Dan's Papers - May 23, 2008 - Shock (The Price of Petrus) and Awe (Owning It)

If time really does fly when you're having fun, it must travel at the speed of light if you're lucky enough to spend it drinking great wine.

David and I were married in January, 1992. Although a fortuitous year to begin a new life (16 years is a good indication), it was not a great year on the right bank of Bordeaux, home of the iconic Chateau Petrus. The 1992 vintage scored an unimpressive 90 after receiving 100 points each from Robert Parker for 1989 and 1990. But this did present an opportunity to purchase the 1992 Petrus for a relative bargain (still a sticker shocker), which I did as a surprise for David this January on our 16th anniversary. Although we haven't yet pulled the cork, it always sends a little shiver up my spine every time I spy it in our wine cellar. Great year or not, it is still Petrus. And still very capable of inspiring awe.

A cork did get pulled, however, in honor of friends of ours and fellow wine lovers here on Shelter Island, Harriet and Richard O'Halloran. Harriet, who graduated from Cordon Bleu in Paris, had the opportunity to drink some of the greatest Bordeaux and Burgundies as a young woman in the late '60s in France - she even met Albert de Villaine and tasted with him in the cellars of Domaine de la Romanee Conti! We made lamb stew and opened a 1961 Lynch-Bages (David was born the same year as the legendary vintage, and Lynch-Bages is one of Harriet's favorites). Appropriately brown at the edges, the wine still had some upfront fruit, good tannins and a lovely finish. We mused about how the grapes were harvested in Bordeaux in 1961 and about how it was the same year JFK was inaugurated and gas was 27 cents a gallon here in the US. It is always a thrill to drink history.

Although we have yet to taste the legendary 1947 Cheval Blanc - possibly the most celebrated wine of the last century and definitely one of the most coveted - time, though fleeting, is finally on our side. According to Robert Parker, who anointed it with a perfect 100 point score, the wine could drink well for nearly another twenty years. If I may be granted one wish, it is that we may have the opportunity to do the same.

Susan Whitney Simm is Dan's Wine Guide Editor. The Wine Guide is published six times a year in Dan's Papers. Email ssimm@optonline.net