When I moved up here, I had maybe fifteen cases of wine and it all fit in the Passat. Of the 38 here, I can fit maybe 16 into the Scion (if I'm very, very lucky) and have absolutely no weight limit left over for anything else. Part of me of course wonders what I was thinking buying so much wine, but my reasoning has remained the same (and I haven't bought any wine in about a year at this point)... I wanted these following things:
- every year 1 case each of Clonakilla Hilltops shiraz and 1 case of Clonakilla shiraz viognier (8 cases total at last count; haven't bought the '05 Hilltops yet)
- a wide selection of Australian wine from 2002, the year we spent in Australia (this makes up for about 35% of my collection)
Everything else is basically incidental. We've spent 2007 so far drinking down all of the stuff that won't age (or just won't last much longer), so what's left is very much the good stuff. I had the great fortune to be able to share many, many bottles with friends and family over the last several weeks; here were some of the memorable ones:
- 2001 Clonakilla shiraz viognier, which is still one of the most amazing wines I think anyone will ever drink. It's not as mind blowingly overwhelming as it was when it was young, but it's definitely to the point where its subtlety and beauty can quietly take you by surprise if you're drinking it with your best friends on a summer's evening
- 2005 Clonakilla s/v, which is breathtakingly beautiful in its infancy: an incredibly harmonic performance of basso profundo barnyard, dirt, and soil with the faintest of floral harmonics pinging off of the ceiling. Worth every cent
- 2004 riesling spätlese that Dan bought (a Terry Theise import; I should have written down what it was) which was honey, orange blossoms, minerals, slate, and a faint hint of an impending summer rainstorm all at the same time
And here were some of the not so memorable ones:
- 1997 Te Mata Coleraine, arguably New Zealand's finest red wine. Corked, undrinkable, and currently languishing in the Redmond sewers
- 2000 Te Mata Bullnose syrah, so boring and who cares? that no one bothered to finish it at a party
- 2003 Ridge syrah, sadly also corked
It's going to be a pain in the ass to get it all to San Diego while avoiding the Central Valley heat, and my body is NOT looking forward to schlepping 38 32-pound cases of wine, AND I'm not happy about spending $800 for a year's rental of a wine locker - but I am looking forward to sharing all of this with friends and family in San Diego. The first time Brian, Chris, Henry, Mikey, Dan, Tim, and I drink some of this together, whether chillin' in our generically spiffy Mission Valley apartment or maybe even on someone's back porch will be a very, very good day indeed.
