WTN: 2003 Pascal Berthier St. Amour

[Jenise]

2003 Pascal Berthier "Saint-Amour" Vielles Vignes
Creches Sur Saone, France

So last weekend we were in need of a lighter style red wine and I knew the topic gamay was coming so I decided to open this orphan Bojo I had in the cellar from a pair I purchased last summer.

Woo! Too tart. Not ready, and a little sour smelling. So I opened something else and left this on the counter. The next day I sniffed it--uh oh, there's VA. So I left it yet another day and when I pulled the cork--vinegar! Full speed ahead, no U-turns, it was turning into vinegar!

So I went to the pantry to get my current house red wine vinegar, which I made myself from a bottle of red wine that went total-VA on me about a year ago, thinking I'd start feeding this one to that. The vinegar is in the original wine bottle it came in, I just put a better stopper in it. And guess what I found last year's red wine vinegar was made out of? The first bottle of 03 Pascal Berthier "Saint-Amour" Vielles Vignes!

So all's well that ends well: I am glad this happened because I really love the wine-y vinegar this turned into and I was going to be running out soon, and frankly good red wine vinegar is harder to find than good wine, and $16 isn't too much to pay for good red wine vinegar.