Archives for September, 2006
Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
I’m grateful we haven’t run into any gypsies or thieves but tramps are us…
It’s 1:30 am and Signora and I are sleeping on the birdshit-stained sidewalk outside of Galleria Delle Carrozze, which I believe is what the square in front of Milano’s Central Train station is called but I could be wrong because I got that information from an old geezer taxicabist who didn’t speak English and I wouldn’t be the fool that I am if I spoke Italian. I guess I’m not sleeping any more but I think I managed to catch a few winks (why isn’t that breaths? — my eyes remained closed but my lungs were presumably expanding and contracting because I didn’t suffocate in my sleep) and I’m rocking my head up and ddown listening to The Mars Volta. I was pretty miserable a couple hours ago and I guess I’ll give you the short version.
We took a train to Milano from Paris but it arrived too late to catch the last train to our final destination of Montorosso. Because we’re not really gadget junkies (discounting a MacBook, iPod with portable speakers, digital wine temperature gauge, digital camera and electric razor) neither of our cell phones were capable of being activated for international use so we’ve been stuck using pre-paid calling cards to talk to our new French travel agent (the aforementioned Martini) who’s done an amazing job of looking into hotels, train connections and rental cars but we still somehow ended up stranded. The station is surrounded by four and five star hotels and we were fully prepared to fork over oodles of Euros for a night’s rest but everything was full. We even found a one star joint at the end of a dark and unmarked alley that was booked.
Drank a cheap chianti with a simple dinner of salad, spaghetti, pizza and roast turkey. Everything was appropriately subpar for the Nobuddy Pass sidewalk tramps.
Trying to get there
A Delta Airlines Buddy Pass ought more properly be called a Nobuddy Pass. When we were checking in the woman behind the counter asked what priority I was flying. The flash of a puzzled look on my face and then the reply, “Why, the utmost priority, I would hope,” got me what I thought was a soft rebuke of, “I guess that would be the slowest,” which would have been witty enough for me to give her back a chuckled, “Touché,” but, after I thought about it I realized she actually said, “lowest.” I might now end the paragraph with the one word sentence: Ouch. but I’m not easily bothered by what other people think of me so instead I’ll end it with: Bitch.
The Nobuddy Pass is also known as a “non-revenue” stand-by ticket and so we knew we wouldn’t get a seat if the plane was full but we had been assured just the night before that there were more than 30 open seats and only 12 people on stand-by. Just our luck then that another flight to Italy had been grounded after a suicide bird bomber took out one of it’s engines by flying head on into it. Our choices were: go home and try again tomorrow; go to Madrid from which we would be on our own for continuing on to Milan; go to Paris from which we would be on our own for continuing on to Milan. We chose Paris because it was about a hundred miles closer to our final destination but also because John Martini and Carol Munder live just a couple hours from there and if we ran into further obstacles we could consider a detour in their direction.
On the up side, we got three middle seats together giving us a little more elbow and leg room, of which I need considerably more than the Piccolo Signora Dink (or should that be Petite Madame Dink, what with the divertissment and all?).
Wine? Oh yeah. I gladly paid $5 for a .1875 liter bottle of Sangre de Torro and she braved the Fish Eye Shiraz. I was happy with my choice, having enjoyed the Blood of the Bull previously and hers actually wasn’t undrinkable*. They gave us each a second for free with dinner and with that we washed down a sleeping pill. La Petite Madame Dink slept on the floor for 5 hours practically not even having to curl up too much and I managed to get in a sideways four or so making the flight no less painful than a mere hop out to Sonoma.
*You don’t get tasting notes — if you’ve been paying attention you wouldn’t be expecting any — but you also don’t get impressions or anything else about these two wines because the trip thus far really has been all about the travel and I barely noticed either of them.
Greetings from Cinque Terre
Internet access here is not easy so I’m probably going to wait until I’m home to post all my travel notes. A couple entries will follow this one but I’m not sure what kind of access I’ll have after tonight.
Photos will also come later.
Thorn-Clarke Shotfire Ridge Cuvee 2004 (B-)
A most excellent blend of 54% shiraz, 30% petit verdot and 16% cabernet sauvignon. Dark inky purple color, mellow nose, soft tannins, more acidic than I was expecting, medium body, mild fruit, decent spice, a very nice wine but too young to have a serious discussion with. I’d like to meet her again in a few years. $14 at Your Dekalb Farmers Market.
El Bloggo Torcido - Twisted Oak Winery: A Standing Offer for Wine Samples for Review
El Bloggo Torcido - Twisted Oak Winery: A Standing Offer for Wine Samples for Review
Goddamn Shitass Motherfucking Distributor Lobbyist Cracker Bullshit!
For the third time I am uneligible to get a free bottle of wine shipped to me for review because I happen to live in Georgia. It’s a damn shame because Twisted Oak seems like my kind of winery.
Free the Fucking Grapes Already!
Liguria, Here I Come
Going to Liguria next week. I will be specifically looking for vermentino, pigato and rossese but will try whatever is convenient. Suggestions for wineries to visit or wines to seek out are encouraged. I will bring the laptop and blog some. I think we’ll be staying in or near Cinque Terre but I leave the booking details to Mrs. Dink. We leave on the 21st.
Preston Vin Gris 2005 (A)
I generally think of rose as a slight, enjoyable and inexpensive summer treat but this one is so rich and creamy I think it’s worth every penny of it’s $17 asking price and I could drink it all year long. It’s extremely pale and looks like someone put a drop or two of red into a very thin white wine. I was taken aback by an unexpected powerful flavor and texture. Here’s what Preston has to say about it:
Vin Gris is our Rhone-style rose made from fully ripened Cinsault and Mourvedre. It takes its inspiration from the refreshing salmon-colored wines of France’s Bandol region, and is produced by the traditional bleeding off of juice from red fermenters, followed by barrel fermentation. The wine has exotic orange-cream, peach and watermelon flavors and is completely dry.
