One More Bucket List Item Crossed Off!

Rarely do I blog about work because, truly, I like to keep my personal life and my professional one separate but since work today included being able to cross something off My Bucket List, I figured it was acceptable to share.

I drank this today. Please refer to #5 on my (albeit small) Life-long Bucket List.

drc-grandsechezaux
A wine so special they count bottles produced, not cases. I drank from bottle #09513.

That’s right. I got to drink my DRC (2001 vintage). And not just a sip but a whole TASTE! It was such a treat.

It was delicate, more orange-red than purple-red, showing some signs of how nicely it had aged. The flavors swirled together in my glass, none of which were overpowering the other. There were slight notes of clean minerality, paired with hints of rhubarb, red berry…sigh. It sure put my coffee to shame at 9:30 this morning!

I learned about DRC when I first began work at the distributor in New Orleans. It was my first couple days and my boss told me to go through the portfolio and select some wines that I was not familiar with from some of our largest suppliers and sample them out so I would know what I was selling. I put DRC down on my sample request and was promptly laughed out of the building for even trying to requisition out a bottle of wine that went for more than my whole paycheck. Domaine de la Romanée-Conti has a handful of grand cru vineyards, with grand cru being the premiere level of vineyard in Burgundy, France. Of their grand crus, there is one in Puligny Chassagne, six in Vosne-Romanée (one of which is the Grands Echézeaux) and three in the Aloxe-Corton region.

So, back to what I was saying.

Later that year at the distributor, when the DRC allotment came in, one of my customers had pre-ordered a bottle (which was awesome, since I was on full commission.) In order to receive said bottle, I had to hand deliver it to the customer. No big deal. But when I went to pick it up, handling it came with strict instructions.

I was to head to the warehouse, leave my car running with the air conditioner blasting, then ask the warehouse staff to take me in the golf cart to the back “cold room” where this heralded wine was kept. Then I had to take the wooden box in which the wine was to be delivered and buckle it with a seat belt. Once I arrived at my account, the customer signed for it and I was safe.

The particular wine we tasted today is so highly coveted they are numbered.

Cheers Bottle #9513, you made my day.