellent, who the hell know what any of them were talking about? As if any of us put the 1986 vintage on our 2021 daybook to Live to Tell, in 35 years, the experts knew what they were talking about?
Who knows? Who cares? Time keeps chugging along. Drink
up, there’s another vintage coming. Say You, Say Me.
Happy Birthday Anna! And to hell with the experts out
there, all of themz!
