I don’t know what gets into me. I was reading an obituary and it just sent me down a rabbit hole. Maybe it’s because my ice cream is melting and I’m getting closer to the abyss. Ah, whatever! I’m not sure, when I no longer breathe, wine will mean much to me (or anything at all, for that matter), but this line from the obit a few weeks ago really lit me up, in a good way:
“On July 2, 2021, Betty Kuhne Sawyer
Hitchings, 93, marched through the gates of Heaven and immediately asked for
directions to the River of Boxed Chardonnay.”
[Read Betty’s obituary, it really does sound like she had a wonderful life, regardless of her choice in wine]
What I do know is this: If I’ve been a good boy and minded all my P’s and Q’s, there better be something better than Franzia waiting for me at the Pearly Gate Café.Supposedly, when someone gives up this earthly cloak and heads off into the sunset and, theoretically, if there is a Heaven, what kind of wine would there be? I’d imagine this would be a personalized and highly subjective answer for anyone who chooses to do this exercise. For time’s sake, I will provide my own insights, seeing as this is my blog. Duh.
Would it exclusively be Italian? Could it be from any epoch, past present or future? I mean, there is no time or space in Heaven, right? Could it come from another planet? Another galaxy? Questions to ask the head Patriarch.
First off, in my Heaven, there would be no box wine. That’s something for the bardo, or Purgatory. Maybe even for some folks it might be Hell. I know if I’ve done all the right things, it isn’t going to be my beverage of choice. I doubt it would quench the fires of Hell (where is rightfully, belongs, in my view of things). That would be poetic justice, wouldn’t it? Something that should quench, but would never, EVER, in the infinite Inferno.
No, I think the first wine I’d like would be the one from the Wedding at Cana. Everyone has been talking about this wine for a couple of millennia, I think it would be high time to see what kind of a winemaker Jesus really was.
Seeing as I’m going to be here for a while, I’d like to get one wine out of the way. That would be the Les Gaudichots 1929 from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, just for shits and giggles. And I’d invite a long dead musician to share it with me, I don’t know, maybe Jimi Hendrix or maybe Chopin, if they even liked wine (or if they were even there).
I’d then like to have some of that wine Pliny was writing about. I’d like to see if all the words that wine writers had been spewing in my lifetime had an iota of truth to it. I’d really like to know.
While we’re at it, the orange wine thing. I’d like to find one, up there, that was delicious, transcendent and revelatory. I mean, really a wine that makes me want to swing a bat for that team. Again, just for shits and giggles. You never know?
After those diversions, then I’d like to taste so many of the wines that I never got enough of (or any) while alive on Earth. Starting with the 1951 Beaulieu Vineyard "Georges de Latour Private Reserve" Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Vineyards and the 1951 Penfolds Grange Hermitage.
Then, I’d like a vertical of every Biondi-Santi Brunello Riserva ever made. Franzia box Chardonnay? Wasn’t I a good boy? Why not the big guns, then? If not then, when? I mean, we’re talking eternity. I could try again in 100 years and do a vertical from 2022-2122. That would be epic, wouldn’t it?
What else? Well, I’d like to taste Mosel Rieslings from 1953, 1959, 1971 and 1976. I probably could have done that on earth if I could have talked Rudi Wiest into it. I know he had a shit ton of great wines in his cellar before he sold them (those lucky folks in PA!).
So, we’ve covered Italy, sort of, California, Germany, Australia and France. What else? I mean I’m just getting started. I plan to raid all the Vega Sicilia up there, Unico artist labels in magnum, for sure. And Porto, those 1900,1927 and 1935’ers better watch out, As well as the 1931 Nacional. That defs got my name on it, baby!
I’m also going to need some thirst quenching whites and sparklers. I will order up all the great Trebbiano white that I could no longer afford while alive. And Champagne. Not Prosecco. Champagne. It’s my Paradise – my rules.
And Barbaresco. Not Gaja. The other cats up here can have it. I just want the olde- school stuff that’s in the corner, me and Bruno G. can handle it.
That should kill, I don’t know, a year? Two? And by
then, maybe I could wean Betty off of Franzia Chardonnay, maybe with a bottle
or two of DRC’s Le Montrachet, n'est-ce pas?
…to be continued