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Mark Oldman’s Wine Collection
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Published: Jan 01, 2005
Category:
Food and Wine
Mark Oldman’s ‘Secret Alternatives’ Wine Collection
Not long after I wrote a glowing review of Oldman’s Guide To Outsmarting Wine, I received an e-mail from its author. He was as high as a debutante on her second bottle of Cristal. Not only had I actually taken the trouble to read the book, he said, I had understood it.
In the book reviewer’s trade, this combination is as rare as a bottle of ’75 Petrus on sale for $100. That called for lunch. He’d buy.
It is not my style to have lunch with men I do not know. What’s the point? You can’t flirt. And even though the guy may be as fizzy on the printed page as a Vernaccia di San Gimignano, he could be a stone bore at the table.
Still, he was buying. I suggested the hottest media lunchroom in Manhattan. He’d always wanted to go there. So off we went.
What can I say? We were given the best table. Service was impeccable. Even the bottled water — who drinks wine at lunch these days? — seemed extra crisp.
And as for Mark Oldman — I fell in love.
Yes, I am here to report that I spent two-and-a-half hours at lunch with a man. Trading opinions. Offering advice, asking advice. By dessert, we had covered work and women and were moving on to the world.
When I came home, Mrs. B said, “There is no way you could have spent all that time with a man. Who was she?”
So I invited Mark Oldman for dinner.
“What shall I bring?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I told him, and I meant it.
But winelovers have their own imperatives. Mark Oldman brought a bottle of ’95 Montpeyroux from Domaine L’Aiguelie. On his note, he said: “Unfiltered and untamed, with plenty of the roasted herb and bacon aromas one finds in Syrah-based Rhone wines. Extremely rare, it received a 95 from Parker, who called it ‘dazzling.”
He also produced another rare wine, an ’03 Sant’Andrea Moscato di Terracina. “An Italian Muscat,” he explained. “Though explosive and aromatic (orange blossoms? apricot? lime?), this is no dessert wine.”
Don’t drop by, hoping for a taste — these wines have been consumed. And that tells me all I need to know about this collection of “alternative” wines Mark has gathered for Wine.com.
I love his consumer-friendly descriptions: “Who needs Chardonnay?” and “This is the wine that gets the girl…” What a relief from snootball wine talk!
Six bottles plus a copy of his book (which sells for $12.24 on Amazon.com) for $99.99 — that’s not just an affordable introduction to Mark Oldman’s alternative wine list, it’s a pretty great buy. If you’re looking to learn about wine (or, as the case may be, learn more about it), this is a shrewd place to start.
And if you write Mark a nice note after you taste these, who knows — maybe he’ll come to your house bearing bottles.
To buy Mark Oldman’s “alternative wine selection,” click here
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To buy “Oldman’s Guide To Outsmarting Wine” from Amazon.com, click here.
