November 19, 2020

Chateau Petrus

This story was written during the pandemic but takes place many years before. I’m going to go ahead and give away the punchline by telling you it is about me being a germaphobe. I am not a Howie Mandel type of germaphobe or one like Monk, the obsessive-compulsive fictional character played by actor Tony Shalhoub, but I can hold my own. My own particular and peculiar form of germaphobia mostly comes down to my request for full disclosure. If you invite me for dinner, and thank you for thinking of me, just please let me know if one of the kids has a sore throat. Or lice. Don’t wait until I have walked in and hung up my coat before asking if I have ever had the chicken pox. That’s all I ask. Also, don’t tell me it is only a head cold. I don’t want a head cold. No matter how good your brisket is. Anyway, that’s what this story is about. It takes place at a time before being a germaphobe became the new normal. I was not considered normal. I am still not. I wish I could tell you the telling makes up for the early reveal. I wish I could tell you that you won’t see it coming a mile away. I really wish I could. But I am not convinced. You have been warned. Don’t come back complaining to me.

My nieces Rena and Danna are at my house looking at old photo albums. They like to amuse themselves by looking at pictures of old girlfriends and then finding out how I screwed up the relationship.

“Who is this?” Asks Rena, holding up a photo.

I take it from her hand and look at it.

“Hillary Shenkman,” I say.

“Is that Hillary with one el or two els?” Asks Danna. I dated two Hillarys. She knows way too much about my past.

“Two els,” I say.

“She’s pretty,” says Rena. “Who are these other people?”

“A couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary,” I reply. “That bottle of wine is very expensive.”

“I assume there is a story?” Asks Danna.

“There is,” I say.

This story, as these stories tend to be, is about a lie. Really, about two lies. And about two ex-girlfriends.

It was a dinner I did not want to go to. A dinner with Catherine’s friends who were absolutely perfectly nice and charming people were it not for the fact they were inveterate wine snobs. But, take wine out of the equation and they were as affable and congenial as a group could be. Now, I still wouldn’t have wanted to go to dinner.

But that’s on me.

I didn’t want to go to the dinner but I liked Catherine and she had cautioned me in the car to ‘just try and fit in’. Which I took to mean try not to tell the truth about what you think of wine and wine lovers.

Which was all I was trying to do.

I’m just saying.

But I may have taken it a bit too far. I mean, I really probably shouldn’t have brought the picture. But that was later. Anyway, that picture was a reminder of a night which changed my life.

The first lie came as a result of the requisite and predictable question which arose in these gatherings. It was the oenophile’s version of when did you lose your virginity. Although, if that were the case, they spent an awful lot of time talking about where and when and with who they lost their virginity. And sometimes, especially after a couple of glasses of wine, they changed their mind about who.

Anyway, I was prepared for the question – ‘what was the bottle which did it for you’ - because I have watched the movie Sideways about a dozen times.

“Ah, that first bottle,” I said, pausing and closing my eyes in feigned reflection like I had seen the others do. Really, I was just thinking about whether it would be ok if I helped myself to a third piece of chicken. “I think I would have to say it was a wine I had in a small vineyard in Montalcino. It was a 2001 Brunello.”

As it happened, I had been on a cycling trip in Tuscany with a group of friends and we had stopped and lunched at a small vineyard in Montalcino. Everyone in my group had drunk the Brunello. But not me. I had a coke. One of those mini bottles you can’t find any more. It was chilled and delicious. The waiter, if memory serves, was more bemused than aghast and actually poured me a tasting and allowed me to swish it and put my nose to it before filling my glass. He was perhaps, probably most certainly, mocking me, but he did it in such a gentle way that I remember it more than a little fondly.

“The 2001 Brunello was a beast,” said Jonathon. Everyone nodded their heads.

Jonathon was Nicole’s husband. Nicole was Catherine’s best friend. We were in their house. In their dining room. Nicole had made the chicken I was hoping to make myself a bit of a pig with.

“Yes, that 2001 Brunello was a beast,” I agreed. “Although, if I have to be completely truthful,” I mean, why should I be the only one to lose his virginity once, “there was this Super Tuscan we had the next day in Sienna which was absolutely transcendent.”

If you want to play a drinking game. Get together with a group of wine snobs and down a glass every time someone says ‘transcendent’.

This triggered a full-fledged and boisterous discussion of wines which had presumably changed lives and futures. I took advantage of the hubbub and distraction to help myself to some more mashed potatoes and the chicken leg I had been coveting. Catherine smiled and winked at me, which could only mean she was drunk or had something in her eye.

I knew I was not being fair. This was really not all that different than a group of my golf buddies discussing their favourite courses. And I knew the conversation was about to turn, as it invariably always did, to a discussion of the best wine they had ever tasted.

