The last bottle of a legend
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:10 pm
Today is my birthday...I don't share this in an attempt to get festive wishes from all of you but rather to share with you a ritual that has sadly come to an end.
About four years ago I stocked up on a then seasonal LCBO release...the quite extraordinary St.Ambroise Vintage Ale 2000. At the time I bought about 18 of them in their little cardboard sleeves and numbered bottles. As time passed and my stock dwindled I decided to hold a few back for special events...my birthday, my anniversary with my wife, the birth of our daughter. Once I got down to the last few I decided to hold them back for birthdays only.
Well here I sit drinking the last bottle of that fantastic release...numbered 9111. It has certainly aged well. Beautiful copper colour, thin lace of head in the glass, rich toffee and dried banana bread like aroma, rounded and complex taste with a sherry like finish...absolutely exquisite. As I linger over it, literally savouring every sip, I'm also deeply saddened by the demise of an old and cherished friend. No more will I be able to indulge in this now annual ritual. It will live in the memory like a summer romance...unique, fantastic and truly an experience that will be hard to forget, not that I'd want to.
So farewell to this ambrosia...with luck St.Ambroise will make it again before I'm old and grey (although at 38 I do feel old and I am certainly getting grey). It is truly one of the most exceptional barley wines I have ever had.
About four years ago I stocked up on a then seasonal LCBO release...the quite extraordinary St.Ambroise Vintage Ale 2000. At the time I bought about 18 of them in their little cardboard sleeves and numbered bottles. As time passed and my stock dwindled I decided to hold a few back for special events...my birthday, my anniversary with my wife, the birth of our daughter. Once I got down to the last few I decided to hold them back for birthdays only.
Well here I sit drinking the last bottle of that fantastic release...numbered 9111. It has certainly aged well. Beautiful copper colour, thin lace of head in the glass, rich toffee and dried banana bread like aroma, rounded and complex taste with a sherry like finish...absolutely exquisite. As I linger over it, literally savouring every sip, I'm also deeply saddened by the demise of an old and cherished friend. No more will I be able to indulge in this now annual ritual. It will live in the memory like a summer romance...unique, fantastic and truly an experience that will be hard to forget, not that I'd want to.
So farewell to this ambrosia...with luck St.Ambroise will make it again before I'm old and grey (although at 38 I do feel old and I am certainly getting grey). It is truly one of the most exceptional barley wines I have ever had.