DENNIS ODA / STAR-BULLETIN
These rare bottles of La Tache Burgundy are from the years 1959, '62,
'71, '78, '85, '88, '89 and '90. Some of the bottles are no longer full,
having lost volume over the years to evaporation. The eight are
worth more than $12,000 and have been donated
by Gene and Cecilia Doo.

Red red wine

A benefit event next week offers very,
very dedicated wine lovers a chance to
taste some of the most luscious --
and rarest -- Burgundies
on the planet

---

By Betty Shimabukuro
Star-Bulletin

The bottle is dusty, the label is frayed, the liquid level is two inches shy of full. Yet sitting there, in all its 41-year-old humility, is $3,000 worth of the rarest red wine.

In 11 days the cork comes out of the bottle, and 30 or so very lucky people will sniff, swirl and sip tiny amounts of this 1959 La Tache Burgundy -- La Tache being among the ultimate vineyards of Burgundy, France.

It'll be like mainlining pure gold.

The La Tache tasting is the crowning event in the two-day "Joy of Food and Wine" benefit for the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific. The cost for this seminar alone will be $350, with attendance limited to 32. These rare reds can only be stretched so far.

JOY OF FOOD AND WINE A two-part benefit event for the Rehabilitation Center of the Pacific. Call 544-3385 for reservations. The Ultimate French Experience >> Dinner event: Featuring foods of Southern France, prepared by Yves Garnier of La Mer, served with wines of the region >> Time to dine: 6:30 p.m. April 20 >> Place: Halekulani Ballroom >> Cost: $250 Grand Varietal Wine Tasting >> Featuring: Open tasting of more than 200 wines, plus silent auction and wine seminars. French foods prepared by chef Daniel Delbrel of the Sheraton-Waikiki will be served. >> When: 1 to 5 p.m. April 22 >> Place: Sheraton-Waikiki Hotel >> Cost: $50 in advance; $60 at the door. Seminars, such as the La Tache tasting, require additional fees.

If your wine exuberance is more limited -- say, to the whatever's-on-sale-at-Longs-this-week level -- the Rehab event still offers a great deal of exploratory possibility. The Grand Varietal Tasting will showcase 200 wines, including 50 exceptional French labels. Cost is a much more modest $50, and you can sniff, swirl, sip or guzzle as much as you can handle. At the least you'll get an idea what to look for next time at Longs.

But for sheer luxury, it's hard to get past the La Tache event and what it teaches about that unique breed of person, the wine collector.

Dr. Gene Doo and his wife, Cecilia, are donating eight bottles of La Tache, from years considered the best for this great wine in the last century. Dr. Doo has been gathering the bottles for six or seven years from various private sources -- these are not the kind of wines you buy off the shelf -- and storing them in the small wine cellar in his Round Top home. They are valued at $1,000 to $3,000 each, making his donation worth more than $12,000.

Collecting of this nature requires a great deal of discipline and willingness to risk, because wine is not great right out of the tap. Aging is the key -- decades of aging, sometimes -- and it's accomplished in a sealed bottle, so you can't see what's going on.

Through research you discern what the experts believe will be a great wine, eventually. You pony up the cash. You store the wine under premium conditions. Then you wait.

Doo recalls opening a bottle of 1978 La Tache 10 years ago, and it was too soon. "I tasted it and thought, 'Ho, man, kinda junk. Did I waste all my money?'"

But a large part of the art of collecting is experiencing a wine as it evolves, appreciating the process by which it becomes perfect. Some of the later vintages that Doo will open at his seminar will be too young. They won't taste all that superb.

Now, you of the on-sale-at-Longs mind-set are probably thinking, "Whoa, open a $1,000 bottle of wine early, on purpose, and it's not so good. Isn't that ..."

"Infanticide?" Doo suggests. He chuckles.

DENNIS ODA / STAR-BULLETIN
Cecilia and Gene Doo have stored these rare La Tache Burgundies
in their home wine cellar for years. Gene Doo says he enjoys studying
wine because it "stimulates thinking as well as enjoyment."

Wine collecting at this level is not for the faint of pocketbook. To be true to the art is to be willing to break into your investment prior to prime time. "You're following the evolution," Doo says.

When everything coalesces, when time and conditions are perfect, the reward is beyond definition, he adds. "Burgundies, when they hit, it's a rare emotional moment. ... It's a wonderful love affair. It's very emotional. It hits you in the heart."

Danny Matsushita of Fujioka's Wine & Spirits, a sponsor of the Rehab event, describes La Tache wines as the benchmark for Burgundies -- the finest wines produced by Domaine Romanee-Conti, among the most revered winemaking estates in Burgundy. "Even in off years, these wines are just superb."

The grapes are grown on 3.5 acres of land, enough to produce just a small amount of wine each year. The low yield adds to their rarity and value.

"They taste, generally, as smooth as pillows of clouds," Matsushita says. "The concentration of flavor is so great. It's hard to believe something of such age can be so smooth."

The April 22 tasting seminar is a once-in-a-lifetime event to taste some of the world's finest wines, he says. In fact, with wines of this caliber, the issue of what food matches best is not an issue. "If I were to serve something, it would be pride."

Doo is drumming up support for the La Tache seminar among his wine-collecting brethren. "It gets my wino friends to give to Rehab -- they want to taste the wine, they gotta donate to Rehab." Not only that, they have to donate two bottles from their own collections to the cause.

"What hurts them most is that they have to give up some of their prize babies to the auction," Doo says. But that, too, is part of collecting, from his point of view.

"A lot of people collect and just look at their bottles. We collect and we drink and we share."

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