“I felt humiliated but partly victorious in that I’d kept the wine aloft in my left hand,” writes wine columnist RICHARD CALVER, after surviving a fall in a Sydney wine shop.

My son and I are visiting a Sydney wine shop in Darlinghurst during the first days of 2025. 

The store is close to where we are staying for a few days to see the fireworks and to go to a play at the Opera House as well as to do an urban bushwalk in Sydney Harbour National Park. 

At the front of the store is a box that contains end-of-stock wines that are reduced by 15 per cent. I spot a 2018 Charles Melton Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon and I see that it is reduced to $60 and I pluck it out of the box. 

I said to my son: “I’ve had this wine before. It’s from a very good year in the Barossa, weather wise it was perfect. It’s not a knock-your-head-off wine, mid-weight, with a clean acidity on the finish with just enough tannin in the mix that it will get better over time. 

“Part of the expense of these wines is that they are kept on oak for a couple of years and that adds flavour and complexity. I’m going to buy this one.”

He nods, looking around the shop and I check the back of the label, which says the wine can be kept “superbly for up to a decade or more”.

The shop is small but very well stocked. We pass burgundies that are expensive and then I’m completely engrossed in looking at the Italian section, especially the expensive Barolos, when suddenly I find myself mid-air, falling down two steps that are in the centre of the shop. 

I hit the hardwood floor remembering how to fall from my martial arts days, throwing myself on my right side trying to take the fall on my arm, ensuring not to land on my back. 

I felt humiliated but partly victorious in that I’d kept the wine aloft in my left hand but I admit to saying words like when the blanket falls from the bed: “oh, sheet”. 

My son looked shocked as did the shop attendant; they say you can tell if a person is young or old when you fall over. If you are young, everyone laughs, if old they look shocked. 

Nothing broken or too painful, I felt lucky and I struggled to my feet, trying as best I could to keep my dignity as intact as the wine I’d held aloft, thinking who puts stairs in the middle of a wine shop and should I sue? 

Instead, I’m now thinking of writing a book about how to fall down stairs, it will be a step by step guide. Plus it reminded me of the time my ex-wife told me I should fall in a pit or hole sunk into the earth to reach a supply of water and die. I think she meant well.

When I returned home, I checked the Halliday Wine Companion (I’ve still not updated my purchase from the 2020 guide!) and confirmed that Charles Melton was a five-star rated winery. I also checked the internet for pricing: it annoyed me that if I’d bought a dozen of this wine from an online store I’d have been able to purchase it for $55.50 a bottle. I have now put the wine into storage, making a note on my spreadsheet that I’d fallen hard for this wine and I’d better wait for an occasion where it was sufficiently worthwhile to resurrect the painful memory, perhaps to celebrate a successful root canal?

“Alcoholics don’t run in my family, but sometimes they fall down stairs.” –Anon