What was your life changing wine experience?

[Andrea Sloan]

You always hear about that bottle someone had that suddenly lit the fire of a life-long wine obsession. I don't know if I really had that experience, it's been more of an arc. I guess the closest I can think of is the Port I had (I have no idea which one) during a weekend in VT sometime in '98. It was the same weekend I gave up semi-vegetarianism. My sister and her husband got a ham from Lawrence's Smoke House that was so delicious it transcended any previous food experience, maybe even any earthly experience, I had ever had; it was forever after known simply as "F--king Good Ham". Somewhere in the midst of the ham, there was port, and it too, was delicious.

[Rich Lang]

I haven't had a single experience, but lots of nice and memorable ones: learning to drink cava with dinner while living in Spain, instead of making it the special occasion the French marketed champagne as. Traveling up to Oporto, Portugal to spend a few days tasting port and wandering the city. Connecting with the owners of Sequoia Grove after selling a ton of their wine at a restaurant in Aspen and hanging out at the vineyard with them for a couple of days. Convincing a guy in a liquor store parking lot in Warwick to buy us a couple of bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 in junior high school and getting rip roaring drunk under the stars out on a stone jetty on the bay.

[Andrea Sloan]

I know what you mean. I try to drink lots of good, cheap stuff so that I can afford the occasional splurge. My last ridiculously good bottle was an '01 Santini Montepergoli, which is a Tuscan blend. It was classic: dark cherries, slightly medicinal with a touch of barnyard on the nose. On the palate: dried fruit, smooth, spicy, with ripe tannins. We had it with sirloin sprinkled with black truffle salt and it was unbelievable. Definitely worth the $60.

[Kylie Charter]

The portugese vino verdes are often quite good as well, nice for summer time and quite inexpensive.

[Kylie Charter]

Ahh sweet adolescence, a time for all kinds of revelations. Mine was when I was fourteen as well. My step- sister, our best friend and my step mother went to Paris. It was an extraordinary experience in so many ways. I remember being so giddy to walk into a store filled with cheese, so stinky it almost knocked you back onto the sidewalk. I picked out a big hunk of gooey looking brie style cheese and paid with a perma-grin plastered on my face. I went next door to the store filled from top to bottom with bottles of wine. I asked the older woman behind the counter in my simple book-french 'what wine would be good with this cheese?'. She smiled and looked around, then grabbed a bottle of red from a barrel style display and showed it to me. She responded in english 'too much?'. It was 14 francs, I shook my head 'no', paid, thanked her and ran out of the shop in complete shock that I was just allowed to by wine. I was giddy, elated, completely independant. I walked back to the hotel and my step mom and I sat on her bed in her room pulling off gobs of the runny cheese with our fingers and sipping the wine out of the disposable cups they leave you beside the sink in the bathroom. It was extraordinary. And while I was even younger when I first discovered i had a taste for wine, this was a life changing experience. I have absolutely no idea of the varietal of the wine or the name of the cheese, I just know they were good.

[saint jacques]

The bottle that sank the hook for me was a 1983 Chave Hermitage that I had a chance to try in the mid 1990s. I can still smell it: resin notes, black fruits, sage, white pepper, roasted meat aromas. I sometimes feel as if then to now has been a fruitless (pun intended) search to recapture that perfect moment of vinous felicity. I haven't been right since. F**king good bottle, that!

[Steve Soper]

Know what you mean -- many years ago we had the good fortune to taste the 90 Chave Hermitage (rosso e bianco) along with a wine tasting group we were part of in Rutland, VT. We all pitched in and bought maybe two or three cases -- back when Kermit Lynch was still shipping. We just finished the last bottle from our post-tasting order a few months back.

