Accidentally opening an expensive bottle of wine

I suspect that most of us who enjoy wine own a variety of bottles at a variety of price points. Years ago I started writing the price of the wine on the bottle, because if you keep & store wine for any period of time, it's hard to remember how much you paid for a bottle. (The exception: Mainstream wine that I drink often enough to know the price off the top of my head.)

Last week I came across a bottle in my stash without a price, but seemed to remember buying it after being poured a sample at Whole Foods. I opened on Monday, had a glass & really enjoyed it, vacuum capped it & threw it in the fridge, had a glass or two the next night & finished it the third night. It was a great drinkable wine & I liked it enough to think, "I need to buy more of this. It's a great $10 or $15 bottle of wine."

Today I googled it & realized that I didn't drink an inexpensive everyday wine, but rather Jonata's 2005 El Corazon de Jonata...made by the same people behind Screaming Eagle.

I guess it could be worse: It's "only" a $70 wine, but not readily available and I only have (had) two bottles. No, I didn't buy it at Whole Foods--though I did find a bottle of Sea Smoke Southling there today. I bought it from Lot18 a few months ago. I guess OTBN came early for me.

Boys & girls, this is why you need to track the prices you paid for wines!

The only thing I enjoy more than "accidentally" opening a bottle of expensive wine is accidentally drinking it. I don't see any real reason to record the cost of wine you acquire, unless you plan on selling it and wish to take a gain or loss for tax purposes. A good friend of mine bought a cellar years ago for $11 a bottle. That $11 figure is as meaningless today as the price of Screaming Eagle was the first year it was released. Price is not necessarily a foolproof indicator of quality, especially if you cellar wine for long periods of time. It's what's in the bottle that counts.

I use CellarTracker.com to keep track of my wine. It allows you to enter price and the store of purchase. There is also a vast amount of user reviews. If you subscribe then the system will provide a current value.

In over 30+ years of purchasing, collecting and drinking wine, I have never annotated anything on a bottle of wine, indeed most of my purchases are by the case and would be difficult to do so anyway.
I have a very good idea of what each case cost me but more important where the wine stands in the pricing chain.
I am guilty of NOT opening expensive odd bottles left from case lots and finding them past their prime when I do rediscover them and drink them!-Dick

chgoeditor wrote:I suspect that most of us who enjoy wine own a variety of bottles at a variety of price points. Years ago I started writing the price of the wine on the bottle, because if you keep & store wine for any period of time, it's hard to remember how much you paid for a bottle. (The exception: Mainstream wine that I drink often enough to know the price off the top of my head.)

Last week I came across a bottle in my stash without a price, but seemed to remember buying it after being poured a sample at Whole Foods. I opened on Monday, had a glass & really enjoyed it, vacuum capped it & threw it in the fridge, had a glass or two the next night & finished it the third night. It was a great drinkable wine & I liked it enough to think, "I need to buy more of this. It's a great $10 or $15 bottle of wine."

Today I googled it & realized that I didn't drink an inexpensive everyday wine, but rather Jonata's 2005 El Corazon de Jonata...made by the same people behind Screaming Eagle.

I guess it could be worse: It's "only" a $70 wine, but not readily available and I only have (had) two bottles. No, I didn't buy it at Whole Foods--though I did find a bottle of Sea Smoke Southling there today. I bought it from Lot18 a few months ago. I guess OTBN came early for me.

Boys & girls, this is why you need to track the prices you paid for wines!

But you enjoyed the bottle of wine. Was it truly a mistake? This may sound odd, but I would prefer to be basically blissfully ignorant of what I'm drinking a lot of the time. This allows me to go into the drink with no preconceived notions, no expectations for the wine or beer or whatever to live up to and allow me to decide whether I enjoy it or not. Just a thought.

I write the price and where I bought the bottle on all of my wine and also use Cellar Tracker. On a random Tuesday night, when I want something cheap and quaffable, I want to be sure I pull a $10 bottle. I also want to decide whether to buy more, and knowing whether I'm drinking a $10 or a $40 bottle helps me make that decision more easily.

Yeah, price is not a foolproof indicator of quality. But I find it hard to write an essay on how much I'll like the wine on the side the bottle. So price is more useful note to myself.

