Eccentric Flower:199901/new faces and wine

fourteen january (what, more?)

new faces and wine

I forgot to mention earlier that the other new ring addition has joined us. Well, partially joined us. She's in Australia, and communiques take a while to pass back and forth. You can get to her site, but as I write this, you can't get out again. Bwa-ha-ha. Anyway, please welcome Scoop. Please note that our Oz contingent has now doubled ....

I have added four new images to the ever-so-occasionally-expanding self-portrait gallery. If you've been there and you just want to see the new ones, allow me to assist you. There you go.

I added them because I don't want to do actual writing or anything else that's constructive at the moment. It's snowing horribly outside and has been all day, the temperature is ungodly, and my car is a snowdrift. Trapped in the house with no ambition and no chocolate chip cookies, I have instead gradually worked my way through the latter half of the Beaujolais Nouveau we had with dinner - which doesn't help my productivity a whit, let me tell you.

Actually, since I'd obviously rather type a few thousand words here than in my MS, let me say a little about wine. Which journaller was speculating about wine a bit lately? Was that you, Di? Well, at any rate, I seldom drank wine before entering this torrid relationship. Nonelvis comes from a family, though, which had wine regularly, drinking it with meals moderately often. She has not quite made me into a wine snob like herself [oh, I'll hear about that tomorrow when she reads this], but I have learned a few things.

I've learned that if I'm just drinking wine "out of hand" and not with food, I like fluffy, sweetish white wines - Riesling is a particular favorite. (Riesling also goes oddly well with sushi - I don't know why, but trust me, it does.)

I've learned how to tell a bitter, complex red wine from a fluffy, fruity red wine from the labels and types - and I've learned that all those terms that wine tasters toss around are not just pretension; sometimes there is no better way to describe certain kinds of tastes. (For example, there is no other word for "tannic." Tannic is that dry, bitterish taste lingering in the roof of your mouth after you drink a lot of tea. Some wine has it too.)

I've learned (from a great book called Fear of Wine) about how American restaurants will usually have a whole bunch of Cabernets and Chardonnays because they're the only kinds scared wine drinkers will order. Personally, since I like Merlots and Pinot Noirs and the whole list of German wines, this is OK with me - I can sometimes get a good deal on a Riesling that no one else is willing to order - but it's bad for wine-bibbing as a whole, because it becomes a cycle that limits the availability of the other stuff.

I've learned there is good Zinfandel. Real Zinfandel is a red, spicy wine that can be consumed fairly young and goes with a lot of different foods; white (pink) Zinfandel is a soda-pop abomination which gives the other a bad name.

I've learned that armed with a little knowledge, you can go to a wine store and pick up a lot of very good wine for a reasonable amount of money. It's a little like beating the system, and it has a certain thrill to it.

And that's pretty much what I know about wine. Oh, except that Beaujolais Nouveau is one of the few wines that needs to be drunk almost immediately after bottling - it doesn't keep. So excuse me while I polish off this glass.

previous
next
this month

© columbine