The wines change, and we change with them. It is 1980, in Washington, and a girl gives me a bottle of 1974 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon reserve as a birthday present. It would have been churlish not to drink it together, though I feared it would be too young. It was; much too young: too young, even, for Jimmy Savile. It was like eating green strawberries. Not that I admitted this to my companion. Knowing nothing about wine, she thought six years was old. If it lacked immediate appeal, she blamed her own lack of sophistication. Anyway, it was a pleasant evening.
Last week, an oenophile gathering, and a merchant produces a bottle of the same wine which he had picked up in a cheap mixed-case purchase. 1974 had been an excellent year in California. There was no reason why that wine should not have reached a gracious maturity. Even if a little over the hill, it had been a high hill; there was every hope of pleasure for a long way down. Alas, my expectations were dashed. That bottle had clearly suffered an unhappy childhood. It had turned into Pip’s sister: angry and embittered vinegar.
But it made me think back to 1980, a wonderful political vintage. That was an excellent time to be in Washington. The Reaganites were coming and the dollar was weak, thanks — I suppose he ought to be thanked for something — to Jimmy Carter. Although it would be too complimentary to compare him to vinegar, which has its uses, he sounded as if he drank little else. He had been a peanut farmer, hence the bumper sticker: ‘Roast Jimmy’s nuts.’
I and my friends tried not to drink vinegar. One of our favourite meeting places was Chez Maria, on M Street in Georgetown.
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