by Patchen Markell » Sun May 20, 2018 4:57 pm
Dug out my old book of TNs. That first Trie Spéciale was from the 2000 vintage, consumed in mid-2002; not sure why Sam's still had the regular 1996 on the shelves at that point, but I'm glad they did.
[Amazing to look back at the first half of this little book and see how fast everything changed for us between 1999 and 2002. Until we moved to Chicago, what we knew best was California -- and not high-end Napa stuff. We drank a little decent Beaujolais, a little Trimbach Gewurz, a surprising amount of Colheita port, and the occasional Cru Bourgeois Bordeaux. We didn't know much about Italy, but we drank a lot more good Rioja than we do now, thanks almost entirely to the education we received at Dali in Cambridge, MA, when I was in grad school. Then, suddenly, the transformative "firsts": the first Geyserville, the first Beaucastel, the first Edmunds St. John, the first Cuvée Frederic Émile, the first Prüm, the first Tempier, the first Dönnhoff, the first Gravner [earlier than I thought!], the first good red Burgundy (a Gros Frère et Soeur)... all in around 2000-2001. Chenin came next, I guess. Nothing like being out of school, gainfully employed, and spending way too much time on the forum....]
cheers, Patchen