The thing is, unlike my golfing pals, I was not entirely convinced this group could tell the difference between Pebble Beach and a mini putt on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

They trotted out the familiar cast of candidates.

“67 Montrachet.”

“81 Screaming Eagle.”

“59 Domaine Romanee-Conti Tache.”

The wines predictably, were all famous, renowned, and expensive. I guess that makes sense. Nobody is going to choose a $12 bottle of 2019 Berringer Cabernet.

When it came to my turn I hesitated and said, “I once had a 49 Chateau Petrus.”

“Omg,” said Nicole, “a 49 Petrus!!”

I held up my hand “To be fair, it was only a sip.”

“I don’t think I know this story,” said Catherine who was now, all of a sudden looking and sounding much, more sober.

“Well,” I said, “you don’t really like to hear stories of when I was with other women.”

Which was true.

She didn’t.

“I think I can make an exception if it involves a 49 Chateau Petrus,” she said.

“It was 1999. The Scaramouche Wine Bar,” I said, launching into my story “It was the ‘go to’ place for blind dates. The restaurant was too expensive for dinner so we would go for coffee and a shared dessert. It made a good first impression.”

“Btw,” interrupted Catherine, “I might mention that Romeo here took to me to Bagel World on our first date.”

“You said you liked eggs and onions,” I argued.

“Classy,” said Jonathon.

“Oh brother. Anyway, I was at Scaramouche on a blind date.” I turned to Catherine and said “Ok, it was Hillary Shenkman.”

“His Ex,” Catherine announced to the table.

I ignored her. “The table next to us was a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They ordered the Petrus. The sommelier repeated the year. He said 1949 sir? And the man said yes. The year we got married.”

“Oh. That is so sweet,” said Nicole’s sister Marissa.

“The waiter came with the bottle and decanted it. Then he poured a taste and the man quickly nodded his approval.”

I had the room at this point. I had told this story before and knew which points to hit. Which details to highlight. I didn’t tell it often because most people did not give a shit about a 1949 Chateau Petrus. But this group did.

“The sommelier filled the glasses and the couple clinked them very gently and toasted each other with a cry of ‘50 years!’ They then both each took a big gulp. ‘As good as I remember’ said the man.”

“You just watched?” Asked Nicole.

“We toasted them with our coffee cups. I think I may have even said mazel tov.”

“They were Jewish?”

“No. It was just, you know, in the moment. Then the wife said ‘You can’t toast with coffee. Let us pour you a glass.’ And I said ‘Oh that is very kind of you but we couldn’t possibly.’ I knew the wine was expensive but it turns out I had no clue how much.”

Jonathon said “5 gees easy. Maybe 10.”

“Right,” I said. “There was no way I was going to let him pour me a glass. So I stood firm. And he said, well you should have a sip at least. We waited 50 years between tastings and you two are such a lovely couple you shouldn’t have to wait so long.”

Catherine said, “Did you really need to add the part of you being a lovely couple?”

“I’m just telling the story. So Hillary now says. I would love a sip. The wife hands Hillary her glass and the man hands me his. We both have a sip and then toast their fifty years.”

“And?” Asked Jonathon. “Was it heaven?”

“I don’t want to lie,” I answer, “I always say it was amazing. But I suspect some of that was because of the price of the wine and my brain telling me what I should think. So the truth is, I don’t really remember.”

“That’s a shame,” said Nicole.

“Youth being wasted on the young and all that,” I replied. “I have a better memory of the chocolate ganache.”

“Wow,” said Catherine “That is quite the story. A 1949 Chateau Petrus.” I’m not sure she believed me. I don’t blame her. She was a wine lover and I had never mentioned the story to her before. And there was a good reason why. Truth is, her bullshit radar is one of the things I liked about her. Which is why I brought the photograph.

“Yup. The waiter even took a photo,” I reached into my breast pocket and took out the picture of the four of us surrounding the bottle of wine.

“You carry that with you?” Joked Jonathon.

“Am glad I finally know people who would appreciate the picture,” I replied with what was certainly the second lie of the evening.

That story made me the toast of the town. It made me the toast of Catherine. Well, it did for a while anyway. We broke up a few months later. We lived in different worlds and neither of us wanted to keep pretending.

“Good story Uncle Ronnie,” says Danna. “Now tell us what really happened.”

“Yeah,” says Rena, “I call bullshit.”

Of course, they are right. There is a little more to the story.

“Ok. The part I don’t tell is that two days later I came down with a bad flu and was sick in bed for a week.”

The girls look at each other knowingly.

“I knew it would be something like that,” says Danna, looking a little too pleased with herself.

“So then why do you hang onto the picture?” asks Rena.

“That picture,” I say, “is to remind me to never drink from someone else’s glass again.”

“That’s funny,” says Danna. “Are you saying there actually was a time when you shared drinks?”

“Yes,” I say.

And then Rena, shaking her head, says “I call bullshit.”

The end.