Exclusive: Dispatch From The Cellar

By Samuel Yeh  |  Sommelier, La Cape Verde

It finally happened. After eight long months, I unloaded the 1999 Château de La Plausibilité.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to stare at a case of wine that you know was a mistake — vintage-wise, morally, cosmically — and pray that some overconfident dilettante walks in to take it off your hands? Every night, I whispered to those bottles: Your day will come, my sweet disasters.

And tonight, it did.

They were the perfect marks: a man who says Cabernet like he’s auditioning for a toothpaste commercial, and a woman politely pretending she isn’t watching the tip calculator in his brain. He asked for something “full-bodied but smooth,” which is roughly the wine equivalent of ordering “a soup that isn’t too wet.”

They always think they’re being discerning when they purse their lips and stare at the wine list as if deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls. His date nodded solemnly when he said, “We’re really more Cabernet people,” which, in wine-world translation, means: We drink what’s on sale at the grocery store.

I smiled, the way only a sommelier can smile — with the pity of a saint and the glee of a man about to commit light fraud. “I have just the thing,” I told him.

The 1999. The heartbreak vintage. The bottle that even the dishwasher refuses as payment. A bottle so aggressively mediocre it practically apologizes when uncorked.

He sniffed the cork. The cork. Like a pilgrim seeking truth in the lid of a candle. I could barely contain myself. It took every ounce of restraint not to shout, “You’re smelling mold and regret, my friend!”

He swirled, he sniffed, he nodded sagely — the universal gesture of a man who has no idea what’s happening. “It’s got… notes,” he said. “Maybe leather?”
Indeed, sir. From the wallet of the last fool who bought it.

His date smiled, impressed, and I, a humble servant of the vine, fought the urge to weep into my decanter. I returned to my post, where I could enjoy the real bouquet: the delicate aroma of a table convinced it’s French for the evening.

As I watched them sip, I felt the purest form of joy. Not love. Not pride. But the transcendent satisfaction of a cellar one bottle lighter — and two egos heavier.

They’ll think of me for years whenever they order wine again. I’ll think of them only when I need to clear more shelf space