Avenue Vine

The premise is simple:

Virtually everyone who stores wine for future consumption has at least one bottle held in reserve for that "special occasion."

Trouble is, that "occasion" never seems to come along and that special bottle languishes, in many cases, long after the wine was at its prime.

That's why Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, the married couple who write the "Tastings" column for the Wall Street Journal, decided seven years ago to create Open That Bottle Night, where the bottle itself is the occasion.

The day they picked for OTBN is the last Saturday in February. This year, that's the 25th, just a few days from now.

Their Books:

Dorothy J. Gaiter: The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine: New and Improved: How to Buy, Drink, and Enjoy Wine

The New One:

Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion : Red, White, and Bubbly to Celebrate the Joy of Living

------------------------------And these:------------------------------

Snippets of their, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, work concerning OTBN from the Wall Street Journal:

Tastings: Savoring a Storied Evening - The Many Ways to Celebrate Open That Bottle Night - Sediment and Sentiment

We invented OTBN for a simple reason: All of us, no matter how big or small our wine collections, have that single bottle of wine we simply can never bear to open. Maybe it's from Grandpa's cellar or a trip to Italy or a wedding. We're always going to open it on a special occasion, but no occasion is ever special enough. So it sits. And sits. Then, at some point, we decide we should have opened it years ago and now it's bad anyway, so there's no reason to open it, which gives us an excuse to hang onto it for a few more decades. So OTBN -- which is now always the last Saturday in February -- offers a great opportunity to prepare a special meal, open the bottle and savor the memories.

To be sure, the real point of OTBN is that those bottles should be opened throughout the year, not just on a special night. But we understand that sometimes it takes a village to open a bottle and, indeed, over the years, OTBN has gotten bigger every year. At first, it seemed to be celebrated primarily by couples and intimate groups. One of our all-time favorite post-OTBN notes arrived the first year from a couple in South Florida who opened a prized Chateau Latour 1986 with pizza fetched from a sentimental-favorite pizzeria after a two-hour-and-15-minute round trip. "The pizza was great," wrote the husband. "The Chateau Latour was good, not great. But it got better toward the end of our meal, and much better as we entered the Jacuzzi with Mr. Barry White in the background."

Now, we're hearing more and more accounts of OTBN being the main event at large dinner parties with friends and family. It is also being celebrated at restaurants, clubs, museums, libraries and wine stores such as The Wine Store in Alpharetta, Ga. OTBN was even a question on "Jeopardy!" last year (and the contestant got it right, for $200). We're especially touched by the event in Rochester, which will include an auction and a dinner at which each couple will bring a bottle of wine to share with their table. The Bivona Child Advocacy Center says it "is looking to establish this event as both the signature event for the agency and the pre-eminent OTBN party in Rochester." The center, which opened on Aug. 1, 2004, and evaluated more than 600 children last year, hopes to raise up to $75,000 at its event at the Oak Hill Country Club. "It need not be old. It need not be rare. It need not even be expensive. Just bring the bottle, and we'll make it special," the invitation reads.

So, how do you participate in OTBN?

First and most important, grab that bottle you are saving. Don't worry about whether it's over the hill. This event is about the memories, not about the liquid itself. As far as we can tell, just about every household in America has a bottle of wine saved from a trip to a winery, for instance. Now's the time to open it and remember the visit. If you don't have a special bottle on hand, think about buying a bottle of wine that brings special memories. Then, follow these steps:

1. Stand older wine up (away from light and heat, of course) for a few days before you plan to open it -- say, on Wednesday, Feb. 22.This will allow the sediment, if there is some, to sink to the bottom.

2. Both reds and whites are often better closer to cellar temperature (around 55 degrees). Don't overchill the white, and think about putting the red in the refrigerator for an hour or two before opening it if you've been keeping it in a 70-degree house.


3. With an older bottle, the cork may break easily. The best opener for a cork like that is the one with two prongs, but it requires some skill. You have four weeks to practice using one. Be prepared for the possibility that the cork will fall apart with a regular corkscrew. If that happens, have a carafe and a coffee filter handy. Just pour enough through the coffee filter to catch the cork.

4. Otherwise, do not decant. We're assuming these are old and fragile wines. Air could quickly dispel what's left of them. If the wine does need to breathe, you should have plenty of time for that throughout the evening.

