Ellington

Around this time of year, there are plenty of reasons to want just the right wine to celebrate with—graduations, weddings, summer celebrations. When you're looking for that extra special bottle for that extra special occasion, how do you make the decision as to which one will be special enough? How do we know which wine will be so hauntingly sweet or spicy with tannins aged to velvety perfection that it will make the situation absolutely perfect?

First, don't go to the liquor store that day and buy something expensive and hope for the best. You may end up with something tasty, but no more special than any other bottle. What you need is advanced planning and a good bit of willpower.

Every experience that we have should be remembered on many levels. For me, I almost always remember what I drank (and, of course, what I wore). After my high school graduation, my mother ordered a shot of Amaretto di Saronno for me to drink with my dessert. I thought that was a huge moment, like I was suddenly adult enough to drink an almond-flavored liqueur with my parents. When I graduated from college, I drank several bottles of Andre "Champagne" with my friends. (At the time it seemed unthinkably fancy to us.)

But the bottle that really did it for me, the one that made me look at wine in a whole new light and led me to the career I now have in wine, was the 1992 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon. It was 1996, and a bunch of us got together every night to hang out, play music and, more than anything, to drink. Everyone brought a little something to contribute to the demise of our collective livers, usually Budweiser, Ketel One or some kind of scotch. My good friend and mentor, David Blumenthal, however, brought phat bottles of wine: Ridge, Arrowood, Caymus and, of course, Silver Oak. It was on one of those infamous nights that I took my first sip of something that made me really stop and appreciate the art form that is wine. That was it for me.

Since then I have made a point to always remember those moments. When my husband and I got engaged, we drank a bottle of 1984 Forman Cabernet that we had been saving and a bottle of 1988 Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame Rose. On our honeymoon to California wine country, we visited several of our favorite wineries. At Landmark, the owner, Mike Calhoun, took us into the cellar and gave us a taste from the barrel of the first-ever syrah from Landmark. At Guenoc, the very eccentric and brilliant owner and winemaker Orville Magoon took us up the side of a mountain in his battered old Suburban to Tephra Ridge, one of their famous hillside vineyards, to enjoy a bottle of cabernet from that vineyard.

See how it works? A wine becomes special because of the circumstances surrounding its consumption, not because it's expensive or popular. The trick is to obtain a few bottles of the wine and then save them for when it will mean the most to open them. (That's where the willpower comes into play.) Share a great bottle and a great story with close friends.

Back in 1997, I gave one of my closest friends a bottle of 1991 Chateau Lynch Bages for his birthday. I told him to hold onto it for a special occasion. He recently became engaged to his longtime girlfriend and took that bottle with him to New Orleans where they drank it on the night of their engagement.

My husband and I will soon have another big celebration with the arrival of our first child. After a little poking through our wine collection, I realize that we've got the perfect bottle to celebrate with: we have one bottle of my first love, the 1992 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon. It's a no-brainer.