Wines, steins and footprints in time

RATHDRUM - In a chilly, temperature-controlled room in Bob and Kathi David's home in Rathdrum are enough vintage ports and varietal wines to make any collector salivate.

The oldest in the collection are the three bottles of 1918 Lustau Almacenista fine sherry, followed by the 1937 Guedes Vintage Port. And there's plenty more where they came from - about 2,500 bottles are neatly labeled and stacked in wooden racks, beckoning those with adventurous tastebuds to try a sip of the rare and aged liquids bound within the glass.

"Most of these are vintages that can no longer be found, at all," Bob said.

Bob, 72, and his wife of 46 years, Kathi, 72, discovered vintage port wines at a wine tasting when they lived in Los Angeles.

"It was an evolution," Bob said. "My first wine tasting challenged my palate because of its complexity, and I said, 'You know what, there's more to this, this is not just swill, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on on my palate,' and all of a sudden it was just kind of a passion to want to learn about wine. And of course the social aspects speak for themselves."

That was back in 1979, a few years before Bob retired after 20 years as a police sergeant. The vintage wines became a new chapter in his life.

"We got hooked," he said. "We bought some at that tasting and the rest, as they say, is history."

Bob's expansive wine collection includes some of the finest top-tier wine available from many different years and all over the globe. He explained that port wines are the most potent, averaging 18-20 percent alcohol, and are usually served after a meal either with or in place of dessert because of their sweetness. He has extensive knowledge about the history, tradition and formal etiquette surrounding vintage port wines, and said vintage ports can be extremely rare because they aren't made every year.

"A lot of years can go by with no vintage declared," he said.

Some of the obscure ports and varietals (wines distinguished by the grape used to make them) in Bob's cellar are so sought after that a local fine-dining restaurant has even reached out to have a few of his bottles on its shelves.

"Beverly's has bought vintage port from me before," he said, adding that the restaurant's former wine director was once quite pleased after handing him a list of requested vintages.

"I had every one of them," Bob said. "He was all excited. He said, 'Oh man, this is trippy and it's local.'"

Vintage ports are Bob's passion and Kathi serves as the president of the North Idaho Enological Society. They have wine-tasting events in their home and share bottles of their $60,000 collection with friends and other wine enthusiasts.

"These aren't just to look at," Bob said. "We enjoy them very much ... I just wish I'd be able to drink it all in my lifetime. I know I won't. There's no way."

But the wine isn't the only collection that wows guests in the David home.

Just down the hall from the wine cellar are several displays of Native American arrowheads hanging on the walls, leading into another room lined with countless shelves of Anheuser-Busch steins, pieces from a nationally known collection that the company began producing in the late 1800s. Bob's stein collection, worth up to $100,000, boasts more than 600 steins.

"Busch is even aware of the collection and has featured me and the collection in their newsletter in the past," he said.

This collection began with a gift in 1984.

"I bought him one Anheuser-Busch collector stein just as an anniversary present. I should have never done it," Kathi said with a laugh. "I created a monster. It was a single one, and then there was Christmas, and then there was the next anniversary, then there was a birthday, and then it took off, it just went nuts."

Bob's collection mostly comprises steins from the 1970s, '80s and later.

"But that's not to say there's not any value," he said. "A stein's value is not only the quality of the stein but the edition quantity. How many did they make that are out there?"

One particular Christmas stein with Santa Claus on it is one of only eight ever made.

"Even the employee's association store in St. Louis called me, could not believe I actually had one, couldn't figure out how I'd gotten my hands on it," he said. "Somebody didn't know what they had and put it on eBay."

The pieces range from state steins to Budweiser girls to rare Mardi Gras editions.

"I'm finally pleased that we have a place where we can display them all and he can enjoy them and everybody else can enjoy them," Kathi said. "When people come here, they're just in awe, they just spend so much time walking around and seeing what's here."

And the amazement continues.

Kathi is an experienced quilter and her work can be found throughout their home. Bob's curious nature and love of history have drawn him to fossils and natural history, and his fossil collection goes back millions of years. Trilobites, nautiluses and mammoth teeth are on display next to a hadrosaurus egg and teeth from the giant shark megalodon, and fossilized raptor prints are dwarfed by the footprint of the Tyrannosaurus rex. Each piece generates awe and wonder, and Bob can tell you all about them.

"If he had never been a police officer, he wanted to be either an archaeologist or a paleontologist because he just loves ancient studies and history," Kathi said.

"I love the study of history," Bob said. "Historical fact prevails over everything."