By Ratna Manucha
‘How are these bottles here?’ asked Boss Man as he peered curiously into the dark confines of the most unused piece of furniture in our house – the teakwood bar, polished to perfection.
Today was one of those rare days when he decided to look for a particular bottle of whisky but what he kept pulling out from its depths was another story altogether.
‘Where are they supposed to be?’ I enquired.
Not feeling the need to answer, he pulled out three dusty bottles of Amarula, their labels yellowed with age.
‘You need to throw those out’, I commented.
I was met with a baleful stare.
‘You know how much I paid for them in 1997? They cost an arm and a leg. You used to like Amarula.’
‘Really? When? I may have commented that it tasted like Bailey’s Irish Cream, which in turn tasted like chocolate and vanilla ice cream, or at least it did when I had a few sips of it many moons ago. But that doesn’t mean I was storing bottles of Amarula for posterity.’
‘Well, you can’t keep these bottles, no matter how much you paid for them. Try opening one and see,’ I explained with all the patience I could muster.
‘Why didn’t you store them in the fridge?’ retorted Boss Man petulantly.
I stopped what I was doing and stared at him, willing him to make eye contact. But he was too busy trying to shake the bottle of Amarula to see if it was alright still.
‘Let me try,’ I offered and he handed me the bottle with a grateful look on his face. Poor man. He really had no clue.
Before he could react, I opened the seal and turned it upside down. Nothing. After a few good shakes, out came lumps of coagulated cream, dark brown in colour and smelling like anything but ice cream – the chocolate and vanilla flavoured kind!
‘See!’ I said triumphantly as I tossed the bottles into the bin.
But he was on to other things by now. The whisky bottle still evaded him as he pulled out four bottles of wine, the labels all dusty and vintage looking as if they belonged to a different era. There was a Pinot Noir, a Merlot and two bottles of Chardonnay.
‘Ah! Old, mellowed wine!’ declared Boss man triumphantly as he held up a bottle to the light.
‘It looks cloudy and are those webs I see inside?’ I remarked.
‘Rubbish. You haven’t the faintest idea what wines should be like,’ was his caustic retort. ‘If you were a connoisseur of wines, as I am, you would know. The older the wine the sweeter it gets and you my dear, are aging like fine wine…I would know…’ he trailed off, singing like a lark as he carted off his valuable stash towards the dining room.
Now that was a bit too much for me to swallow. He was comparing me to old wine, that too which in all probability had soured not sweetened. He needed to be told a few home truths.
I marched across to where he was standing, blissfully unaware of what was to follow.
‘This wine is not fit to be drunk.’
‘Old wine is and these bottles are almost eighteen years old. The labels are slightly brown but I checked with a magnifying glass and I think I got the year right’.
‘Yes, if it is stored properly in racks, in a dark cellar. Where are your bottles kept?
‘Obviously in the bar. I got it made especially for my precious collection’.
‘And take a look at where your bar is kept. In the sunniest corner of the dining room. How do you think that works?’
I looked at the sad looking wine bottles on the kitchen rack. They seemed to be looking back at me accusingly.
‘We didn’t sign up for this domestic squabble,’ they seemed to be sighing. ‘It goes against our grain’.
I picked up a bottle of Chardonnay and walked with it towards the sink, with Boss Man following closely behind.
‘Just let me take another look. Maybe all the bottles are not oxidised’, he was practically begging. My heart went out to him.
‘It’s all your fault.’ The Chardonnay bottle seemed to be giving me reproachful looks. ‘You’re not drinking me? Really? Is that what I was bottled for? After staying so long in a casket, then being poured into a bottle and transported in trucks to a fancy outlet from where you picked me up, only to be forgotten for almost two decades. Just when I thought I would finally see the light of day and be savoured through a systematic five step process of sight, swirl, smell, sip and savour. Why aren’t you taking out your finely cut crystal and allowing me to be held in caressing hands and whiffed and twirled and then rolled in tongues thirsting for more… You kept me here all these years just to pour me down the drain? My life is over even before it has begun.’
And as I uncorked the bottle preparing to pour it down the drain, I could swear I heard the wine whine.
(Ratna Manucha, columnist and author of 35 published books and numerous short stories and poems, lives, dreams and writes in Dehradun, her happy place).
