“A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson had it right about special wines being eminently memorable, though he forgot to add the part about how wine tasting, like a hot date, owes so much to anticipation.

And as much as I like to think that I am inching ever closer to the Zen mystery, it’s really difficult not to put expectations on a tasting in which magnums of 1995 Champagne and Graham’s Vintage Port (1977), as well as bottles of 1981 Vieux Chateau Certan, take second billing.

Which is exactly what happens when you have a bottle of (genuine) 1929 Haut-Brion in the lineup.

That’s because the 1929 Haut-Brion is one of those extremely rare triple threats: world-class producer, renowned vintage (before every other release was deemed “vintages of the century” in Bordeaux) and rare old wine (in decent condition).

Or so we had hoped, anyway.

As it turns out, that fabled bottle that had me (and several other guests at the Columbia Firehouse restaurant in old town Alexandria, VA) buzzing with anticipation last week had apparently leaked at some point in it’s 81-year history.

Uh-oh.

We (a group of about 15 people) were assembled as the hand-picked guests of my buddy Jason Whiteside, DWS (Washington Wine Academy instructor, friend of the Dude and frequent guest poster here) to celebrate the achievement of his WSET Diploma in Wine & Spirits (a pre-req for entrance into the Masters of Wine program).  It’s a difficult and hard-earned achievement, well-worthy of opening some special bottles.  As our generous host put it after inspecting the most special of that night’s bottles, “this wine could be deader than Lincoln”…

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This is a guest post from frequent 1WineDude.com contributor Jason Whiteside, who recently attained his WSET Diploma in Wines & Spirits (with Merit).  Jason recently returned from a trip to Argentina, cataloged below, in which he went inside Bodega Catena Zapata to answer the question “How Well Does New World Malbec Age?”  His trip recap. coinincides nicely with an interview I recently gave for WineSur.com, in which they asked me about the state of Argentinian wine in the U.S. (for some reason, they left out my comment that Argentinian Malbec needs to prove its high-end age-worthiness… oh, well…).  As an added bonus, Jason also gives us a peek inside the mind of your physician in the era of health care debate.  Enjoy!

I recently spent a week in Mendoza, Argentina on a singular, secret mission assigned to me by The Dude: find out how well Argentine Malbec will age. The assignment seemed simple enough; I was headed to Mendoza anyhow as guests of Winebow and the Catena family. If anyone knew about the age-worthy qualities of high-end Malbec, it was the folks at Catena. What I didn’t know is how hard I would work to find the answer, and that I would have to rely on years of elite training in a secret language to get the answer.

Laura Catena isn’t just the President of Bodega Catena Zapata. Even with all of the responsibility that alone entails, she has a life outside of wine. She is also Laura Catena, MD, and an Emergency Room Physician at UCSF. When I uncovered this little fact about her, I knew I’d leave Mendoza with an answer to our collective Malbec question. You might not know this about me, but I was trained to speak DOCTOR.

It has been many years since I was a professional doctor-botherer. I don’t speak about it much, but it is indeed a part of my pre-wine life. Before my career in wine sales and education, I was a Pharmaceutical Salesman. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca; I was trained by the best. Almost nine years of my life were spent charming receptionists, nurses, and anybody else in the way, just so I could get 45 seconds of a doctor’s time, in order to tell him/her some science stuff he/she already knew. The job was a big waste of time, but the sales training was priceless. And learning how to speak DOCTOR sometimes really pays off…

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If you enjoy what are regarded as some of the world’s most prestigious wines, and happen to have in excess of $600,000 lying around, then you might want to make your way to Sotheby’s in New York on March 10.

That’s when they plan on selling the wines from the cellar of famed wine collector and way-cool-eye-patch-wearer Lloyd Flatt.

Long-time 1WineDude.com readers will recall Flatt and his extravagant cellar when they were covered here in a guest post by long-time friend-of-the-Dude Jason Whiteside (who had the honor of pouring some of Flatt’s collected wines at a party held in his memory).  Saying that Flatt’s wine collection was amazing and expensive would be a bit like saying that a nuclear war might "tickle a bit" – in other words, a huge understatement.  As Lloyd’s widow, Lauré Flatt, put it:

"There was the rebuilding of Europe, the rebuilding of Atlanta and then there was the rebuilding of Lloyd Flatt’s wine cellar."

Flatt’s cellar contents reads like a Who’s Who of France’s most celebrated wine labels (see the full list for auction after the jump).  While he clearly enjoyed the most celebrated of French wines, he seems to have harbored a pretty down-to-earth approach when it came to wine tasting.   Recalls Lauré:

" ‘Must be present to win’ – of all of Lloyds quotes, this is my personal favorite. This was the order of the day whenever opening an important bottle to share with family and friends. Many times it was just he and I at our kitchen table or in the garden. Top hats, morning coats, a jazz band through the French Quarter or pajamas in the garden, Lloyd said the dress did not change the taste of the elixir. He had a hunger for fine foods; however he was not one to follow the food to wine match; ‘if the wine is good enough the food will follow.’  He often enjoyed Dom Pérignon and Dominos pizza, or a Lafite with a cheeseburger."

I can get behind the cheeseburger, but Dominos?  Really?!??

Anyway, the list of Flatt’s wines on auction is below.  Enjoy, and try not to salivate too much on the keyboard…

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The rage is relentless
We need a movement with a quickness
You are the witness of change
And to counteract
We gotta take the power back

Sometimes I wonder if the Internet should have a theme song.  I’d nominate Rage Against The Machine’s Take The Power Back, given the possibilities of democratization that the connected economy presents to us nearly every day.

That’s an overly-dramatic introduction to a couple of on-line surveys… but what the hell, why be afraid to revel in our time, right?

Anyway… frequent 1WineDude readers will know my good buddy (and uber wine-geek) Jason Whiteside, who is currently finishing up the challenging WSET Diploma program (the stepping-stone into Master of Wine qualification).  Jason is taking on a bit of wine consumer research as part of his WSET work, and he needs your help!

Below you will find links to two (very, very quick) surveys that Jason is running to collect consumer’s views on two hot topics in the wine world.  The first, rising alcohol levels, is a topic that generates just about as much passion as any other being discussed around wine today. The second is a more specific exploration into what wine consumers think about Sauvignon Blanc (which surprisingly also brings out strong opinions among true wine geeks).

I’ll defer to Jason to introduce the surveys:

“These surveys represent a small amount of consumer research, which is being done for the WSET Diploma (the Diploma is divided into six learning Units, and one of them is on “The Business of Wine”). Both surveys are about ten questions each, and should take less than three minutes to complete. Consumer preference doesn’t garner the attention that Wine Critic preference does, but surveys like this can help swing the power back to the people. Thank you very much for your time in filling out the surveys. Your answers will remain confidential; even I will not be able to see who answered what.”

The results will be published in a future 1WineDude article, so do us a favor and take 5 minutes to tell us your thoughts!

Have your say about Alcohol Levels and Wine:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=phsAHStgKrfzRRTWFmGFoQ_3d_3d

Tell us what you think about White Wine and Sauvignon Blanc:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=95Sodl9Wgd0d2i9iTu2gXw_3d_3d

Cheers!