The mission of River Hills Ski Club in Killington, Vt., “is to make skiing affordable for families.” It is almost 100 years old. And, for the past decade, the most popular event at its lodge has occurred on the last Saturday of February, when 40 members bring a wine with special meaning, pour it for everyone and tell the story behind it. 

It’s Open That Bottle Night!

“Open That Bottle Night is so special because everyone at the club looks forward to it each year,” said Sharon Lehr, who brought the idea to the lodge as a member of the events committee 11 years ago. “It is a chance to build on our camaraderie as well as learn more about each other through the stories we tell. And, of course, it is a chance to learn about wine we may never have had before.”

We created OTBN in 1999 very much for those reasons and, through the years, it has become an international celebration. So many of us have that one bottle, or more, that is always too special to open, so on this one night — Feb. 28 this year — we all grit our teeth, pop the cork together and let the memories out.

In the U.K., comedian Alan Carr, the winner of the first season of Celebrity Traitors, will be celebrating, he told wine writer Libby Brodie. “Life’s too short,” he told her, so he has marked the calendar for what he calls “International Open That Bottle Night,” a nod to its global reach. Brodie, responding to an email from us, said she will celebrate, too. “I am indeed celebrating it — a wine friend of mine is holding an Open That Bottle Night party for friends in wine! Everyone is bringing a special bottle to share. I’m even travelling out of London for it!” she told us.

As far as we can tell, what could be the biggest OTBN event in the world takes place every year at BottlesUp!, a community-minded store in Chicago. Owner Melissa Zeman began the tradition in 2020, soon after she opened the store. She wrote:

I immediately flagged February 29, 2020, and told every Chicago industry person I knew to show up that night with something they’ve been wanting to open for a while. I also decided that each year BottlesUp would buy one large format bottle to share. This year’s bottle: a 6L of Famille Moussé Les Vignes de Mon Village Champagne! 

That inaugural OTBN was a WILD time. We welcomed around 20 of my customers, but mainly it was an unofficial city-wide BYOB industry event (and remains so to this day): Wine Distribution/Sales, Sommeliers, Importers, Beverage Directors, Servers, Chefs, Restaurant Owners — truly anyone who touches the wine industry somehow (whether I know them personally or not!). It also turned out to be a fitting beginning to our YOLO-and-gather-in-merriment tradition, because a few weeks later the world completely shut down. For OTBN in 2021 it still wasn’t the safest to gather, so I created “OTBN TO GO” and poured a 3L of Bruna Grimaldi “Camilla” Barolo into small vials and sold it to customers to enjoy at home. But in 2022 we were back at it, full YOLO strength. 

The beauty of this night is one part the bottles we open, but more parts the camaraderie between friends and strangers and the real life that is palpitating in the room. 

The ski club members are also determined to enjoy OTBN every year, said Lehr, an account executive at a large commercial insurance carrier in New York City. During Covid, they did it by Zoom. Another year, a beloved long-time celebrant died before the event so they dedicated the night to him. The lodge’s simple invitation is a model for an OTBN get-together: “Open that Bottle Night is back by popular demand! This weekend — the last weekend in February — we will hold the festivities starting at six and continuing through dinner into the evening until all bottles are tasted. Like last year, if you wish to participate, please bring a bottle of red or white (or bubbly if you so desire) with a story. It does not have to be expensive.  

“Open that Bottle will be celebrated around the world.”  

The celebrants — it’s a sellout and there’s a waiting list — bring their bottles early to Lehr, who puts nametags on each and arranges them from bubbly to lighter to heavier. They open each bottle and the person who brought it explains briefly why it’s special to them. Over the years, there was a bottle from a winery where a couple were engaged, one from a sister’s wedding in France and one from a special cellar left by a friend. The lodge has three levels, including bedrooms that sleep 40, so celebrants do not drive home after the event.

With the world so troubled now, this might seem an awkward time to be opening a special bottle of wine. We asked OTBN celebrators Sue and Mike Veseth of Tacoma, Wash., who write The Wine Economist newsletter, about the timeliness of this year’s OTBN and here is what they wrote back:

“We probably started planning OTBN 2026 shortly after OTBN 2025. A new addition to our group in 2025 is reported to have asked his wife on their way home, ‘What should we bring next year?’

