Sometimes, you have to thank the public.

I bitch about my job.  A lot, in fact.  Because, well, let’s call a spade a spade here… working in retail generally sucks.

Granted, I work in a pretty nice shop as far as wine goes.  We stock over 3,000 wines, including many rare and esoteric bottles.  I get to taste quite a bit of wine.  I get to talk quite a bit of wine.  I’ve made some incredible connections.  And I work with some of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

But, to be perfectly honest, working with (and for) the general public on a day to day basis can be trying.

Every once in a while, though, something will slip through the cracks and make my day.  Hell, make my week, even.  Some tasty morsel falls into my lap that makes me remember why I’m in this crummy business.  I wait for those moments.  I’ve put myself in a position that, when they do fall, a fair percentage of them fall to me.

A customer returned a bottle because the cork crumbled on him.  He never even got the whole thing out of the bottle.  The boss asked me if i wanted to take it home and try it.  Of course I did.  I didn’t even know what the bottle was at this point.  But we were going to write it off as a loss, so someone might as well at least try to enjoy it.

I walked into the back room to grab it, and he hands me a bottle of 1992 Burgess Library Release Cab with half a cork in it.  Well OF COURSE the cork was brittle… it’s probably been in the bottle for 14 years.  So, with a surgeon’s touch, I eased the rest of the fragile cork out of the bottle.  Success.  Phil and I tasted it.  Beautiful.

The wine was obviously older.  Its former deep ruby color had faded to garnet with sort of brick-orange highlights.  The nose was an elegant mix of mature fruit and spice.  The depth was incredible.  Baked cherry and plum notes were followed by more subtle clove, leather, vanilla and chocolate aromas.  On the palate, the wine was incredibly elegant.  The mature fruit balanced seamlessly with the wine’s firm acidity and fine grained tannins.  Oak was certainly present, but by now perfectly integrated.  This was, by far, the best free bottle of wine I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking.

So, sometimes, you have to thank the public.  I’d like to thank that guy, wherever he is, for being unable to get the cork out of this bottle.  If you have trouble next time, sir, come in and exchange your bottle again.  I might even pour you a glass before you go.