....that Jean and I were married. To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we
exchanged gifts (Jean getting a diamond ring that she'd picked out and
me getting a double magnum of '89 Veuve Cliquot La Grande Dame, the wine
that Jean opened to propose to me in '88). We also cooked a dinner of
mesquite-grilled ribeye steaks, basmati rice, sautéed shi'itakes, sugar
snap peas and grilled onions, with which we opened arguably the only
bottle of wine left in our cellar that predated our marriage:

1983 Ch. Margaux
color: dark garnet center going slightly brick at the edge
nose: initially, a bit reticent, cedar, dark fruit, turning more toward
mushrooms and soy sauce and... dammit... the unmistakeable odor of cork
taint
palate: medium body, deep fruit, still fairly primary and TCA

I bought this wine at Garnet in NYC in '88 as a graduation gift for Jean
the day she defended her Ph D. This bottle followed us from NYC to
Berkeley to Indiana, suffering at times from less-than-ideal storage
conditions. The cork was saturated but intact, but the subtle cork
taint was obvious to me. I asked Jean about it, but she didn't get it,
so I just put up with it (and for once the cork taint didn't spoil the
wine entirely). Some day, perhaps, I'll taste an untainted version of
this wine, but even if not it was a memorable experience. The double
magnum of '89 Grande Dame will be opened on Saturday during our big
anniversary party on Saturday.

Mark Lipton
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