“This will be our 17th OTBN. We have a core group of six people, with others off and on over the years. Our OTBN isn’t just about the wine — its heart is the people and the stories they tell about the wine. Yes, these are indeed difficult times. It seems the things that divide us as a country and a world are even deeper than before. This makes Open That Bottle Night even more important. Wine’s super power is that it brings us together and coming together over a glass of wine is sometimes the first step to bigger things. Of course we are celebrating OTBN. Now more than ever.”

OTBN is often celebrated at wineries. The Northwest is a hotspot, but as the American wine scene has spread out, so have the OTBN celebrations. Black Ankle Vineyards in Mount Airy, Md., will once again mark OTBN. “On Saturday night, we’ll host a reception at the vineyard for all of our wine club members. We’ll be opening a few older bottles from our personal collections, along with some true treasures from Black Ankle’s cellar. I can’t wait to see what bottles people will bring,” said Emma Pope, the communications manager. “For members who aren’t able to join us in person, we’ll also be hosting a virtual Zoom gathering so everyone can be part of the evening. We’ll share what we’re opening, why we chose those bottles, and invite guests, near and far, to join the conversation.”

She added: “Your idea continues to inspire connection, memory, and joy here.”

We occasionally get somewhat grumpy notes from people who tell us they don’t like the idea because every day should be OTBN. We agree that special bottles should be opened as often as possible because no one is guaranteed tomorrow. But we also understand that some bottles nevertheless seem too precious to open, so they wait for a special occasion — and wait and wait and wait. Now is the time to set those memories free and imbed them in others by sharing them.

OTBN is not about the greatest or most expensive wines you own. The best wine might be a bottle of Mateus you pick up on the way home because it reminds you of when you met (André Cold Duck in our case). At the same time, this is a good excuse to finally open that First Growth that is always going to be better next year.

And OTBN doesn’t need to be celebrated with groups. We have so many bottles that are special to us and we enjoy opening those alone because we barely even have to talk about them — we can hear each other’s shared memories.

So what will we open this year? We’re never sure until the last minute. In honor of this column, we already enjoyed one oldie-but-goodie, Robert Pecota Moscato d’Andrea Napa Valley Muscat Canelli 2005, a light dessert wine from a winery that closed long ago. This was a favorite of ours for many years. We wrote about it during the first year of our “Tastings” column in The Wall Street Journal in 1998 and wrote about it again the next year when the White House served it at a state dinner for the Italian prime minister. We wrote: “This is the dessert wine for people who don’t think they like dessert wine. It smells like a rose and bursts in your mouth with tastes of peaches, pears and pineapples. It sounds impossible, but it’s sweet yet crisp and cleansing as you swallow.”

We loved it so much that, on our last day at The Journal, after 20 years working there, our assistant, Melanie Grayce West, gave us two bottles. One had a tag that said “For now.” The second said “For later,” with this note: “With deepest thanks for the years of teaching, editing and for your kindness.”

Come on, folks, how in the world could we ever open that second bottle? But while some dessert wines are meant to age a long time, we weren’t sure about this one, even with excellent storage conditions. And, we figured, we probably were not doing the memory of the pioneering winemaker Robert Pecota, who died in 2020, any favors by continuing to age it. So we grabbed the bottle and opened it — and it was even better than we remembered. It had heady, sensuous tastes of baked apples, apricots, roasted pineapples and honey. It seemed weightless yet mouth-filling, like a cloud of nectar, and even a very small taste lasted in our bodies for a very long time.

On OTBN itself, we’re likely to pop a bottle from a visit to a winery and relive that experience. We’ll have to go through the bottles, one by one, to make a choice. We’ll talk about where we got it, when we got it and the people we met. And our OTBN will have already begun.

Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher conceived and wrote The Wall Street Journal’s wine column, “Tastings,” from 1998 to 2010. Dorothy and John have been tasting and studying wine since 1973. In 2020, the University of California at Davis added their papers to the Warren Winiarski Wine Writers Collection in its library, which also includes the work of Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson. Dottie has had a distinguished career in journalism as a reporter, editor, columnist and editorial writer at The Miami Herald, The New York Times, and at The Journal. John was Page One Editor of The Journal, City Editor of The Miami Herald and a senior editor at Bloomberg News. They are well-known from their books and many television appearances, especially on Martha Stewart’s show, and as the creators of the annual, international “Open That Bottle Night” celebration of wine and friendship. The first bottle they shared was André Cold Duck. They have two daughters.