We celebrated Open That Bottle Night with a bottle of Dad’s favorite Brunello. It was just as fab as the last time I drank it with him,
--Phil Masturzo, Akron
When we invented Open That Bottle Night in 1999, to persuade people to finally uncork the wine they’ve been saving forever for a special occasion, we had no idea we’d create a worldwide community. Every year, OTBN, on the last Saturday of February, is wonderful. But this year touched people more deeply. For whatever reason, wine lovers truly embraced the concept: There’s no better day than today to celebrate. How else to explain that the most widely shared wine we heard about this year – a distinction held in the past by Silver Oak or Jordan – was Château d’Yquem, the rare and peerless sweet wine from Sauternes?
OTBN was celebrated in many parts of the world. In Australia, Dan Redman, winemaker for family-owned Redman Wines in Coonawarra, uncorked a 1982 Redman Claret, made from 100% Shiraz, from his birth year. “The wine opened up extremely well,” he told us. “Still some fresh blue fruits with soft resolved tannins.” In Salt Lake City, Utah Women in Wine sponsored an OTBN night for its growing membership. “Utah can be a tough place to meet like-minded women, and UWW has become a welcoming space to foster connections,” said founder Kari Herron.
(Dan Redman in Australia with the 1982 Redman Claret from his birth year)
In Maplewood, N.J., Hank Zona wrote on Instagram that he opened a 1996 Port and said we could share his post about his reasoning:
Why? Because I rarely open Port because it’s 2025 and I don’t live in Downton Abbey or in some old English novel. The here and now is plenty special and it’s best to have the perspective of making the most out of life from a positive angle rather than having gained such perspective from tragedy. So enjoy something now, or sooner rather than later. Enjoy someone. Or with someone. Or some ones. Wine makes for a great component and story enhancer in those scenarios.
The epicenter of OTBN this year was the Northwest – Oregon and Washington, and British Columbia, too. Fielding Hills Winery in Chelan, Wash., opened its wines going back a quarter-century. In Dundee, Oregon, Winderlea Vineyard & Winery hosted its 17th OTBN. Of the 24 celebrants, eight attended the winery’s first in 2008, where something extraordinary occurred. Said co-owner Donna Morris:
The most notable recollection from OTBN 2008 was winemaker Robert Brittan proposing to his future wife, Ellen, by proclaiming that a French winemaker once told him that he could get any woman in the world to marry him if first he poured her a glass of Robert’s Stags’ Leap “Ne Cede Malis” Petite Sirah. He tested the theory with a proposal that night. She said yes. They got married overlooking the Winderlea Vineyard in September of ’08. It was the one and only wedding ever to be held at Winderlea! And yes, Robert and Ellen were at OTBN at Winderlea this year.
OTBN was celebrated more widely at wineries this year than ever before and it was interesting that so many winemakers opened bottles from their early years in the industry. In Woodinville, Wash., winemaker Erica Orr recalled working her first harvest in 1998 with the Napa legend Cathy Corison, whose elegant wines we have loved forever, including her Corazón Anderson Valley Gewürztraminer. “I don’t have to tell you she is a true pioneer for women winemakers,” Orr said. “I opened her 2018 St. Helena Cab and it was delicious with my French onion soup.”
Wines from travels are often the hardest to open because of the special memories they invoke. In our case, we shared a 1997 Sangiovese from Pugliese Winery in Long Island and a 1993 Cennatoio Rosso di Panzano from a visit to the winery in Tuscany many years ago, which happened only because we got lost. The Tuscan wine had wizened fruit, almost like a memory, and smelled of dried roses. As it opened, the fruit regained some sweet fleshiness that played peek-a-boo for a while before flattening. The late winemaker Ralph Pugliese told us that he planted a bit of Sangiovese to honor his heritage. He’d be pleased at how beautifully it has aged, still with plenty of fruit and pepper.
