THIS IS MY YEAR OF LIVING TO THE FULLEST. I DECIDED IN THE BEGINNING OF 2014 TO NOT DEPRIVE MYSELF OF ANYTHING. Torchons of foie gras as a snack; go for it. Precision headphones from Germany; sure. A dream spin around the track in a Ferrari; done.

But when it came to wines I had salivated over for years, I was stuck. What can I do? Or better yet, how do I limit myself? I can’t throw away the bank on just wine. Well, maybe I could but I shouldn’t. So I decided to whittle it down to a couple of wines and throw a soirée for my friends, where we’d taste the wines blind. Trust me, it wasn’t the easiest of decisions to make. Should I focus on New or Old World. My palate is decidedly New World, but I love those chunky, tannic traditional wines. So I created a short list of about 50 wines. I guess that could be considered the long list.

I then created a short-short list. Now I was down to 10. From that, I hemmed and hawed. I had to make a choice. So this is what I ended up with: The Ornellaia 2009, Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe 2010, Le Cigare Volant 2008 and the Penfolds RWT 2009. To round it all out, I decided to go back to the wine that started me off on my oenological adventure all those years ago; the Manischewitz, circa 2014. Hey, we all have to start somewhere.

Let me know about the bottles you covet the most by commenting below.