[Rich Lang]

Thought of another one. I was a busboy at a place on Nantucket called Obadiah's many, many years ago when I was 15. I wanted to be a waiter and got the bartender/manager to teach me to open a bottle and present tableside, hoping one day I would get a chance, start making more $, etc. He comes to me one day during a slow lunch and says, you are going to waiter today. Your first customer is up on the deck at table 34 and they just ordered this bottle of Pouilly Fuisse. Don't remember the price, but it was a fairly good bottle of wine. I went up the stairs to the deck praying I wouldn't gaff it and leave the cork in the bottle, and as I stepped up onto the deck I almost died - table 34 was the owner of the restaurant with a wine salesman! That bartender is still one of my closest friends!

[Andrea Sloan]

Rich, you just reminded me of an experience I can't believe I forgot. While attending Mass Art, this was maybe 1994, I had a catering job at the Museum of Science. A man rented out a room and had a small function that featured some of his prize wines from his private collection. After all the guests had left, the man (I have no idea who he was, I wish I did) insisted that the catering staff taste his wines. With the exception of Coturri wines, that for some reason I latched onto at a pretty early age, I had never tasted anything approaching fine wine. And at this point, I was making 8 bucks an hour and eating cold catering leftovers on a daily basis. Chocolate Satin Pillow, anyone? Anyway, all I can remember is that this man had what I think was Bordeaux from 1970-something, some in magnums. The enthusiasm he had for his wine and in the sharing of it was extraordinary. I can't remember any specifics about the wine other than that it was like nothing I had ever tasted before; I remember it being like a cloud: present but elusive. I think the man, whoever he was, made an impression on me as well, because nine times out of ten, when I have a really good bottle, I share it with as many people as possible. Spreading the wealth, the knowledge, the enjoyment-that's most of the fun right there.

[Tony]

It was 1984. I had just started college and was giving my first dinner party. Wanted to impress with the food and made pasta with clams. As the hour approached, I realized the only thing in the fridge was beer and should serve wine. I ran to a local shop and asked for a cheap wine. They guy at the store was hesitant but pointed to bottles of Bolla Chardonnay and told me to chilled them for at least an hour. At the time, the only discernible thing I knew about wine was the red or white color. Looking back, I was glad to have served that chilled wine. It went amazingly well with the pasta and hot crunchy bread. The tunes on the cassette player helped set the mood. To say the least, the whole episode was a revelation. It felt indulgent. In a single evening, our collective naivete had given way to discovery of sensory pleasures. We had discovered the world and there was no turning back.

[Leigh Ranucci]

Thank goodness, I keep having them!

The day I learned what Riesling really is - tasting with Pierre Trimbach at the Maison - vintages of Clos Stainte Hune back to the early eightlies. I became mineral.

Barrel sample of 2000 Chevalier Montrachet with winemaker Pierre Morey at Domaine Leflaive. Wafting in the ethers, man I was high

Biodymanically produced '99 Clos de Beze from barrel at Domaine Prieure-Roch. Gentle profound totally surreal. Alice in Wonderland.

Chateau Latour 1962 (not the '61). That thing had me paralyzed in a vice grip, wrists behind my back and my face in dirt.

Hubert de Montille Volnay Champans 1990. The finest spun silk.

JL Chave Ermitage Cuvee Cathelin 1998. Of beautiful mother earth and all her bounty.

[Andrea Sloan]

Jeez, Leigh, I want to hang out with you! You go for the good stuff.

[Marc Guillotte]

I guess I was knee deep into selling wine in restaurants before I actually had a moment. I was young and opinionated back than and had very heavy handed approach to wine, like a used car salesman fused with a bad art critic. I remember going to one table, a nice couple and rattled off my opinion about some obscure little bordeaux, when the gentleman stopped me, and informed me, very politely, that he had actually been to that Chateau recently. I got my first wine lesson that day as he cordially offered me a taste and explained his experiences of the place and the wine. I can't say I just listened from that day forward, but I listened more and fed that information to my palate and let my informed palate venture out without pretention. I'm now a professional in wine, still learning and still listening in between my own rants. I own that couple a career.