Sipping an 87-year-old Spanish red - from a discount liquor store

In the rarefied world of vintage wine, a perfectly preserved lot of bottles ranging from three decades to 87 years old is usually the province of a Sotheby's wine auction or a high-roller market in Hong Kong.

This is not the kind of liquid treasure usually found in a South Jersey discount liquor shop wedged between a ShopRite and a Great Clips salon.

But there was wine buyer Andrea Billick, understandably nervous as the "Ron Burgundy" Pandora station played in the background at Joe Canal's in West Deptford. She was pacing before a lineup of dusty old Spanish gems ranging from $90 to $325 a bottle that will be in the spotlight Saturday night of an exceptionally rare public tasting, Jose Garces meal, and sale.

"It sort of makes me ill," she confessed, momentarily second-guessing her impulse to invest $7,000 in the trove of Rioja bottles for this catered pop-up event - all before running it by her boss, store owner Scott West. "It's more than I paid for my car. We have 30 days to pay the importer back.

"But . . . but how could I not? As a former history teacher, I think it's so cool to drink something from 1928 that's still alive."

What, exactly, does that mean when it comes to wine? Is it even possible for something to still taste good - let alone not poison us - that was put in the bottle before the Spanish Civil War?

We were about to find out, as Billick gingerly pressed her thumb against unopened corks to test for soundness in the seals of a few different vintage bottles she had chosen for a preview tasting. Her fellow wine buyer, Dino Garistina, went to work with a corkscrew. As Billick muttered incantations against the possibility of "spectacular cork fails," he successfully cleared the opening and tipped a bottle of 1928 Federico Paternina Rioja "Ollauri" Gran Reserva toward a glass.

Few people ever get the privilege (or have the resources or desire) to taste the magic of a truly old wine still in prime condition. About 97 percent of the 2,000-plus labels sold in this independent Joe Canal's franchise are current vintages from 2012 or 2013, averaging between $16 and $20. And, for most people, those more moderately priced wines - neither intended nor crafted to last longer than a few years - are bought for immediate consumption.

Drinking fully mature wine is a completely different experience: the quick-hit of a new wine's juicy fruit and tannins tamed by time, at least momentarily, while earthier flavors, minerality and spice move gracefully to the fore. They unfold in the glass at a measured pace, and can often go beyond the immediate senses to trigger emotions and evoke stories of culture, craft, and terroir.

But getting there is a challenge. Storing an ageable bottle properly for longer than a few months, not to mention decades, is a delicate task. Old vintages usually reemerge for resale only after decades in a private collection, and then often shrouded in mystery.

So even for experienced collectors, investing in big-ticket bottles is a major gamble. When it goes wrong, grand expectations easily can turn to moldy plonk, vinegar, or worse, in the case of counterfeits that have plagued the highest echelons of the wine market.

That's why provenance is key - a documented history from a trusted source of those who shepherded it through the ages. In this case, the importer, Spanish Wine Exclusives, acquired a well-preserved collection from the underground cellar of a large restaurant on the coast of Spain that had closed. The '28 Paternina was stored at the winery for 40 years before that. Through a personal connection, Billick sampled the offerings at a private tasting in New York before committing to six.

"I passed on some old vintages because I thought they were tired," she said.

Billick is the first to acknowledge that this unusual event, to be held in a clever pop-up space crafted with canvas walls and festive lighting at the back of Joe Canal's crowded warehouse, is "a lot of money" at $200 a head (with only 24 seats being sold). Then again, the evening includes pours of each wine with food pairings catered by Jose Garces, commentary from importer Justin Berlin, and then the opportunity to buy.

"Arranging an event like this for me," said Billick, "is the culmination of years of $8-an-hour jobs."

By collectible wine measures, though, with most of these bottles priced in the mid-$100s, this tasting offers a relatively accessible peek into a world that's rarely open to the public. And compared with the astronomical prices for coveted Bordeaux, Piedmont, and Napa cult wines, which often range into the thousands, these elegant old tempranillo-based reds from La Rioja in Northern Spain are among the wine world's most underrated values.

Provided, of course, that they're still good.

Out poured a liquid as dark brown as coffee. But the fresh light also revealed traces of a deep red hue, the wine still rich with pigment right up to the edge where it met the glass - a sign of its continued vitality. Within moments, a whirl of aromas wafted up from the glass like ghosts of a forgotten world. And they had so many things to say. There was sweet mint. Then moist forest floor. Then a whiff of cinnamon and sandalwood spice. Mushrooms.

"God, it smells so good!" said Garistina.

"Do you smell warm red apples?" asked Billick.

Yes, I did, but then each time I sipped the flavors changed. A tease of toast. An echo somewhere of smoke. Dried rose petals. And then, a rising ping of tart cherry rolled across my tongue.

"It's still got fruit," beamed Billick.

"Loads of it!" said Garistina.

As if waking from a nearly century-long slumber, one of the final harvests before the great stock market crash of 1929 was most definitely alive and glowing on our lips. Amelia Earhart became the first women to fly across the Atlantic that year. Ty Cobb was still stealing bases. Calvin Coolidge was president. This was a taste of Spain in the years before a journalist named Ernest Hemingway arrived and wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls.

As we uncorked more bottles closer to our own eras the time capsule's images became more personal.

"I was 1 year old when this was made," mused Garistina, now 51, swirling a 1964 Faustino I Gran Reserva Red ($169.99) in his glass, inhaling a beefy, bloody perfume mingled with marigolds and cocoa. "It's like being shot into a cloud."

The tart red plum, mocha, leather, and sherry notes of the 1970 Franco-Españolas "Royal Tête de Cuvée" Gran Reserva ($139.99) whisked Billick back to her recent trip to Spain, where she took a fistful of vineyard soil and inhaled: "This just smells like Rioja earth."

At that moment, with Boz Scaggs on Joe Canal's speakers suddenly breaking the Rioja mood with "Lowdown," store owner Scott West wandered in to say hello. He paused for a sip, and, noting the wine's age, suddenly had a flashback to the mid-1980s, when he was an employee at this very address when it was a Bradlee's.

"You're sitting in the old shoe department right now," he said. "I met my wife here in 1986."

It seemed like a perfect moment to ask West whether he was as concerned as Billick about this unlikely store's investment in Saturday's big tasting: "Worried?" he said, still fresh from visions of meeting the future Mrs. West. "Not at all." (Billick exhaled.) "These guys know what they're doing."

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@CraigLaBan

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