Open what bottle?
Tomorrow is Open That Bottle Night. Yay! It’s time to enjoy that bottle you’ve been saving. But what if you don’t have a special bottle like that?
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Open That Bottle Night has been an annual observance for wine lovers since the turn of the Millennium, since Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, the couple who wrote the Wall Street Journal‘s “Tastings” column from 1998 through 2010, came up with the idea.
The concept is simple: Set the last Saturday of February for an informal world-wide celebration of friends, family and memories, during which all of us finally drink that wine that is otherwise simply too special to open. (Also, if you’re hoarding a special bottle without climate-controlled storage, stop doing that! Drink it! Don’t wait until it’s spoiled by heat and oxidation.)
All this sounds like fun, assuming you have a fancy bottle that you’re hoarding for some unknown future occasion and that has accumulated such an aura that it seems wrong to open it on just any old day. Open That Bottle Night exists to break you out of that deadlock. Open it up! Enjoy it!
But here’s the problem: Not all of us have a fancy bottle in storage or even the cellar facilities to keep such a treasure cool and safe. How can we take part in the joy of Open That Bottle Night?
Here’s my modest proposal: Head for the wine shop and treat yourself to something special! If the late-winter gloom and chill of the end of February isn’t reason enough for a happy splurge to anticipate Spring, I don’t know what is. Get yourself something special and join the Open That Bottle celebration tomorrow night!
Saturday is Open That Bottle Night! Will you consider finally drinking that wine you’ve been saving because it feels too special to open?
I previewed Open That Bottle Night this week with Ridge Sonoma County Three Valleys, an impressive California Zinfandel blend from California’s respected Ridge Vineyards.
“Ridge Monte Bello grows on Ridge Vineyard’s home property situated between 1,300 and 2,700 feet above sea level, where it sits above the high-tech campuses of Silicon Valley and catches cool breezes from the Pacific.”
Ridge is perhaps best known for its memorable Zinfandels and other single-vineyard wines, perhaps most notably its Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet-based Bordeaux-style blend.
Three Valleys is an exception to that rule, combining grapes from three complementary vineyards in a Zinfandel-dominant mix of varieties reminiscent of an old, traditional California field blend.
Although Three Valleys sits at a relatively affordable position in Ridge’s range, its $30ish price tag requires me to keep it behind our subscription paywall. Since I buy all the wines I review at retail and do not accept wine samples or other gratuities from the industry, I count on the support of paid subscribers to help cover the cost of the wines I review. Accordingly, I have to reserve wines that cost me more than about $20 behind our subscription paywall.
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