What is a "Special" bottle of wine?

What makes a wine “special”?  Ask five wine professionals and you’ll hear 10 answers (wine people love to equivocate).  You’ll hear about special plots of the vineyard, microclimates, new oak, etc.  One answer you’re not likely to hear is the one idea that I think is the only way a wine can reach the level of special: context.

The best bottle of wine I ever had was in Italy.  I had rented a car and spent a couple of weeks driving around the country, seeing the sights and relaxing.  I reached the Cinqueterre on the Mediterranean coast, just south of Genoa.  It’s a rugged region, where the mountains tumble down to the water, and the little villages cling to the hills like barnacles on a ship.  I had spent four or five hours hiking on the ridgeline before descending into the little village of Riomaggiore.  I was dusty, tired and thirsty.  I sat at the first café I came across and asked for a bicchieri de vino bianco, a glass of white wine.  Across from me were three of a certain age British women on Holiday drinking Sherry.  We chatted for a few minutes, I complimented their hats.  My wine came.  It was a simple wine made from indigenous grapes I probably never heard of, but when I drank it; in that setting, it became a special wine.  I nursed that glass, watching the brightly colored skiffs bob in the water and the feathers sway on the hats of my new British friends.  That wine in that place at that time was special.  It cost me all of $1.40.

One of the wonderful things about wine is how it can become a marker for specific point in time.  The wine you ordered when you proposed, when you celebrated a big promotion, a special night out on the town;  these are the wines that are special.  No big fancy scores or price tags are needed.   In my office I have a shelf with my special bottles and they tell the story of my (post-21) life.  There’s one bottle missing however: I never got the name of who produced my Italian wine.  But whenever I glance up at the shelf, I think of it.  That is a special wine indeed.