There is a wonderful thread refloating around about the 10 wines that most influenced your interest in wine, your palate, etc. Your ten most influential wines - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers However, it made me think that in many cases it was not a specific wine but an event or series of events that did so. So, I thought I would start a new thread regarding specific events that influenced you on wine.
For me:
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Thanksgivings at my parents’ house. My father really is the one who taught me about wine. He owned a wine store and as I got older he and I would share bottles at Sunday night dinners at home, etc. But, the big event every year was Thanksgivings. My parents had a large crowd to our house every year for Thanksgiving and dad would put away wines to open at Thanksgiving each year. Most of the crowd could not have cared less about these wines, but there were a few of us who sat around a table many years after dinner and did a more serious dive into great wines. In those days, the wines were mostly Bordeaux and Burgundy, with some German wines as the whites (that is what my mother liked). My wine drinking at these Thanksgiving events probably was mostly from around 1973 or so when I started college through 1985, after which these dinners were too much for my parents and decreased in scope. But, they really helped form my palate.
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Meeting an old friend in DC. When I first got to DC, I reconnected with a childhood friend who finished law school when I did and also started working in DC. We had both become interested in wine (we are still in the same monthly wine tasting group, etc.) and started spending some Saturdays going around to wine stores in DC where a number had wines open for tasting. I learned my ways around DC finding stores like Morris Miller, Eagle, Harry’s at the Waterside Mall, Calvert, Woodley, MacArthurs, A&A, etc. We also found a wine bar at the time in the basement of a Vietnamese restaurant called Chez Maria and got to taste wonderful wines there. [Disclosure: I think I took my now wife there as early as our second or third date and several times thereafter.] And, I learned a lot about wine, leading to:
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Heublein Wine Auction Preview Tasting. Somehow, this friend or I (I cannot remember which) found out that there was going to be a Preview Tasting for a Heublein Wine Action at a hotel in Woodley Park in DC. This would have been I believe in 1983. For the cost of $35, we took the afternoon off from work got to drink some of the greatest wines in the world including Essencia from the 1950s, BV Private Reserve from like 1968-1978 (Heublein owned BV), 1959 Petrus, 1928 and 1971 Yquem, 1934 Chambertin, 1940 la Tache, 1945 CdV Musigny and others. We now have another good friend who we found out years later was at the same event. Really got to see what great wine is really like.
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Robert Parker and 1982 Bordeaux futures. I had started reading wine books and a few wine magazines but was not impressed that much by any of the wine magazines of the time. Then, I found out about the Wine Advocate. Starting subscribing - I think the first issue was about 1979 Bordeaux. But, obviously, the big issue was the issue where he raved about 1982 Bordeaux. Like most wine lovers of my generation, I bought as much 1982 Bordeaux as my wife would allow. [We were pretty much newly weds when futures came out in 1983 as we were married in 1982 so I still thought I needed to listen to her back then. ] My 1982s have long formed the bedrock of my Bordeaux collection, although the number of bottles I have left are dwindling over time.
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Three days in Beaune. In 1984 my wife and I thought we should go on a big trip before we had kids. We thought about going to Napa, but with the dollar so strong at the time vs. the Franc, we went to Paris instead. And, I got to spend THREE DAYS IN BEAUNE. It quickly became my favorite place in the world to visit and we have gone back in 2002 (my first visit with Jacky Truchot (with my kids)), 2007, 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2018.
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David Schildknecht. Back in the 1980s, there were no emails from Envoyer or websites with wine lists. I found about about wine sales from the Monday Washington Post. In around 1984 or 1985 or so, I saw the first ad focused almost entirely about German wines. So, I went to a store called Rex and met their wine buyer - David Schildknecht. From that point through around 1991 or so when he left DC, I bought most of my wine from David, learning about Terry Theise, Bobby Kacher, Loire Chenin Blanc, Jacky Truchot, Bachelet, etc., etc., etc. After my father and probably the people in my wine tasting group, David was probably the biggest influence on my developing palate.
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My first two offlines. I started participating in wine bulletin boards fully early with the old AOL wine board. Over time, I did a number of wine boards culminating at the time with Mark Squires (which later became ebob). I saw a notice there about a couple of offlines over time at a restaurant called Lavandou in Cleveland Park. It is amazing to me how many people I met at these two wine tastings. Most importantly, I met my good friend and board member Randy McFarlane, who invited me to come to his wine tasting group dinners (also at Lavandou). Although some of the names who come to these tastings have changed over the years and Lavandou has closed, I still go virtually every month to wine tastings with this group (at least did until social distancing started), still see Randy, and some of my best friends today are in this group.
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John Gilman and two nights of the wines of Jacky Truchot. The best wine events I have ever attended. I had bought wine from John Gilman for a number of years and so had started subscribing to his new wine newsletter A View From the Cellar from issue #1. He knew I loved the wines of Jacky Truchot. He wanted to do a feature for issue 2 on the wines of Jacky Truchot and came down to DC where two dinners were organized on consecutive nights to taste about 40 wines from four vineyards (first night, MSD Clos Sorbes and Clos de la Roche and second night GC Combottes and Charmes Chambertin). Hands down the best wine tasting I have ever attend, even including the Heublein auction preview tasting and the various Paulees. Frankly, the only things that have come close are a couple of tastings with Jacky Truchot in Burgundy.
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Dom Ruinart. Never was much of a Champagne drinker. Didn’t love the stuff. Started changing my mind with the wines of Cedric Bouchard and other things people brought to our monthly wine tasting group dinners, but still liked but did not love the stuff. That all changed one night when I was invited to a dinner (organized by the same Randy McFarlane) with the then (about 2007) new Chef of Caves at Dom Ruinart Frederic Panaiotis. Boy, was this dinner an eye-opener. Have been liking Champagne more and more ever since.
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The Paulee Grand Tastings. I first found out about the Paulee Grand Tastings in NY on a wine board - cannot remember whether it was this one or eBob. Two friends of mine and I went to our first Grand Tasting in NYC in 2006 (for the 2004 vintage) and have been going back every time the event is in NY (although the number of friends who go have increased over the years). Have learned so much more about Burgundy producers from these events.