Aug 01 2013
22 Comments
Guest Blogging

Cowboys and Crossbones: If this Wine Glass Could Talk…

Somewhere, beyond the Sea

Somewhere, beyond the Sea

This is the eighth installment in my guest blogger series “Somewhere, Beyond the Sea”. Some of you may know the wonderful Megan, that runs the blog Cowboys and Crossbones. When I first stumbled across Megan’s blog, I almost went blind from the use of pink and all things pink. I soon discovered that Megan is a very entertaining writer, again with that mix of crazy and self-deprecating that I am realizing I really enjoy. Megan and her cat Ted embrace life and whatever it throws at them. Reading the blog will take you on a ride, and more often than not I find myself smiling or even outright laughing. You never know what to expect when you head over there, that is for sure…so go give her blog a try! Thank you, Megan!

If this Wine Glass Could Talk…

If this Glass could talk...

If this Glass could talk…

What would I do without wine?

Die.

Well, maybe I’m being a tad dramatic (although if I quit drinking, my liver would be so bored with nothing to metabolize it might just shrivel up or cease working properly out of pure shock in the absence of vino) but wine has been a constant friend through the thick and thin, the gorgeousness and nastiness of life and the daily ins and outs with my constant feline companion, Ted (yes, I’m a bona fide cray cray cat lady – and yes, sometimes my fur ball drives me to drink).

If this bedazzled, skull and crossbones wine glass could talk, it would spill all of the celebratory shenanigans and murky, depths of despair (I know, again with the drama) moments we’re shared over the years.  Whenever I’m about to leap off the proverbial ledge over a life experience, I reach for my trusty best friend (yes, I know how that sounds but let’s be honest, she’s always there for me).

If you were conversing with my BFF, she’d tell you I fill her up with an Italian sparkling wine, Mondoro Asti when celebrations are in order.  For $12, this bubbly is sweet, as it’s produced from muscat grapes but not so sweet that it will give you cavities if you drink the entire bottle in one setting (extremely easy to achieve – even if by accident).

Gossiping with my bedazzled gal pal (behind my back?!), she’d fill you in on my choice of wine as I welcome evenings of TV shows (I have an extremely eventful life). She’d tell you I gulp (she seriously couldn’t have said drink?) out of my old stand-by with Bota Box Pinot Grigio (fancy, I know). For all of you vino connoisseurs out there, how can you top three liters (which is approximately 17 glasses of wine – well for me, more like 10, but still) of smooth, refreshing California wine for $20?  And yes, I realize the implications of one’s character by consuming wine from a box and well I can’t help it, I’m one classy piece of work.

Chit chatting on the patio during summer nights, my sparkly glass would implicate my love of Relax Riesling, as I almost accidentally drown her (now who’s being dramatic?) with the speed of my refills.  I didn’t sprint to this German wine after reading reviews, I first purchased it for its name – Relax.  After consuming a bottle (wishing I had two) of this sweet, slightly dry Riesling the first time tasting it, I knew it was love at first sip for this $11 wine.

And when life suddenly pulls the rug out from under me and I am wallowing in self-pity (which I can be really excellent at performing), my constant companion would tell you that I reach for the red (which is why I can’t include a picture of myself at the moment because my teeth are stained burgundy). Recently finding out I had to unexpectedly move out of my beloved duplex in a matter of weeks, I splurged on a $20 bottle of Meomi Pinot Noir.  From California, this smooth, fruity pinot is a fabulous bang for the buck and for the past 12 days, this wine has spilled into my glass as easily as coffee pours into a mug, aiding my mind from creeping over to insanity.

And as I have my kit cat tucked under one arm and my gaudy glass under the other, we’re forging into our new chapter with gusto and the comfort of knowing that at the end of the day, we all have each other (Are you there God? It’s me, CBXB. Please don’t let anything shatter my bestie during the rest of my move – that would seriously put me on the brink of possible lunacy).

While settling into this newfound change, what wine will I be swallowing out of my trusty companion as we unpack my life’s mementos and belongings?

I suppose it doesn’t matter just as long as we’re together.

Cheers!

CBXB

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Jul 30 2013
25 Comments
I have no clue how to categorize this

Wine trouble – my first of many. A Monthly Wine Challenge Post.

