Corkage fees

If you’re not in an alcoholic stupor from champagne or insulin shock from chocolates in a heart-shaped box, the WSJ’s wine columnists have suggestions for Wine-related Things to Do in 2009.

Yeah, yeah, the dateline is early last month, but you still have ten and a half months to carry out the recommendations.

I have to say, I’m due for a new corkscrew. The one I use primarily is a little sprung. Not from over-use, mind you. I just had a particularly recalcitrant cork one time and it’s never been the same since.

I’m a little uneasy about that new wine country. I recall vividly still the really bad Bulgarian wine the grad students in the history department at W&M used to buy for our parties, because it was cheap. But what the hell—do you want to live forever? Just have a back-up bottle ready, in case.

Haven’t seen the wine flights in metro Seattle, but I’m sure they exist. I do recall a wine bar in San Francisco a couple of years ago, where I had three splashes of sparklers. Lord, was I ever in heaven.

Since most of my dining out is alone, I’m limited to the wines you can order by the glass, since restaurants around here don’t seem to have discovered the concept of half-bottles. So that cheapest wine is kind of out for me.

Opening bubbly for no particular reason has become my mantra, however.

I do have a bottle of Sauternes somewhere. However, I don’t know what it’ll taste like since I’ve had it for about 15 years, have schlepped it from Virginia to Britain, back to Virginia and then PNW.

And here’s the thing: Brecher and Gaiter don’t mention it here, but they have elsewhere. Do not horde a bottle for the “right” occasion. Along with that bottle of Sauternes, I had a couple of bottles of very nice 1980s-era California cabernets, given me by friends. I opened one last week and the instant I saw that brownish red color I knew it was gone. Ditto the second. The third, a Graves I acquired at the same time as the Sauternes, is barely drinkable (think chili).

So if you do anything wine-ish this year, make sure that you haul out those special bottles and enjoy them.