SKELETONS IN MY CLOSET, so I thought

Over a year ago I was rummaging through the linen closet in our house looking for something. The closet is in the inside part of the house where it is very dark. I touched an object that felt like wood and when I pulled it out I was ecstatic at what I saw.

It was a wooden case, without the lid, of 24 half bottles out of which 20 bottles had remained -- mostly Lafite, Mouton Rothschild, Pichon Lalande and other Chateaux from 1961 and 1962, plus a few younger vintages.

I immediately remembered that these wines were acquired almost 20 years previously from Christie's or Sotheby's in London but, somehow, did not get transferred to one of the temperature controlled storages I rented. Though the house is air-conditioned to 70 -- 75 degrees, year round, it is still much above the recommended cellaring temperature of 55 degrees.

"Twenty years!" I said, with some astonishment. And then I started getting really depressed as it dawned on me that even under ideal conditions half bottles age faster than bottles. "It's no use" I said, "these aren't going to be good anymore".

But there were some encouraging signs. All the capsules were intact and the sediments inside had settled nicely, after I stood the bottles up for a couple of days. Looking from outside, the color of the wines were bright and lively.

I decided to check it out any way. So I took some of the half bottles to my favorite neighborhood restaurant, Mario's Place, for dinner, not just one or two but, to improve the chances that at least one of them will be drinkable, I took four.

The ones I selected had the worst levels. They were: Ch. Nenin 1961 and 1962, a minor but a particularly good Pomerol in these vintages, Lafite 1961, and a Mouton Rothschild 1973 I had bought as a souvenir for the year Mouton was elevated as a first growth. All the bottles had upper-shoulder levels except Mouton which was mid-shoulder.

I asked the sommelier to serve the four wines blind and told him that I would consider myself very lucky if even one of the wines was sound. I wanted it blind because I wanted to know if they had maintained their true character the way I knew they should have (under ideal conditions !).

I was astonished at what I discovered.

Three of the four wines were totally sound although the colors had some amber in them. They were definitely more advanced than the half bottles of 1961 I still have in my temperature controlled locker. But, still, they were lively, delicious, true to their character and I guessed them all correctly as 61, 62 Nenin and 61 Lafite (not served in that order).

The remaining one which had a sharp, acetic taste, was, by elimination, the 73 Mouton. In retrospect, this was perhaps not surprising because 1973 was an off-vintage and the bottle had a particularly low-level.

The nose of the two Nenins were flawless, very candy like, and textures of the wines were smooth, exactly the signs pointing to a Pomerol. The 1961 was much more concentrated, just as expected. The finesse of Lafite and its legendary perfumed nose, again flawless, were unmistakable and undiminished in spite of the flawed cellaring.

How could it happen that even after being left for 20 years in the closet, the three were still sound?

I have some theories which I will summarize below:

1. The wines came from cellars in Britain which are generally cold and damp, very good for wines because, as we all know, cold temperatures slow down oxidation. The humidity keeps corks moist, preventing rapid transfer of air into the bottle.

So having a great provenance from the start was crucial, like winning half the battle before even starting.

2. The wines hadn't been moved much, if ever. Motion, especially sustained motion, causes rapid aging as countless examples show.

3. The temperature, though not ideal, never got too warm, and importantly, it varied by only a few degrees through the year. Wine, like everything else, simply stresses out when subjected to rapid temperature variations.

4. The fourth reason, an extremely important one, was that it was dark, pitch dark, where the wines were left. LIGHT, I HAVE FOUND, IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ENEMIES OF WINES. Even indirect daylight can be harmful if bottles are exposed to it for any length of time.

My closet episode highlights the four crucial facts about cellaring I' ve outlined above, all of which worked together, COLLECTIVELY, to save the wines.

Had any one of these factors been absent it could have been a certain disaster.

It also underscored the remarkable resiliency in Bordeaux wines from good vintages even for minor chateaux and even in half bottles with imperfect storage.

In the meantime, the remaining 16 weather-beaten half bottles in the closet have been transferred to my locker, as they should have been twenty years ago.

As I drink them now, one after the other, I thank chemistry or physics or soil science or whatever it is that have kept them alive and still quite delicious.