Saturday night is Open That Bottle Night, a holiday conceived by authors Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher. (And did you know Mr. Brecher used to be a senior editor at a little place called Bloomberg!) It’s meant to encourage us to enjoy that bottle we’ve been saving and stop it collecting dust. From their Wikipedia article, I see they devised a rating scheme of "Yech", "OK", "Good", "Very Good", "Delicious" to "Delicious!”
Mad respect! That’s a scale we can relate to.
This year, I decided to just stick my hand in the cellar and try my luck. I landed on a 2014 Serenity Vineyards Merlot. I bought it on my last visit in May 2019 to the Finger Lakes, my other favorite East Coast wine region besides the one I currently reside in.
Serenity Vineyards is on the west side of Seneca Lake, the largest and deepest of the lakes. I visited them on my last day of my trip (back in the Before Times when you could just roll up to a winery with no appointment and no hand sanitizer). I love visiting wineries in the middle of the week, when you’ve got a good chance at being the only person there, as I was that afternoon. I had a great chat with the gent who was pouring for me. The week I was there was one of the colder rainier weeks in May. That’s where I learned it’s not uncommon for them to have frost warnings all the way up till Memorial Day weekend (last weekend in May for you non-USAians), and the fella I chatted to told me that it snowed once on his dad’s birthday as a kid, on June 1!
This merlot is a real treasure. It’s developed nicely and still tastes quite fresh. It could probably stand another couple years of cellaring. The fruit is mild on the palate, with nice balanced earthiness more prominent. It’s extremely quaffable, which is a bit dangerous at 12% alcohol. I’ve downed a good sized glass while making these notes for you. I work hard for these, you know.
I’m happy to tell you that the 2014 merlot is still available on the winery’s website! It’s $27 and worth every penny. Buy a few, some to lay down and one to enjoy right now. It’s Delicious!
Let me know what Bottles you Opened on this holiday. And if you'd like to chat with other wine-minded folks, I've got a new Discord server set up. Pop in, try it out, let me know what you think!
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