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My father died in Corvallis, Oregon in September, 1984. When my sister and I converged on the family house to sort through our family's artifacts so it could be sold, we found a case of French wine in the cellar that my father had put aside for my sister's wedding in 1971, when she was sixteen. She didn't get married on his schedule and the wine had passed its prime. We opened three or four spoiled bottles before we found a good one, which we drained while we sat on the cellar's cement floor. We opened more bottles until we found another good one, and we drank most of that too. I've never found a more appropriate time to get drunk, or a more appropriate beverage to do it with. Or, considering the circumstances and the beverage, more appropriate company.

After my sister went home, I found myself wandering down the wine aisle of the nearby down-home market looking for a local treat. I bought a bottle with a hand-drawn-looking label and a grape I'd never heard of, Maréchal Foch, from Serendipity Cellars in Monmouth. I took it to my empty family house and opened it. It poured black. It clung purple to the sides of the glass. It tasted astringent and rich, as if it would age well. I bought a couple more bottles and threw them in my suitcase.

A dozen years later I opened the oldest wine in my crawl space to complement a meaty dinner. The Maréchal Foch was lighter in color. It had developed fruit and depth and finish. Right away I called the number on the bottle to order a case. The woman who answered took my order. When I gave my shipping address she asked, "Were you in my class at Corvallis High School?"

I admitted that I had spent a year at Corvallis High School. She got her yearbook and said, "There you are right next to Bruce Ito!" Cheryl Frad had married a guy from a nearby Willamette Valley town, they had kids and built a family vineyard and winery. I ordered a case of the 1993.

The next year I ordered case of 1994 Maréchal Foch. I was on the Serendipity Cellars mailing list. It announced tastings and tours and awards their wines had won. It had occasional personal snippets that indicated that number one son was not very interested in the family vineyard. A few years later the newsletter announced that Serendipity Cellars was closing. I never visited Serendipity Cellars. I never heard from Cheryl again.

Last night I slow cooked a batch of spicy ribs on the barbie. I went down to the cellar to find the oldest bottle of wine that would stand up to the ribs. I still had a bottle of the 1993 Maréchal Foch and a bottle of the 1994.

I opened both of them. The 1993 had mellowed and complexified nicely. The 1994 was a tad sharper, but also excellent. My wife tasted them both. She liked the 1993 better but said, "These aren't such a big deal." I told her I liked them because I understood where they came from. Both bottles stood up to the ribs. The fruit gushed off the top to complement the meat's spice and charred edge.

A day later, they're both still drinkable. The 1993 is a little bit sour. The 1994 is even better than it was yesterday with tastes of cinnamon, dark chocolate and new leather.

There's no serendipitous moral here, just a guy looking at a couple of almost-empty wine bottles on a one-way trip that's decidedly not off-the-shelf.

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