Why wait for the “night”? Why not make any night special just by opening one of those “occasion” bottles you have waiting for you in your cellar or in the bottom of your closet. If you wait for right occasion, you may wind up drinking your Cheval Blanc out of a Styrofoam cup at the local burger joint with Miles.

I selected one of my wife’s favorite wines, then upgraded to the reserve we had been saving.  It was a 1999 Schramsberg Reserve Brute.  For dinner, I prepared a butternut squash risotto and tiger shrimp sautéed with Riesling, garlic, red peppers and grape tomatoes, and topped with a Riesling and lime reduction.
 
The occasion? None. I was travelling on business all week and just wanted to do something special just for her. I know how much she enjoys a good sparkling wine. Schramsberg is one of her favorite producers of sparking wine. And the 1999 Reserve had been aging in the cellar for a while and was just begging to be opened.
 
When I served a flute (Reidel’s of course) of the wine to her, she immediately realized this was not just a quaffable bubbly. The toast and ripened dough aromas flank with Meyer lemon zest begin to announce the complexity of the wine. This fine sparkling wine had along finish that just pleaded to be a solo course on the menu. 
 
The bright acid paired nicely with the shrimp and vegetables. The toast and dough blended nicely to enhance the butternut squash risotto. But then sparkling wine goes with everything. And Reserve sparkling wine takes anything to a special occasion. So open that occasion bottle to share with your spouse, just because she (or he) is special.

MikeR