Maybe that "some one" was referring to your particular bottle, if they have seen it sitting on your kitchen shelf for the last 15 years, in the light, and always at room temperature, maybe they have a point. Not good storage conditions for any wine.

I just recently had a bottle of '95 Dom, that was indeed stored on some ones kitchen book shelf for 15 years. It was a bit tired tasting with a yeasty thick feel with just a hint of lemon peel left, and I didn't mind drinking it at all.

So go ahead and chill that bottle down and pop it for your anniversary, it could turn out to be great or just so-so, but by no means is it a bottle to discard.

Happy drinkin' and happy 25th

Q: Are there certain wines that should not be decanted. On New Year's, we had a bottle of '97 Brunello that was poured over a silver decanting ring into a decanter and then served for dinner. Should we have decanted a '97 Brunello?
A: Sure you should have. Any red wine that you think can benefit from a little aeration is a candidate for decanting. It is usually just a matter of preference. Some folks have had a few great bottles of red decanted, and love 'em, so now they decant almost all qualified reds, and everything qualifies. I don't usually decant my reds but do give them some good time in my 24 oz. glasses to aerate.

  Decanting was usually used to separate sediment in older bottles, but aerating younger big reds (like yours) is gaining popularity. A friendly sommelier acquaintance of ours who was working in a top notch restaurant in Vegas was decanting every single bottle of red he served. That was just his style and folks seemed to like the presentation.

  So if you have a nice bottle of red wine, it is instantly a candidate. If it is an older Cabernet Sauvignon (Bordeaux, Napa or whatever) or Big Italian or Port then it seems like it may be necessity, in order to catch some sediment before it gets in your glass, but some of those really old Bordeaux's are also a bit fragile and can start to decline fast once decanted, while the young ones may need about an hour just to get drinkable.

Happy drinkin'.

Q: Could you please send me information on wines served with desserts.
Is theres a wine that can be served with chocolate?
Thank you
A: Sure we can do that for you. Lets start off with Champagne, an all around natural pairing with desserts. The bubbles and tight dry flavors, if you get a Brut or Extra Dry, compliment a wide range of desserts and have that cleansing sensation on the palette and don't usually fight for dominance with the dessert. If you serve a sweet dessert wine with a sweet dessert it is often times to much. So Champagne is the natural choice, but also the easy choice.

  Many wines will work AS dessert, and many restaurants list them as liquid dessert on their menu's. German late harvest Rieslings, and even American late harvest Riesling and Gewurztraminers. Port. Ice wines from Germany, Canada (try Inniskillin winery of Canada) and California. Sauternes from Bordeaux, France. Really there are just hundreds and hundreds from around the world. Many wine stores will have them grouped together, so go to your good wine store in the area and ask, they will take you around.

  But you don't necessarily want wine AS dessert, so along with the Champagne to go with bundles of desserts and chocolate, there is Port. It is a sweet wine from Portugal. There are many styles and they can get expensive, but they last in the bottle for months after you open them because of their high alcohol content and durability. A vintage Port or Oporto (Oporto should be listed on the Port bottles, but we just call it Port), is a great choice. Put "Oporto" into your Google search engine and you will get tons of retail stores that list their stuff, you can get a feel for the price and some brand names. Well let me help you with some Port brands.

Dow
Churchill
Taylor Fladgate
Warres
Ferreria
Croft

If Port isn't your favorite match with chocolate, then you could also go Cabernet Sauvignon or Red Zinfandel. You may have had both varietals of wine before, but they can compliment chocolate in different ways. Give it a try.

Also you may want to try some wines from Bonny Doon winery www.bonnydoonvineyard.com, they do a couple nicely priced dessert wines and also something late-harvest from Husch or Hogue.

Sorry to hit you with so much stuff, but you asked. One more thing, Wine Enthusiast magazine just did their whole December issue on dessert and wine, could be something to look into, it could work as your reference guide for now. Check them out at www.winemag.com

Also check out our newest favorite dessert here at DGW.com

Q:My partner has discovered that she really likes white wine with the "Colombard" grape ingredient. Can you recommend a really good one (or more) that I can purchase for her birthday?

A: Colombard is now a grape variety that is not being produced by many wineries in a "really good" fashion. It is used in many jug wines and 1.5 liter bottles that sell for $5. It is kind of a work-horse grape that many wineries will not use in a more expensive wine. They prefer white grape varieties like Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Pinot Gris, Chenin Blanc, Riesling, and others. Colombard is pretty much pushed to the side and produced in bulk by wineries such as Almaden and Inglenook.

I don't mean to get down on your girl's fondness of this grape, but maybe it will be to her benefit to try the varietal wines that are produced by skilled wine makers in a number of fashions. If she enjoyed the Colombard for its dryness and crispness maybe she will enjoy Sauvignon Blanc, a white grape made famous in Bordeaux, and is now produced all over the world. She will be able to explore many more choices of Sauvignon Blanc from hundreds of producers, not as limiting as Colombard. If the Colombard she had retained a little sweetness and she enjoyed that, I would recommend a Chenin Blanc as a wine to also give a shot.

Wineries that are blending Colombard with some other white grapes such as Chardonnay and Viognier are Lindemans (from Australia) and Jepson, DeLoach and Parducci (all from California).

Good luck in your quest for her wine drinking pleasure, and broadening her horizons will offer a much larger selection and also better quality.

Happy Holidays,

Q: My husband and I received a bottle of Dom Perignon (1993) for our son‚s birth in 2001. We placed it in the refrigerator on the day of our family party but forgot about it. We were told that we had to drink it within 3-4 hours of placing it in the refrigerator but obviously we did not. It has been over a year since we received the champagne and it is still in the refrigerator. Can we still drink it? How long will it last in the refrigerator?

A: O.K., first of all, whoever told you that you had to drink the "Dom" within 3-4 hours of placing it in the fridge was drunk on Scotch. Or something else. All you are doing is getting it cold. How would that necessitate the need to drink it in 4 hours?? It doesn't. You can get a white wine and chill it down for months if you want. The goal is to keep it at a certain temperature once you get it there. Wine doesn't like temperature fluctuations, but once it is cold, it doesn't mind staying there for a while. At Elario's restaurant we had a refrigerated wine cooler kept at about 45 degrees with over 500 bottles of wine in it. Some of them where kept in that chilled wine storage for a year, and many of them where bottles of Champagne.

Refrigerators are not the optimal wine storage unit because of the constant light from opening and closing and the vibration from the motor. Wine also doesn't like vibration much but it isn't going to bring instant death to it either.

Nice vintage Champagne (like the '93 Dom) has some aging potential and the year it spent in the fridge is just a tough year on the little guy, but he is going to be o.k. and taste just like he would if he spent a year in a nice light and vibration free 55 degree wine cellar. The thing is, he could spend more time in the cellar since it is a perfect condition, than in your fridge.

So pop that bottle and drink it on the next special occasion this year (thanksgiving, mom's b-day, superbowl sunday). It has been good up until now, but I wouldn't leave it in there another year. "Dom" can age in a proper cellar for 10 years or so, but since that isn't where you have it I would open it this year