Whenever I tell someone that I work in the wine business, their reaction is usually to say how lucky I am, getting to drink all that lovely wine and all that. To an extent they are right, after 17 years in the business I have had the opportunity to taste (note that word, taste, not scull) some of the greatest wines in the world, often at no expense to myself. I should add that in the course of my job I often have to taste some of the most uninspiring, dull, insipid shite ever to emerge from a vineyard. (Yes, Chilean Merlot, that is you I speak of.)

But enough of that, let's get back to the good stuff. In my soon-to-be-previous job, I used to teach wine appreciation courses. During these courses, I used to warn participants of expecting too much from a special bottle. Wine lovers often hoard special bottles, taking them out to stroke lovingly every now and then, waiting for the exact, perfect moment to drink them. And when that time comes, their expectation is so high that disappointment is sure to follow.

I try to avoid this myself, and whenever I acquire something a bit special, I at least try to envisage a time when it could be put to the sword. I came upon a couple of bottles of Chateau Pontet Canet 1966 in excellent nick a few years back, and bought them in anticipation of my fortieth birthday, as I am of the '66 vintage myself. But fate dictated otherwise, as my wife was in the very latter stages of pregnancy with our beloved Aoife as my clock turned 40. But we did one of them justice this year for my 41st, and very nice it was too.

Even though I have had the fortune to taste some great wines in my career, others have eluded me. I have never tasted Petrus, Romanée Conti, and until Christmas night just gone, Chateau d'Yquem. Like nearly every other wine lover I have ever met, I am passionate about dessert wines. And for fans of dessert wines, Yquem is a milestone. It is regarded as the greatest sweet wine of the world, and the most famous wine of the Sauternes appellation in Bordeaux.

In September 2005, I spent a week in Bordeaux as guide of a wine tour. Once, when I had some time away from the group, I was browsing a wine shop when I saw some half-bottles of Yquem 1994 at somewhere between €50 and €100 ( I can't remember exactly.) Normally Yquem is several hundred euros per bottle, so I said "Sod it" and bought one. I knew 1994 was not a great year for Sauternes, but if it's a really bad year, Chateau d'Yquem will not release a wine under their famous name. So I figured that if Yquem made a wine that year, it must be of a high standard.

When I brought it home, we decided that Christmas would be a good time to give it the chop. The first weekend of December that year, my wife discovered she was pregnant, so that put an end to that. The following Christmas, we were still in the throes of being new parents, and fell asleep on the sofa at 9pm, so the Yquem stayed in its bottle for another year.

But this Christmas I was determined to lose my Yquem virginity. I had the Riedel Sommelier Sauternes glasses cleaned and ready. The bottle was chilled, but not too cold. We had a chunk of stilton to go with it. We opened it, and it was…

…alright.

Maybe I was expecting too much, but it was disappointing. There was a bitter streak down the middle of the palate, and it had no length whatsoever. I can still remember my first taste of Haut-Brion, Lafite-Rothschild, Margaux, Vega Sicilia, Krug, Penfold's Grange. This was completely forgettable.

Mind you, I wasn't paying for my first taste of all of the others. That might have been it.

Perhaps in future I should take the approach of Miles from the movie Sideways, who dispatched his cherished Chateau Cheval Blanc 1961 thus:





One thing I never understood from that movie - Miles reveres Pinot Noir and despises both Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Yet his prized bottle is Chateau Cheval Blanc, a blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Maybe it's an in-joke or something.