Some of you may have seen the Feb. 10 Wall Street Journal article on Open That Bottle Night. If you missed it, here's most of it. Also worth noting, some folks at the University of Washington are using the event to raise money for the local food bank.
Jef
It's official! February 28, 2004, is OPEN THAT BOTTLE NIGHT!
(and not a bad way to cure post-Mardi Gras depression)
Still haven't found an occasion "special" enough for that special bottle of wine? DOROTHY J. GAITER and JOHN BRECHER, Wall Street Journal wine columnists, have the answer - make the bottle itself the special occasion - and OPEN IT! This year, the selected date is February 28. Drop Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher an email with your OTBN experience!
(WSJ, 2/10/04)
What is the reasoning behind OTBN? Every one of us has that one bottle, like our Keenan, that is simply too precious to open except for a very special occasion. It may or may not be a great bottle of wine, but it's a special one. Maybe we received it as a wedding present, or from a departed loved one, or at a charity auction. Whatever it is, this is the bottle that is too cherished to open except for a very special occasion. So we save it and we save it, and the special occasion has to be more and more special, and we never open it.
So we invented Open That Bottle Night, one night where all of us, together wherever we are, prepare a special meal, open the bottle and celebrate the memories that come with it. While we believe every night of the year should be Open That Bottle Night, we know that sometimes we need the help of a community to do something difficult. And the celebrants of OTBN have become one heck of a community. During the first four OTBNs, thousands of people all over the world finally dusted off their special bottle and celebrated friends, families and memories.
So how does one go about celebrating OTBN? Now's the time. Open That Bottle Night takes place this year on Saturday, Feb. 28, in homes and restaurants all over the world. Do it! Make a special meal and open that bottle. Here are some tips so you can make the most of Open That Bottle Night 5:
- Stand the wine up (away from light and heat, of course) for a few days before you plan to open it -- say, on Wednesday, Feb. 25. This will allow the sediment, if there is some, to sink to the bottom.
- Both reds and whites are better closer to "cellar temperature" of around 55 degrees than at room temperature. Don't overchill the white, and think about putting the red in the refrigerator for an hour or two if you've been keeping it in a 70-degree house.
- With an old bottle, the cork may break easily. The best opener for a cork like that is the one with two prongs, but it requires some skill. You have three weeks to practice using one. Be prepared for the possibility that the cork will fall apart with a regular corkscrew. If that happens, have a carafe and a coffee filter handy. Just pour enough through the coffee filter to catch the cork.
- Otherwise, do not decant. We're assuming these are old and fragile wines. Air could quickly dispel what's left of them.
- Have a backup wine ready for your special meal, in case your old wine really has gone bad.
- Serve dinner. Then open the wine and immediately take a sip. If it's truly bad -- we mean vinegar -- you will know it right away. But even if the wine doesn't taste good at first, don't rush to the sink to pour it out. Give it a chance. If it isn't completely gone, our guess is that it will be wonderful, in its own way, and reward you off and on during the night. Start eating, and slowly sip the wine. Over the years, we've heard from scores of OTBN celebrants who have told us about wines that tasted yucky at first, then became delicious. Is it the wine, or the warmth of the gathering as the night goes on? Does it matter?
- Talk about the person who gave you the wine, or the circumstances under which you received it. This makes the wine resonate in a very sweet and personal way.
- Enjoy the wine for what it is, not what it might be or might once have been.
- Save one last glass in the bottle.
- At the very end of the meal, after the dishes are done, pour the remainder of the wine into your glasses (you might pour it through the coffee filter if there's lots of sediment, though, personally, we often like the gutsy taste of the wine with the sediment). Then drink up, and enjoy those very last moments of a special night.
And, of course, No. 11: Drop us a note at snipped-for-privacy@wsj.com about your evening. If we include your name in our follow-up column, we'll send you an autographed copy of our new book, "Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion: Red, White and Bubbly to Celebrate the Joy of Living," when it is published in October by HarperCollins.