It is true that I often need to remind myself why I am doing this and if I can explain it to you, then maybe I can work it out for myself. So I will try.
On occasions, I admit to being a fan of unmemorable wines, wines that don’t demand attention or interrupt the otherwise really important conversation. And I mean it, honestly I do, as much as, when a lot younger and hopelessly intent on saving the world, I meant it when I said that I would never eat foie gras because it was cruel, inhumane and absolutely BLOODY DELICIOUS!
So a little while ago I went to a friend’s 40th. A whole bunch of us, who should have perhaps displayed a more responsible enjoyment of the picks of our combined cellars, treated some venerable labels as if they were innocuous ten dollar bargain bin specials. Many, it’s true, slipped by without a detailed tasting note; a few stuck their heads up above the crowd and demanded that some memory of them remained the next day. But somewhere in the priceless treasury of great wine, I found myself with a glass of Louis Roederer Cristal, a champagne which the vast majority of people in the world will go to their grave never having tasted. This is a scenario which we should avoid at all cost…and it will cost. Lots! The current vintage will set you back up to $400. Can a mere bottle of wine be worth that? Can it deliver all by itself an experience equal to a whole evening at Tetsuya’s or a season ticket to the Opera House or perhaps a weekend driving super cars around Mt Panorama? Hard to say. Every experience is shaped by place, time and company and is impossible to replicate. But for this drinker, on a befuddled afternoon behind the closed doors of a small east Melbourne restaurant, the lights flickered, the noise receded and perhaps even the earth moved as, with two meager mouthfuls, I experienced such a revelation, such a crescendo of flavour and texture, that it put every other wine I had ever tasted into a new context.
So for those who don’t want to be among the unfulfilled masses, for those who want to eat foie gras, drive a Ferrari 250 GTO and drink something as good as Cristal tasted to me that day, then perhaps you can glimpse what drives me. One day, I want to be your great wine experience, I want to make your lights flicker and the earth move. I want to be your foie gras moment.
Domaine Anthony Woollams 