The fleeting joy of an Alaverdi Monastery Kisi

Simon reminisces about a special visit to Alaverdi Monastery, and how he finally proved just how well Alaverdi Monastery Kisi 2010 can age.

Some moments in life are fleeting and unique. Blink and you missed it. Wine often cohabits this space, whether apparent to the drinker during the moment of imbibement or not. I've lost count of how often I drank a transcendental bottle, and then woke up the next morning thinking "I must track down some more of that". And how many times the realisation dawned that it was something exceptionally rare, long sold-out or so obscure that there was effectively no chance of ever finding it again.

Ultimately, as the character Maya Randall so insightfully notes in the film Sideways, sometimes opening a special bottle of wine is the occasion. So these precious experiences have to be embraced and accepted for what they are - fragile, brief glimpses of something almost divine, manifested through the art of consuming (and thus destroying) the object itself. Wine's party trick is that it connects these instants to another place and time, through the vintage marked on the label, or the date and place …