Who Closed the Curtain?

When we look back at our wardrobe of old, although when current, a multi-coloured hooped tank top and beige flares may have been the bees-knees, now they are derided and thankfully consigned to the past. The same could also be applied to our tastes in food and wine. I'm sure we all remember, well those of a certain age anyway, the old Prawn Cocktail, Steak and Black Forest Gateaux meal, washed down with a Bottle of Liebfraumilch . . . alright, it must just be me. But at 17, although I may have lacked some taste judged by today‘s standards, I’d happily gain service in the local ‘Beefeater‘, even when accompanied by a female companion of obvious school-age, yet trying to cop for a sly pint with my baby-face was a no go. I guess being underage outweighed my obvious sophistication!

Living the suburban dream; an identikit house with 2.2 children and a loving wife, has never quite appealed, so having spent most of my early 20’s in a progression of ‘nine to five’ jobs, posing as ideal candidate material, I decided to bail-out and seek avenues anew. Where they’d lead, or even in which direction I wasn't certain, but I knew I needed to broaden my horizons - on which journey I stumbled across Red Wine and Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon in particular. Approachable on both price and palate, without the mystery associated with its French cousin Claret, they offered good honest, no nonsense drinking, with just a hint of what could be . . . for me a springboard to the wider World of Wine.

Be it by accident or design, whatever situation we find ourselves in, the opportunity to indulge in past pleasures, should never go unanswered. Hence, finding myself in the Wine Trade, and wanting to ‘clearly and concisely’ present my selections, ’while still conveying real enthusiasm’, (well that’s what the ’Good Wine Guide’ had to say about me in 1994), I took the then unusual step of listing by grape variety - my Premiers Cotes de Bordeaux was very much a Cabernet Sauvignon, as was my star find from Bulgaria’s Pazardjik region, or so I thought. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I ended up with a load of Mavrud, (the grape variety, although at the time I was convinced that it was a Bulgarian expletive), which bore no resemblance to the samples I‘d previously tasted, and those memories of earlier times.

As your waist expands and hair recedes the mirror, like your memory of the past plays tricks on your mind, despite the evidence clearly on show. A once promising affair revisited in middle-age, never quite reaching its previous heights. The Bulgarian Wines of my youth, couldn't quite deliver when called upon, and now appear to be a thing of the past, or at least in their original guise - who closed the curtain? But, I guess that’s for the telling and needs a better Pen (sic) or Teller than me. Is it ever possible to magic something up from the past?