This is my attempt at meeting the Monthly Wine Challenge #2. In June, The Drunken Cyclist started a contest challenging other bloggers to write about a topic connected to wine, his was “transportation”. I wrote about the monorack trains in the Mosel vineyards back then. The Armchair Sommelier’s entry was rightly voted the most entertaining post, so Kirsten got to decide on a new topic. She chose, quite ominously, “trouble” (please find the original post if hers here: http://armchairsommelier.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/monthly-wine-writing-challenge-2/ .

Also, this post was typed on a tablet somewhere in Cambodia with shaky internet connection. Please forgive typos, it’s a bitch to publish anything from a tablet…

If you’ve bothered reading my About page, you might have seen my casual mention that I had my first conscious sip of wine when I was around 8. What I didn’t mention there: it got me in trouble…the story is as close or as far from the truth as any story that has been retold many, many times, so take it with a grain of salt. I don’t remember too much actively.

Imagine growing up in a village that has around 20 wineries, part timers and full timers, surrounded by vineyards, cuddling up to the Rhine. My grandma went grape harvesting as long as her rheumatic bones permitted, and longer. For me and my brother, she would always bring grapes to eat and I ate so many that I usually got diarrhea, but they were so good…

Imagine the smell of crushed grapes, wet fall air, and the early smells of fermentation hovering over this village, every September/October. Imagine a boy, scared of forests, but very comfortable in the rows and rows of vines, orderly planted. That boy imagined these rows were his legions, as the zipped past the window of his dad’s car on the way to the city.

The highlight, at least for the adults, was, and still is, the annual wine festival, or “Weinfest” in German. It is held every last July weekend. It is a chance for winemakers to sell their wines, emptying their cellars for the next harvest to come. They set up booths or open their big, heavy estate gates and put up wooden benches and sell wine, steaks and regional favorites such as rolls with raw sausage meat on it, dipped in fresh onions. Divine.

It wasn’t just for adults, we kids were always allowed to go and stay up late. Watching the fire works on Friday night, using pocket money for sweets and treats, chasing other kids, riding the merry go round. There was always plenty of action. We were mostly let loose, just had to check in with our parents once in a while, who, as the evening progressed, became happier and happier…

But now to my trouble: My dad had a ritual. Every evening of the wine festival, as he prepared to go home, he would stop at my mom’s cousin’s winery, possibly to eat one last of those raw sausage rolls (without the onions for him) but definitely to have his final drink of the night. It was usually an Auslese or Beerenauslese, sometimes a glass of ice wine or even Trockenbeerenauslese. All of these wines are sweet wines, and a TBA or Eiswein would command a price of up to 5 Deutsche Mark per glass (an astonishing $3, which was a lot when you consider that whole bottles of Spaetlese or Kabinett usually sold for less). But it was my dad’s ritual.

I had been told to meet him at the winery and as I ran up to him, he had just received the glass. He tried a tiny bit, smiled, and then handed the glass to me. He said: “Try it, it tastes like grape juice.”

The wines I had had before that failed toimpress me. They were weird, alcoholic. Just strange. But I did like grape juice, especially fresh from the wineries. So I tried a tiny bit. And oh my gosh was this good: like grape juice and honey. I didn’t think, and I downed the whole glass…only to see my dad’s face change. He was shocked, and became mad. It was an expensive glass, and I had just downed it. He was not going to buy another one. As he started scolding me, and I realized I was in trouble, things got very blurry and next thing I knew, I woke up in bed the next morning. Feeling a bit weird. I remembered the trouble I was in, but upon seeing my dad, he just smiled and my story was told to his friends that night. It caused laughter…

For me, this trouble has lead, eventually, to a blessing, my love and appreciation for wine. I have had it easy, growing up in these surroundings, to fall in love with wine and its culture. It got me into trouble many more times, but those are different stories…

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Jul 28 2013
23 Comments
Guest Blogging

Erica Vitkin: Is Ignorance Bliss?

Somewhere, beyond the Sea

Somewhere, beyond the Sea

This is the seventh installment in my guest blogger series “Somewhere, Beyond the Sea”. For this post, I asked the lovely and talented (gave that right back!) Erica Vitkin to contribute something. I had to make a trade with her (yes, she is that kind of a person), so the bread rant I wrote in June was directly attributable to her. Erica’s blog, Now Entering Flavor Country, is an awesome resource for interesting recipes, often with a twist (she published a recipe for zucchini jam the other day!), and general tomfoolery. I love her writing style, which is easy to read, entertaining and doesn’t shy away from making fun of herself. But most of all, I am super glad that I have had the chance to meet Erica and spend time with her in person. She is as awesome as her blog. Thank you, Erica!