I will testify that the last sentence is accurate and I couldn’t do a better job of describing it.
Preston is an organic winery in Dry Creek Valley that specializes in Rhone style wines. I thought i had written about them before but either my search function isn’t working properly or I didn’t. This is the winery whose wine club I joined even though I didn’t like the wines I tried in their tasting room. I sought them out because I like Rhone style wines and I wanted to taste their Mourvedre, Cinsault, Carignane, Roussane, and Viognier varietals and blends. I visited in the Fall and all they had available were a couple of wines that didn’t exactly float my boat (I think I tasted four but they were forgettable). I joined the wine club because they explained that they sell most of their wines early in the year and to their wine club members — I have not been disappointed (unless you count the time I waited too long after tasting their Cinsault this Spring to try to order more only to find that they had already sold out).
Double Plus Good.
WBW 25
Champagne. Is. Ok. But. I’m. Not. Drinking. Any. Today.
La Ferme de Gicon Cotes du Rhone 2004
I bought this for two reasons…
It was $7.00.
The description on the back of the label reads,
Planted in Grenache noir and Syrah, associated with Mourvedre, Cinsault and Carignan, this vineyard produces a planted noir and Syrah, associated with Mourvedre, Cinsault and Carignan, this vineyard with spices and mature fruit aromas, with well matured tannins, supple that revealed pepper notes.
There’s sometimes an awkward poetry in bad translations. The wine is fine. Simple. Inexpensive.
(photo ripped off from WineLoversPage.com)
Three Bottles of Syrah on the Wall
No more tasting notes from me. Instead, I’ll simply offer opinions. I’m of the attitude that tasting notes are mostly a crock of shit, especially when they come from the likes of me. I’m still thinking about how I may want to rate wines but that’s mostly because I think it’s helpful to have some kind of shorthand means of keeping track of what I like or not.
Lat night I opened an Alderbrook Syrah but before I had a chance to pour, Mrs. Dink said she wanted to try the Lagier Meredith that someone gave us so I did the obvious thing and opened both. Tonight I found myself with just a half glass of each left over so I did the next obvious thing which was to open a new bottle, a Cycles Gladiator, and have a little comparison tasting. Herewith, impressions of my three syrahs…
Cycles Gladiator, Central Coast, 2004 - A bit of a fruit bomb. Dark, rich, juicy, sweet, jammy, cherry, with a little tobacco. Simply delicious and deliciously simple. The alcohol is an easy 13.5%. About $10.
Alderbrook, Dry Creek Valley, 2003 - All of the above but a little more sophisticated, by which I mean less fruit bomby and more complex. Still rich but more well rounded with earthy, musty and/or mushroom flavors. It has some of the spiciness I like in a hearty red but that was missing in the Cycles Gladiator. 14.5% alcohol but very well balanced with the other elements — it doesn’t seem any higher than the CG. $26.
Lagier Meredith, Mounty Veeder, Napa Valley, 2003 - Even less fruity than the others. Earthy like the Alderbrook but a little smoother. The most balanced of the three. Almost exactly equal parts of fruit, earth and spice. It tastes blacker than the others, whatever the hell that means. It was a gift so it would be rude of me to look up the price but I did and it runs in the high 40’s to 50 bucks.
I’m amazed at how similar they tasted and how equally I enjoyed all three of these, especially given the price differences. The differences in price are more disparate than the differences in the enjoyment of the wines. I know some people will rate a wine independently of price but I’m too much of a pinko to ignore the economic value as compared to the drinking experience and, for my tastes, these three are comparable values and equally worthy.
Wine Poseur?
jlefevere, in a post titled Wine Slang: Keep it on the D.L. at Good Grape, lists some wine related urban slang as cited at urbandictionary.com. I was going to simply link to his/her post but then I noticed this tidbit…
please note that some [most] didn’t pass the Good Grape censors
…which got me wondering if there might be some entries more suited to our tastes here on Winefoolery. To wit:
wine cock
A cock that is not stiff enough for penetrating sex. Often as a result from having been drinking too much wine.After having been fluffed for hours Rocco had to give up admitting that he suffered from wine cock that night.
Winegrad
Also referred to as Rodney Steele, this subject was a famous 80’s porn star who’s coke habit caused his demise and the loss of function in his phallus which was approximated to be 14.25 inches and now resides at an approximate size of 0.78 inches. This misfortunate event has led people to mistake his small phallus with a clitoris.That Jared was a crazy Winegrad, especially after his phallus got so small!
wine cooler
1) A unhardcore way to drink, a sugarcoated version of malt liquorYum, pass that red wine cooler
2) A sissy drink. Something sissys think is cool.
Carl the chode drinks wine coolers cuz hes a fuckin sissy.
winein
when one dances front to back (boy:back,dick;Girl:puts butt to boys front/dick)or front to front (boys dick to girls pussy)while moveing hips in a sexual mannner.When in the the club, I be winein.
wine corker
when taking a dump, one solid piece of fecal matter is shat. this is followed by butt piss.
Barring that last one, I’ll be sure try those out next time I’m at a rave but what the fuck is a chode?
Wine South Festival Atlanta
I’m not interested in the Reserve event on Friday. I can’t go on Saturday. I may go to the trade tasting on Sunday. More later.