A wine-geek tradition since 2000, Open That Bottle Night has become an annual observance since Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, the couple who wrote the Wall Street Journal‘s “Tastings” column from 1998 through 2010, came up with the idea 17 years ago.
The concept is simple, and it is too good to let die just because the column has ended: Set an annual day – the last Saturday of February, the 24th this year – for an informal “world-wide celebration of friends, family and memories during which all of us finally drink that wine that is otherwise simply too special to open.”
We like the idea so much around here that we've started designating the entire month of February as Open That Bottle Month. Find those dusty orphans, those bottles that seem too good to open until a special night that may never happen, and OPEN THEM RIGHT NOW! And then tell us about the experience.
A typical Valpolicella blend of Corvina Veronese, Corvinone and Rondinella, this sturdy red wine is a clear, dark ruby color, with glints of bronze at the edge. Spicy dried cherries and a hint of anise show in the aroma, adding black plums and a whiff of tobacco leaf on the palate. It's ripe and mouth-filling, dried-cherry flavors wrapped up in bright, palate-cleansing acidity, with a bold 14 percent alcohol and some tannic astringency remaining. Although it's nine years past the vintage, Ripasso is a slow process, and it didn't arrive here until the summer of 2013, so it's been on a wine rack in a cool place for less than five years, not an outlandish time span. The natural cork remained clean, hard and firm, and the wine is holding up well. U.S. importer: Votto Wines Importing, Hamden, Conn. (Feb. 8, 2018)