Is Ignorance Bliss?

I have a high opinion of myself when it comes to the indulgent arts of food and beer. I have a lot of knowledge, and I have a lot of enjoyment. However, does this knowledge hinder me from other enjoyments? Let me back up…

I was talking with a friend and fellow blogger, Lindsay from The Daily Sampler, and the topic of Sommeliers came up. Obviously if you’ve achieved the title of Sommelier you have spent lots of time (years!) studying and learning about the intricacies, subtleties, ins and outs, and culture of wine. She said “I wonder if all that knowledge would make you enjoy wine less” and that statement has been haunting me ever since. Even the other night, my boyfriend and I were sharing a bottle of red wine, and upon my first few sips I affirmed my enjoyment of our selection. He just replied “yeah, I like this too, but I don’t know if this is ‘good’ wine”, which of course just took me right back to Lindsay’s comment.

I began my study of the alcoholic arts as a wine gal. The more I learned about the fermented grape juice, the more excited I got. Oak aged? Buttery notes emerge. Hard frost? Wonderful ice wines. Swirl the glass? Awake the esters and take in the aromatics! Even the pageantry of wine service at a restaurant: I. Loved. It. All.

A similar thing happened to me a few years ago with beer, and now I (unfortunately) cannot deny I am a total beer snob. Just the other day I bailed on friends I had plans with because the bar they were at had a crappy tap line up and I didn’t want to drink swill (ughhh do you hate me yet? That statement just made me hate myself).

So what does all this mean?

Many people take on knowledge of food, beer, wine, whiskey, cheese, or any other foodie-esque topic much like a hobby, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, does this wealth of knowledge tip the scales too far to allow oneself to just “let go” and enjoy what’s in front of you.

Years ago there was a delightful show called Penn & Teller: Bullshit where they would devote an entire episode looking into modern-day “bullshit topics” such as lie detectors, circumcision or astrology. One of my all-time favorite episodes featured organic food. There is a segment where they do a blind taste test at a Farmer’s Market to see if people could taste the difference between organic and non-organic produce. Check out the clip here and fast forward to 11:20 (or feel free to watch the whole thing, it’s super entertaining).

Notice how disgusted the guinea pigs are when they find out they chose the non-organic tomato as the tastier option. Why, their palates have been trained and tweaked to the utmost superiority to know the difference between a pure virgin tomato and a filthy pesticide-pumped harlot (sidenote: I always thought it was spelled “harlett”…who knew).

If we all think back to the first time we tried beer or wine or coffee or even cigarettes (c’mon, it’s a college right of passage), they were T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E. So total ignorance isn’t the answer.

What I love about all this food/drink culture is the knowledge, the history, the traditions, and the science behind it. All those little tricks to keep your produce lasting longer (always take your tomatoes out of plastic bags immediately!) I truly enjoy learning about. However, I can’t help but cringe when I’m eating a sandwich topped with sliced tomatoes purchased at Kroger in August, when I know a much MUCH superior product was waiting for me in the aisles of the Farmer’s Market. The truth? They might taste just the same—the Kroger tomato may even be better—but I’ve been trained in such a way that I’ll always have those thoughts.

I know that you should never drink beer from a “chilled” glass because micro ice crystals form on the sides, and they create extra friction when the beer is poured, yielding a too-frothy head. It also chills the brew down so much that you can’t really taste anything (but I suppose if you’re drinking Labatt or Coors there’s not much to taste to begin with, ba-zing). When I see a bartender grabbing a glass out of a freezer, I practically jump over the bar to say “no please! Just a normal glass or the bottle will do!” I then proceed to judge the establishment for the remainder of my stay, and everyone around me who is sipping their sub-zero sauce. Damn you brain, why must you ruin another evening out!

So what is the answer? Does a magical equilibrium of just enough knowledge actually exist to allow for the utmost enjoyment of your culinary/boozy bounty? Maybe it’s rooted in the person, and not the knowledge. Perhaps if I didn’t start off as such a blowhard I wouldn’t be as inclined to judge the lesser products so harshly.

But then again, we’re all hypocrites, aren’t we? If I could afford to shop at the Farmer’s Market for everything I would, but I’m at least 1 more educational degree away from that reality. No matter what, I love a glass of Ben Marco Malbec or a pint of Brewery Vivant Zaison, but nothing beats an ice-cold can of Bud Light Lime when you’re drinkin’ outside…

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