Vintage 1982

One of the advantages of clearing out a home, as I described a couple of weeks ago, is that you find lots of things you’d forgotten about. Many of them deserve nothing better than being forgotten, and there’s nothing to do but throw them away. Others, however, it’s a pleasure to rediscover.

The flat we were leaving was on the Franco-German border and we were going to be travelling back through France. Since we were running out of wine at home, this was a welcome opportunity to buy some more. Good wine at sensible prices.

However, down in our ex-cellar we discovered not just a few bottles of wine, but several dozen. That rather eliminated the need to buy any on the way back to England. There were, in fact, rather more bottles than we were able to get into the car with the other belongings we chose to rescue, so we gave a number away – though the smallest number possible.

These were the leftovers of a time when I used to buy bottles of wine when they were young and cheap and lay them down for a few years till they became far better. Fine wines at cheap prices. However, few English houses have cellars, so that’s rather gone by the board since we returned to the country. But it was wonderful to find that some bottles had survived. Even though, in some cases, this wasn’t a matter of saving a fine wine but rather of reawakening an old memory.

Our oldest wine was a Brouilly from 1982. 35 years old. Older than my sons.

Well, we certainly aged that one...

Twice, in our wine-collecting days, Danielle and I went to the wine fair in Hagenthal, not far from her home village in Alsace, Eastern France. Ah, those were different days. Not necessarily better, just different. The police let it be known that they would not be carrying out alcohol tests on drivers near the fair for as long as it lasted, so tasting posed no danger – no danger of arrest that is, though plenty of danger of injury to oneself or others.

The first time was in around 1984, which was when we bought the Brouilly. I knew little enough about such wines at that time and chose the ones I bought merely on the basis of taste. This one seemed good and I assumed it would become better with a little aging.

For second visit to the fair, we were accompanied by our sons. The younger, Nicky, must have been about four at the time. He stuck to me like glue and insisted on trying a sip of every wine I tasted, leaving him in a curious state by the time the evening ended.

Different times, as I said. But not necessarily better.

At least, it seems that the experience did no lasting damage to him. Unless one counts his invariable tendency to challenge my judgement on any matter we discuss. Which, considering that I fed him wine when he was four, is perhaps not entirely out of place.

And the wine itself? Well, a Brouilly is a Beaujolais. Some can be kept quite a while, but the Brouilly only five to ten years. We tasted a bottle of the 1982 when we got home. And then tipped the rest down the drain, which I’m certain helped clear it quite effectively.

Not a great wine, as I said, but an eloquent reminder of days gone by.