Even worse when someone else accidentally opens an expensive bottle of wine you've been saving. I was out of town and had a bottle of Schramsburg Mirabelle brut rose (a steal at $18 at Costco) in the fridge as well as a considerably more expensive Billecart-Salmon brut rose.

Guess which one my husband popped without realizing it while I was out of town?

NobleSquirrel wrote:

But you enjoyed the bottle of wine. Was it truly a mistake? This may sound odd, but I would prefer to be basically blissfully ignorant of what I'm drinking a lot of the time. This allows me to go into the drink with no preconceived notions, no expectations for the wine or beer or whatever to live up to and allow me to decide whether I enjoy it or not. Just a thought.

^^^^^^^^^
Absolutely this.

As the make of a great wine once said "It's just grape juice. We need to take wine off the pedestal and put it back down on the kitchen table where it belongs."

I love it when my host opens a bottle of expensive wine by mistake. The last time it was a bottle of DRC Romanee St. Vivant.

Tim

Those of you who disagree with the OP, is this assuming a small price difference between "expensive" versus "everyday"? Maybe $75 versus $15? Would you honestly feel just as nonplussed if you discovered that your spouse accidentally had unknowingly taken your 2006 Chateau Margaux down to the neighborhood Ameri-Thai BYOB to share with friends over pad thai and crab rangoons?

Khaopaat wrote:Those of you who disagree with the OP, is this assuming a small price difference between "expensive" versus "everyday"? Maybe $75 versus $15? Would you honestly feel just as nonplussed if you discovered that your spouse accidentally had unknowingly taken your 2006 Chateau Margaux down to the neighborhood Ameri-Thai BYOB to share with friends over pad thai and crab rangoons?

I just as easily could have titled this post, "Falling in love with a wine that's unobtainable." Because while I'll kicked myself for opening a more expensive bottle of wine, I was possibly even more disappointed to learn that it wasn't a bottle of wine I could drink on a regular basis because of the higher cost and limited availability. I really thought I'd found the $10 or $15 bottle of my dreams.

Khaopaat wrote:Those of you who disagree with the OP, is this assuming a small price difference between "expensive" versus "everyday"? Maybe $75 versus $15? Would you honestly feel just as nonplussed if you discovered that your spouse accidentally had unknowingly taken your 2006 Chateau Margaux down to the neighborhood Ameri-Thai BYOB to share with friends over pad thai and crab rangoons?

Only because brdx does not really go with Thai food....

Seriously, I kind of think that accidentally opening a fancy bottle is kind of an unxepted treat.
I mean, that you still get to enjoy the wine!

Now, opening the wrong bottle (one that really need 10 to 20 more years to show it's best)
That sucks!


A few years ago I thought I was opening a 1995 Château Rayas Côtes du Rhône Château de Fonsalette
But it was the cuvée Syrah instead (a wine I had not planned to open till it was at least 25 years old)
Bummer! Glad I've got one more.

mhill95149 wrote:Seriously, I kind of think that accidentally opening a fancy bottle is kind of an unxepted treat.
I mean, that you still get to enjoy the wine!

I get what you're saying...and as I submitted my post, I remembered the scene from Sideways where Paul Giamatti drinks his 1961 Cheval Blanc out of a plastic cup with a burger & an order of onion rings, and seems to enjoy it just fine.

I guess for me, enjoying a really good bottle of wine (I'm talking $40-50/bottle here, pretty much the top range of my "special occasion" wine budget) involves more than the wine itself - it's also about who I'm drinking it with, when I'm drinking it, where I'm drinking it, the food I'm pairing it with (if it's to be paired), etc....the whole experience. When I buy something nicer/pricier than normal, I generally buy it with an idea of how I'd like to enjoy it - with my wife, on a birthday or anniversary or even a date night, at home, with a special meal I've prepared, for example. If I accidentally bust it out & guzzle it with a bunch of tipsy friends, as bottle #5 after everyone's palate is fried by a bunch of other wines & assorted cocktails, paired with chips and salsa, then I'll certainly be bummed about that.

I buy individual bottles rather than by the case at various places. I can not remember how much I paid for each bottle but know my range. Bottles obtained as gifts are the unknown. Lesser priced bottles are used if mass quantites have been consumed.