I Drank a 100-Year-Old Wine

It Didn't Taste a Day Over 50

Yes, Chateau Y’Quem replaced the label (and cork). Stop being such a cynic.

Do not fear: I did not betray my sacred contract with you, dear reader, and paid for the 100-year-old wine.

In fact, I was eating for free at Mirazur, a three-star restaurant in the south of France. It was Mirazur’s 20th anniversary, and chef Mauro Colagreco was cooking with Ferran Adrià and, for reasons that make neither economic nor emotional sense, they chose to celebrate with me.

I ate lots of things that looked like this

and this

and this

and this

and then they brought me the 100-year-old wine.

This wine was made before my father was born. Before penicillin, sliced bread, or non-missionary sex. This was so long ago that the one of the most popular song in 1926 was “Sleepy Time Gal” by Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra, which was about a lady who stayed up late partying and contained this lyric:

Sleepy time gal, when all your dancing is through
Sleepy time gal, I'll find a cottage for you
You'll learn to cook and to sew
What's more you'll love it, I know
When you're a stay-at-home, play-at-home
Eight o'clock sleepy time gal

In 1926, it was illegal to buy this wine in America. And a sommelier was pouring it for me without comment.

I asked him to come back, unsure if I had seen the label correctly, the way you’d ask a ghost to come back to make sure it wasn’t just a guy in a sheet.

I had, oddly, just been to a lunch in L.A. hosted by Château d’Yquem where I drank the 2006, 1996, and 1986 vintages. I wrote that “it will still be delicious long after my great-great-great-grandchildren re-establish democracy in this country.”

Now I got to test that theory, since I was being poured a vintage that my great-great-great-grandfather might have been alive to drink, if they exported Château d’Yquem to the shtetls of Galicia.

I live in a house that was built in 1923, but it’s still weird to put something in your body from that long ago. Like, if my doctor pulled out his special thermometer from 1926, I would not let him use it on me.

The first thing I noticed about the wine was that it wasn’t all that dark. After 100 years, I figured it would be dark and thin, possibly with liver spots. But this still looked tan and thick, like it could go out and play pickleball.

It still had its fruit and its acid. There was a little bit of nutty flavor of the wizened, but not much. If I had to guess its age, I would have guessed 30 max, without even trying to flatter it. The Château d’Yquem guys at lunch said the wine was like a time machine because it stayed so intact, but it really was as weird as staring at Rob Lowe’s face. This 1926 bottle was going to be fresh and showy after my great-great-great-grandchildren re-establish democracy in this country.

It was delicious. I was thrilled. But I was disappointed that it didn’t somehow taste like it was 100 years old. By which I think I meant a little sad, a little slow, a little past proving anything. Instead, I tasted what it was like to be alive in 1926, which seemed jazzy and fun and unaware of the horrors that were just a few years away. It tasted like now.