5. Have a backup wine ready for your special meal, in case your old wine really has gone bad.

6. Serve dinner. Then open the wine and immediately take a sip. If it's truly bad -- we mean vinegar -- you will know it right away. But even if the wine doesn't taste good at first, don't rush to the sink to pour it out. Every year, we hear from people who were amazed how a wine pulled itself together and became delicious as the night wore on.

7. Talk about the person who gave you the wine, or the circumstances under which you received it. This makes the wine resonate in a very sweet and personal way.

8. Enjoy the wine for what it is, not what it might be or might once have been.

9. Save one last glass in the bottle. After the dishes are done, pour the remainder of the wine into your glasses (you might pour it through the coffee filter if there's a great deal of sediment, though, personally, we often like the gutsy taste of the wine with the sediment). Then drink up, and enjoy those very last moments of a special night.

10. Drop us a note at wine@wsj.com about your evening. Be sure to include your name, city and phone number, in case we need to contact you so that we can share your account with other readers.

What if you are having an OTBN party? We asked long-time OTBN reveler Enise Olding of Vancouver Island in Canada, who is going to celebrate the night with several friends and a Bordeaux she brought back from a wine museum in the Netherlands, what advice she would offer in that case. She responded: "Sharing this event with friends who enjoy wine makes the event more interesting, and there's more wine to taste and more stories to hear. Don't worry about whether your guests will feel pressured to have a story to go along with their bottle. There are
always stories and anecdotes, and you'll find everyone loves to tell them.

"Just make sure everyone knows that this is not a contest as to who has the best, oldest or most expensive wine, and that it's not a test as to what, if anything, anyone happens to know about the wine. It's an evening where wines are revealed, stories shared and we enjoy the company of others."

UNUSUAL STUFF:

One question we're asked from time to time is why Pinot Noir is not used as often as some other grapes to make red blends. Both the cost of the grapes and the nuances of the grape have a lot to do with it. So we were fascinated the other day when we heard about a wine called Rubeo "red, red wine" from well-regarded Penner-Ash Wine Cellars in Oregon. The 2004 wine is a blend of 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Syrah and sells for $19. We called and without identifying ourselves as wine writers bought some from the winery. We opened it right away and it was delightful, with some grapiness and smoke and a lovely weight that would make it pretty well perfect with a wide variety of informal food.

Lynn Penner-Ash, the winemaker, told us, "It's one of those things that honestly we did it because we had a lot of Pinot Noir and Syrah that weren't working for us." Now, "we have a hard time keeping it in stock. We created a monster." Basically, they had "a young Pinot Noir site that never got fully mature" and Syrah grapes that weren't working out, so they put them together. She said they didn't want to "bulk it out because we put so much care into those grapes" or bottle it in "one of those cheaper second labels that I hate," so they blended them. She said people don't usually blend Pinot because it's an expensive grape and "a small amount of anything really impacts Pinot, changes the traditional characteristics. It's too delicate to blend." The Syrah, for instance, makes it "jammier" -- and we'd certainly agree with that, in a good way. They made 350 to 400 cases and it's sold in Oregon, Texas and New York. All over the wine shop today, there are fascinating blends that often defy easy explanation or description. That's why they're fun.Give them a try. *1.

Tastings: Talking Wine Around the Water Cooler For Clients and Colleagues, Our Holiday Wine Tips - Reading the Small Print

Here's where the eyesight comes in: If you look closely, there is a tiny registration number on a Champagne label. Most begin with "NM," which includes the big Champagne houses that buy most of their grapes, then blend the wine and ship it. If it says "RM," that means it's a grower's own wine. This Champagne will be rare, special and distinctive -- and there's an excellent chance it will be new to your boss. Not only that, but it will likely be a bargain -- often $30 to $40 -- because it is, after all, an unusual label that no one has ever heard of. The boss will understand just how special this is. You won't find RM Champagnes at every corner store, but many fine wine shops carry at least one... . .**2..

If you do something special for OTBN, Dorothy and John would like to know.
Email them at: wine@wsj.com.

*1.) Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, The Wall Street Journal, Jan 27, 2006

**2.) Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, The Wall Street Journal, Dec 9, 2005

Sources: “Juice Updates,“ Local Wine Events, “Tastings-.OTBN” The Wall Street Journal $4.95ea, and E-mail comunication with Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, February 22, 2006.

JUST DO IT!