Like a fine wine

We aren't the kind of household that just throws things away because it's been around, unused, for a while.

I should correct that.

I'm not the kind of guy who throws things away, just because they've been sat around unused for a while. Chris isn't a guy, and she DOES sometimes throw things out, but generally she's not wasteful and we both have a fair bit of stuff 10+ years old.

I digress.

Some time back I posted a picture of some of Lauralea's jam, given to us on a previous visit, stored carefully from 2013. That's Chris's department, since I don't do jam.

However recently it became obvious that the wine rack (stored in the coolest, darkest room) was beoming full, and free space was needed. Now a while back we were given a vast quantity of victoria plums by a friend which were duly converted to wine and jam. After 6 months they were sampled, and while the jam apparently tasted OK if you managed to chisel some from the jar, the wine flavour embodied all that was unpleasant in yellow plums.

In the hope of improving, it was laid down to mature.

A couple of years later it HAD improved, and we drank some, then for reasons no longer remembered it was forgotten and left. Over Christmas I re-explored the bottles. Several had severely corked and were un-drinkable, but 3 appeared to have survived intact, and although they'd thrown a sediment, once that had settled out after the change from horizontal to vertical they were sampled.

The nose was like a Rheinessen or other German wine, with strong scents of green apples and flowers. Flavours still had a background of plums, but not in bad way, with a pleasing amount of acidity balancing a moderately dry and quite long finish. It's actually not bad, though I suspect a fair bit of the alcohol has departed via the cork.

We dated these bottles - 1996. That wine is older than some of the people I work with.

Just for a bit of context, I have a 'special' bottle of wine on the same rack - 1982 Coteau du Layon, that I'm still waiting for an occasion to crack open & try.

Guess our house is a place of relative stability.