Raiding the cellar seems to be a popular diversion for the last couple of months.  First all the restaurants were closed and then they were only open for carry-out and then finally they were allowed to open, but at thirty to fifty percent capacity.  So, the wine bloggers that have been collecting, not hoarding, wine have been able to survive in relative peace and harmony, as long as they have food to go along with the wine.  It has been an interesting time for observations and for pundits as well, but I will try to refrain from getting into the fray.  I have had the good fortune to have retired, before all of this insanity occurred and I have been taking a good inventory of what we have amassed, as well as reorganizing the entire collection.  I had cases of wine all over the basement, as I had to box up some of the wine, to make room on the wine rack to start recording every wine, and I am doing it first old school with lined paper and pen.  It is also been a great time to start pulling some of the wines that had been forgotten about, so that we can drink them, and hopefully they haven’t gone bad.  At the moment, I think that we have discovered four bottles, so that is not too bad, but I am sure that by the time this is over, we may find more that have not survived, just like the restaurants and businesses. 

One of the first things that I did was try to get all the white wines together, so that they can find a new home up in the wine vault in the family room, which is another job in itself.  The white wines have been a bit scarier, as the odds are that they won’t age as well as a First Growth or a Barolo, which need time for the tannins to soften and mellow out.  I found a bottle from a wine shop that went out of business long prior to what is going on.  The wine was imported by American Wine Distributors, Inc. of San Francisco, California and they are out of business, as I was doing some research.  The wine was made by Fetish Wines Pty Ltd. of Adelaide, South Australia; and they also appear to be out of business.  A very catchy name for a company and surely it would have attracted attention on the shelves.  Rolf Binder was the winemaker of the wines by the company and I have found Wine Spectator scores for some of the wines at 89 and 90, and they also had acclaim by Robert Parker.  Some of the wines had very interesting names and labels such as: Moscato Field of Dreams, Playmates Grenache, Playmates Shiraz, Playmates SGM, the Watcher, the Wacker and Tawdry Shiraz.  All kind of intriguing labels and names, to say the least. 

Which leads me to the wine that I discovered in my collection Fetish Wines “The V Spot” Viognier Barossa Valley 2008.  I have to say, that even the back label was rather intriguing in its write-up and ballyhoo.  “You definitely know it when you find it, and, once you find it you will never forget it.  Fetish “The V Spot” Viognier is the sort of wine that you’ll want to find over and over again.”  I had good fortune with another older Viognier, but I did have my concerns as this wine had a screw cap, but then so do some of the Chateau d’Yquem wines.  The wine still had a floral nose, though not as pronounced as a fresh Viognier, and neither of us could put into words what the wine was, but it was delicious, smooth and rather mysterious, perhaps we had found the V Spot, and alas never to find it again.  Another happy ending for a twelve-year-old white wine, that has no provenance per se, but it surpassed all expectations, so a good lesson and a fun moment, and in these times, we do need fun and good news.