8 March 2008 - 17:01Marietta Old Vine Red, Lot Number 45, NV

I wish I had kept a more exhaustive inventory of wines and tasting notes over the last several years because my preferences have changed drastically. I started drinking wine approximately 25 years ago with mostly decent, inexpensive French and Italian reds. I can remember returning to my first “loft” living space (a converted (by me) print shop in an abandoned commercial building in the heart of downtown Oakland, Ca — nowadays “loft” means luxury apartment or townhome, which is bullshit but whaddaya gonna do?) with a bottle of Pinot Noir and a baguette from the deli that constituted dinner. I was in my mid-20’s and felt sophisticated and urbanly hip.

Shit, shit, shit! I just realized I finished the wine before I wrote any tasting notes! Balls! Now what can I say about the wine? Oh well, and before you jump to the conclusion that I’m such a drunk I drank a whole bottle in the time it took to write one simple paragraph, let me say that I was only drinking one last glass that was left in the bottle from a few days ago.

I was very happy drinking cheap French and Italian reds for a couple years until I got a job as a waiter with a caterer that worked in Napa County. That was when I discovered California wines for real. It was long enough ago that the Cally wines weren’t the Welch’s Grape Jelly Fruit Bombs that they became in the 90’s but it was the beginning of a period where I ignored wines from anywhere East of Fresno.

OK, for the purposes of this post it’s time to cut to the chase. Short version: I started with decent Old World style wines. Moved to decent New World wines a couple years later. At the turn of the century I became enamored, like a newly pubescent pre-teen, with the bold and fruity charms of the Cally Fruit Bomb. Currently, I’m in a phase of re-discovering and appreciating European style wines of a more restrained character. I’ve been craving and enjoying subtler wines, of which this is not an example. Call it slipping or merely nostalgia for a less cultured time of my life but I sometimes still can’t stop myself from drinking something that appropriately belongs in my jelly jar wine glasses.

Marietta Old Vine Red, Lot Number 45 is a fun, sweet, simple, over-ripened but not too hot, wine that would do well being poured at a 60’s era soda fountain for kids who are just getting started with wine. I remember what that felt like and maybe it’s just the beginnings of a middle-aged yearning for lost youth but tonight, that would be me.

$14, Tower