As old as the wine I’m drinking

I’ll get straight to the point, because I’m way too excited: this week, I had the good fortune of tasting a wine as old as I am – a 1975 wine. A Saint Émilion, Domaine de Peyrelonge, to be precise. Fresh from a cool cellar.

How lucky is that?

To be sure, it’s the oldest wine I’ve ever had. And taste-wise, it was a totally new experience, not fruity or citrusy or whatever other vocabulary I come up with when I’m (attempting) to describe a whiff of the youngish wine I usually have in front of me.

No – this 1975 bottle was a reflection of its time, for, it came with a disclaimer: I was not born in a good year for wine, unfortunately. Well, not even in a good decade, actually. Grapes, it seems, did not get into the hippie spirit of that era, and actually made war, not love, with the viticulturists.

So it was clear this was not going to be one of those wines which make you hum and purr in utter contentment. But given the region and the tender-loving-care it got since inception, it definitely wasn’t going to be something to be written off.

This 1975 Bordeaux was earthy, soily with just the vaguest of hints of a far off sweetness. It was almost, how shall I put it? Leathery. Yes that’s it. It reminded me of that soft, expensive sort of leather, which is slightly wrinkly, but ageing well.

If only I were to look as good as my birth-year wine tastes, I’d be happy.

It really made me think, this coetaneous wine. We were born in the same year: day in day out, year in year out, we were maturing at the same time.

Of course it was doing so in slow-mode – its major trauma was the day it was shipped from France to Malta. Other than that, it spent most of its life at an angle on a shelf. Until, finally, we met.

Please do take this sudden, poetic soppiness in good, ahem, spirit. The thing is, at the ripe old age of 35, I’ve realised what a fantastic thing wine is for humanity.

I am not a wine expert, in fact you could say that I vintaged late and I’ve been doing a lot of catching up over the past three years. But I strongly believe that if everybody had to make time, every day, to drink wine, the world would be a better place.

Why? First off because wine gives everyone a blushy glow. People start smiling with their eyes, laughter ripples in the air and everyone’s defence mechanisms are softened.

There is nothing new to this philosophy of life, obviously. Back in the fourth century BC, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote that “when a man drinks wine at dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself”.

Secondly, the culture of wine tends to dictate a lifestyle which is paced: it offers a course where the little pleasures of life take priority over the more mundane ones.

Sometimes, I think that in this rushed world we live in, we no longer have time for good food, good company and good conversation. Over and over, we fail to see that it is these which in turn lead to great ideas, great laughter and in the end, great fun.

Today being Easter, it is really the best day to reflect on the importance of wine. What did Jesus and his friends do in the evening? I don’t believe that the apostles just moped about talking about good ole’ sacrifice and sorrow. That would have made them gauge their eyeballs out with a rusty spoon.

No, instead they supped: they ate and drank wine. And cracked a good number of jokes. We just have no evidence of this because, dammit, the authors of the New Testament were, the four of them, as humourless as Maltese politicians.

So if we are as religious as we like to claim to be, the least we could do is adopt the biblical lifestyle philosophy, and start pouring wine.

People who like wine tend to be cheerful and creative and positive. Niles Crane, in an episode of Frasier, is spot on when he says: “The plumber has been called, the wine is chilled. Suddenly my life is right again.”

The experience of sharing a superb Bordeaux leaves no room for halting small talk: conversation is no longer about the roles, but all about the souls. And this sums up this ode to a bottle of ‘75.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an apostolic mission to carry out: I need to procure myself some fine wine for today’s lunch. Happy Easter!