(Our 1997 Pugliese Sangiovese and 1993 Cennatoio Rosso di Panzano)
In Milwaukee, Dr. Jeffrey K. Coleman opened an English sparkler, 2019 Rathfinny Estate Brut Rosé, from a trip to London. Coleman co-founded the Milwaukee Wine Academy in 2023 “in an effort to diversify Milwaukee’s wine scene through education.” He chose the bubbly for OTBN, he said, “as I felt like it was important to celebrate in the midst of such turbulent times.”
About Château d’Yquem. We have long believed it is the world’s greatest wine. And of course it’s not just us. In the foundational Bordeaux Classification of 1855, it was regarded as so superlative that it was given a rank unto itself, Premier Cru Supérieur. We laid down a case of the 1989 for our first daughter, Media, when it was far more affordable, and shared it at her wedding. (We laid down red Bordeaux and Champagne for Zoë.)
Mike and Sue Veseth and a group of friends in Tacoma, Wash., have celebrated OTBN for 15 years. This year, they opened a 1990 Yquem, part of a tradition. “We had Yquem 1986 in 2009, 1996 in 2010, 1989 in 2014 and the 1990 in both 2024 and 2025,” Mike said. He added:
Our very first OTBN gathering has a Yquem story. The teenage son of ours hosts that night was helping out in the kitchen preparing the wines and someone sneaked him a glass of Yquem. It was his first taste of wine ever and it really opened his eyes. Can you imagine? It is something he (and we) will never forget. I guess that's one of the reasons Yquem seems to show up for OTBN every year. It reminds us of our first glass and that first gathering.
Well, Mike and Sue, meet Sarah O’Herron and Ed Boyce, who founded Black Ankle Vineyards in Mount Airy, Md. For OTBN this year, O’Herron and Boyce invited their staff, some good friends and dozens of fans on Zoom to open two treasured Syrahs from their own winery along with a classic Rhône Syrah, Paul Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle 1990. How did it go? Boyce told us:
Our 2022 Domaine Syrah was very lovely and should age extremely well, but didn’t yet have the elegance of the older wines. The 2007 BAV Leaf Stone still had lots of fruit, amazing for a 17-year-old wine from 4-year old vines -- we were really proud. It also had undertones of all those great Syrah flavors, like forest floor, mushroom, and earthiness, and the balance was still excellent after all these years. The 1990 La Chapelle was otherworldly -- it was very complex, very long, and changed flavors every ten minutes (thyme, black licorice, meaty to name a few). It was so balanced and felt really young, like it could have lasted another 20 years in bottle. As I am writing this, I am trying to think of another red wine I enjoyed more, and nothing comes to mind. Wow.
In the spirit of the evening, we decided to open the only other 1990 we had left in our cellar -- the 1990 Château d’Yquem Sauternes. It was fantastic, every bit on the level of the La Chapelle. Orange marmalade, honey, you name it, it was there. And perfect balance. An excellent capper to a wonderful night.
Wine has a special ability to transport us – to places, to times, to people. After Phil Masturzo, who writes about wine for the Akron Beacon-Journal, posted about his father, we asked him to tell us more about his wine and his father. He wrote:
(In Akron, Phil Masturzo toasted his dad with a 2013 La Lecciaia Brunello)
I bought my dad a bottle of 1997 La Lecciaia Brunello for Father’s Day back around 2000 or so. He loved to have a glass of wine but went crazy when he had the Brunello, so I ended up buying a case of the 1999 that we shared together. Shortly after I bought the case he was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The doctor said his next Christmas would be his last. He lived 6 additional years in spite of what the doctor predicted. That gave us time to share more Brunello together in-between the many rounds of chemo, radiation, and a quadruple bypass heart surgery. I purchased a few bottles of 2013 La Lecciaia that I recently found online so I could relive those cherished moments again.
The last time we shared a bottle of Brunello was almost 20 years ago as dad passed in November of 2006. Isn’t it amazing how a bottle of fermented grape juice can transport us back in time to one of our happy moments?
Don’t wait for a special occasion to open your cherished wines. But just in case: Open That Bottle Night 2026 falls on Feb. 28. Friends of John Donovan, who in 2014 organized what he believed was Dubuque, Iowa’s first OTBN celebration, have begun making plans for next year with him.
