What Does A Wine Guy Drink When He’s Celebrating?

By Alex Russell on May 22, 2014 in Food

Every now and then we have a moment that is really special; something we want to celebrate. For me, this involves a ‘money doesn’t matter today’ bottle of wine. It’s not often that these moments come along, but this year I have a few coming up. In February I handed in my PhD thesis after devoting a large chunk of my life to it, and while that’s reason enough to celebrate, I’ve also got another really important thing coming up: in May, my missus Steph and I are getting married. So which ‘money doesn’t matter today’ wines will I be drinking?

PhD Celebrations
Finishing a PhD is a massive anticlimax. After years of work, you hand in four copies of your thesis and then wait three months before you hear anything. Then you have to change whatever your markers want you to change, wait for that to be approved, then wait a few more months for graduation. But hey, as far as I’m concerned, I’m going to celebrate every single one of those milestones.

The submission was celebrated with a bottle of Salon 1999, which is basically the duck’s guts of Champagne. Only produced in decent years, it is made purely from Chardonnay and goes for days. If you ever get the chance to try it, do.

When I hear back from the markers and resubmit my changes I’ll be debating some really interesting Pinots. Giant Steps Applejack Vineyard from the Yarra Valley (which has won huge trophies everywhere and has sold out) or perhaps some By Farr will make the cut, or maybe something interesting from Central Otago such as Felton Road (Block 3 or Block 5).

And when I actually graduate? Well, I’m saving frantically for that and hoping to get a bottle of DRC – pretty much universally considered to be the world’s best Pinot producer. Which one? Romanée-Conti, La Tâche and Richebourg are probably way out of my price range. Maybe Grands Échezeaux – that’d be amazing – or perhaps Romanée-St-Vivant. Failing that, I’ll go with some Prieuré Roch – wines that I absolutely love.

Wedding Celebrations
I’ve got some great stuff happening at the wedding. We’ll have bubbles at the ceremony to kick off the festivities. I’m looking at getting an interesting Grower champers here, though I haven’t worked out which one. If you’ve never heard of Grower champers, search The Beast website – I wrote about them a couple of years ago.

Our reception wines will be Margan Semillon (gotta love a Hunter Sem!), Te Hana bubbles (decent value little drop) and we’re still working out the red – the joys of wedding planning!

Of course I’ll have some extra special drops on the head table. I’ve got a 6-litre bottle (called an ‘Imperial’ in Bordeaux and a ‘Methuselah’ in Champagne and Burgundy) of the 2003 Fox Creek ‘Fox and Hounds’ Shiraz Cabernet that’ll be shared with our most special guests. We’ll cut the cake with Krug 1998 (one of my favourite Champagnes) and I haven’t decided on the others, though I think that Chateau Suduiraut (an awesome dessert wine) will be making an appearance at some point. We love dessert wine but don’t often get around to it, so this’ll be an awesome excuse. You can bet I’ll have some Burgundy open at some point, perhaps the Camille Giroud 2011 that we tasted in barrel when we were over there.

I don’t know how many of these wines you know, but the aim of this article is to get you thinking about wines that you might like to drink on your special occasions. Too often we get nice bottles of wine and store them away for a special occasion that never comes, and the wine slowly ages itself into oblivion.

Tell me your ‘money doesn’t matter today’ wines and when you plan to drink them on Twitter (@ozwineguy) or via The Beast website.