O Bacchus
I'm going to another wine tasting in about an hour or so. I don't know why I'm so interested in wine now. I love reading about it and trying to connect the taste of wine with the florid descriptions of it in the pages of, say, Wine Spectator magazine.
I don't love wine madly, or at least not all the time. The best bottle I ever shared was in Canada, at the home of my friend P's in-laws in Montreal -- an inky, gorgeous red from France that had been given as a gift to the father-in-law, a doctor. It was just a glorious thing, that wine.
Most wine is just fine, that's all. It's okay. I'm not crazy about it. But then you'll get that one bottle that's just heavenly and go off again to understand what makes it so.
I have a hard time considering white wines real WINE. I like them fine with a nice meal and everything, and sometimes they're downright yummy, but to me the sexiness of wine always means reds. I was so disappointed when I bought a Croatian red for Thanksgiving that, when I tasted it, was totally masculine and leathery with side notes of cigar and horse. But when I uncorked it at home it was just a good red. Some of the notes never really appeared. I don't know why.
I can't really explain why cigars and horses are a good thing to taste in your wine, you just have to trust me.
So I'm going to another tasting to learn more and to hang out with other foodies for a warm moment in the midst of this cold, cold night.
P.S. I still loathed "Sideways" and always will: http://peacebang.blogspot.com/2005/02/dumb-and-dumber-go-to-wine-country.html
posted by PeaceBang at 5:50 PM
4 Comments:
I felt quite manly after that red in question. I was ready to do manly things in manly company and use manly words. But now I'm just me again.
Cigars are like that too.
So is Croatia, judging from history.
It's not PC to admit it, but wines realy can be masculine or feminine. My wife and mother-in-law love to drink Arbor Mist. I won't go near the stuff.
The only kind of red wine I come close to enjoying is Charles Shaw's cab distributed only in Trader Joes stores. In Masachusetts, it's $2.99 a bottle ("three buck chuck", it's called).
Does that make me as less than a sophisticate?
Not at all, Paul, because as any winey person knows, it's what you like that matters, no matter what the experts say. I, for instance, am learning to prefer a $9 bottle of Prosecco to a $35 bottle of Schramsberger. Now if I can only find a white I like as much as expensive Merseualt (sp?), I'll be in business.
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