otbn

  1. Free the Good Memories: It’s Time for Open That Bottle Night

    Free the Good Memories: It’s Time for Open That Bottle Night

    When Sarah O’Herron and Ed Boyce founded Black Ankle Vineyards in 2002, people told them they couldn’t make fine Syrah in Maryland. HA! Not only is the Mount Airy winery well-known for its Syrah, but on Feb. 22, in front of the world, O’Herron and Boyce will open their Syrah from 2007 and 2022 and taste them along with a very famous French Syrah. “Throw down with that one,” O’Herron told us. “Go big or go home,” Boyce added.

    Why Feb. 22? Because it’s Open That Bottle Night 2025, when so many of us, from Prague to Walla Walla, uncork memories from a special wine. We created OTBN in 1999, when we wrote The Wall Street Journal’s wine column, because the most common question we received was some version of this: “I have this bottle from our wedding/my grandfather/an auction that I keep saving for a special occasion. When should I open it?”

  2. ‘Guess who got the wine in the divorce?’ Tales from OTBN 2024

    ‘Guess who got the wine in the divorce?’ Tales from OTBN 2024

    This is what OTBN is all about – life, friends, love and wines that tell stories, hold memories. We invented OTBN a quarter-century ago because all of us have wines that are so special to us and, in some cases, we can’t bear to open them because they are too precious. Our advice: Let those memories out. Any time is a great time to uncork those bottles, but we understand that sometimes we need support, and that’s what the OTBN community is all about.

  3. A Ghost Bottle Appears Just in Time: It’s Open That Bottle Night!

    A Ghost Bottle Appears Just in Time: It’s Open That Bottle Night!

    We created OTBN in 1999 (a quarter-century ago) because readers kept asking us the same question: I have this one very special bottle of wine that has great memories for me; when should I open it? We realized everybody has that bottle and the only way we were ever going to pop the cork was to take a deep breath and do it together.

  4. A New Generation Discovers OTBN: ‘Our Favorite Night’

    A New Generation Discovers OTBN: ‘Our Favorite Night’

    Wine should be joyful. If you ever think it becomes routine to people in the industry, we’d urge you to look at the picture of Marcus Notaro as he celebrates Open That Bottle Night. Notaro is the head winemaker at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars and quite famous, but when it came to OTBN, he was like a kid in a candy store and it shows on his face.

    “I enjoy celebrating Open That Bottle Night each year. I chose the 1997 S.L.V. as it’s from a benchmark vintage in Napa Valley and the wines in the mid-’90s are in a sweet spot right now,” he told us. (His lovely video of tasting the wine is on Twitter @StagsLeapCASK23.)

    (Marcus Notaro)

    Winemakers from all over – Singlefile Wines in Australia, Domaine Gayda in Languedoc – opened special bottles, too. And it wasn’t just winemakers, of course. OTBN was celebrated by regular wine-loving folks from El Salvador, to Chicago to South ...

  5. Elvis Has Left the Cellar: The Bottle of Our Lifetime

    Elvis Has Left the Cellar: The Bottle of Our Lifetime

    Only the oldest of Miami old-timers will remember that there used to be a Grand Union on Coral Way. It was replaced long ago by a sad mall. We lived in Miami then and bought some of our wines at that Grand Union. On Jan. 3, 1980, we picked up a bottle of Always Elvis, an Italian white we carefully noted as “non-vintage,” for $3.29.

  6. Riesling or Marionberry: Oh, the Dilemmas of OTBN

    Riesling or Marionberry: Oh, the Dilemmas of OTBN

    We created OTBN in 1999 for a simple reason: When we started writing about wine, the question we received most often was “I have this one special bottle that I got on vacation (or at my wedding, or at an auction…) When do I open it?” Our answer was always: NOW! But we realized it’s not that easy. Sometimes, the longer we save a bottle “for a special occasion,” the bigger the special occasion has to become and the memories and joy inside that bottle get trapped forever.

  7. OTBN in Lockdown: Divorce Wines, Miami Dust and a Perfect Bottle From Costco

    OTBN in Lockdown: Divorce Wines, Miami Dust and a Perfect Bottle From Costco

    Given the state of the world, we never would have guessed this, but Open That Bottle Night 2021 reached new heights, celebrated by wine stores from Massachusetts to Singapore, by wineries from Australia to Tuscany and by shut-in-for-too-long people from Jamaica to Sonoma.
  8. Open That Bottle Night: It’s Time for That Turley – or Maybe the Breast Label

    Open That Bottle Night: It’s Time for That Turley – or Maybe the Breast Label

    We’ve heard it over and over during the past year: “Now every night is Open That Bottle Night!” In the midst of such a horrific year, people decided to finally enjoy those bottles of wine that had been just too special to open.
  9. A Napa Cabernet Taste-Off in Lockdown: Do Good While Holed Up

    A Napa Cabernet Taste-Off in Lockdown: Do Good While Holed Up

    "Like a surprising number of people, our own prescription for getting through this involves calming down with a glass of wine – and, in this case, the good stuff." Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher
  10. What Pairs With ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Shawshank’? Ask a Shut-In Winemaker

    What Pairs With ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Shawshank’? Ask a Shut-In Winemaker

    “We’ve been pairing our wines to our movie selections. First, a 2015 Williams Selyem Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and ‘Casablanca’ — Morocco is on the coast so figured we’d have a coastal wine." Lynn Penner-Ash
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