Wine of the Week
As usual, when I announce I’ve had a brilliant idea, Mr T stops what he's doing and adopts the “brace brace” position. Not the full airline ‘head between the knees’ job, but rather he becomes very still, grabs the nearest solid item, cringes ever so slightly and prepares for impact. My ideas are just that good.
So while Mr T steadies himself for my brilliance, I explain my cracking idea. We should do a regular blog post called Wine of the Week, where we give a hot tip or a suggestion for a great wine that we’ve drunk (you guessed it) that week. We’re visiting so many great wine regions on our travels that we’re bound to have one or two that we really love each week. And who doesn’t want a few recommendations of great, out of the ordinary wines to try for themselves.
Mr T loves this idea. It means he now has a reason to drink more great wine for a totally scientific/educational purpose, so everyone’s a winner. He’s so into the idea that the very next day, he opens a bottle purely for educational purposes to get some practice in. He pours us each a glass of beautiful white wine, shows me the label, explains the region, sniffs, swirls, the whole nine yards. His eyes light up and he’s grinning ear to ear.
At this point, I should pause to tell you two facts.
Fact 1: Mr T is a wine lover. He loves every single thing about wine. He’s happiest talking about wine, learning about it in classes, reading about it on the internet, meeting winemakers and sommeliers, making it as a harvest intern. And he’s good at it too. He has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of different wines, makers, regions and so on. He LOVES wine.
Fact 2: I know nothing about wine. I’ve perfected the art of drinking it (some may say rather too well) and I enjoy it a great deal, but I have no knowledge and no skills. None at all.
Anyway, back to our tasting.
Mr T: “Wow. Smell this and tell me what you get. It’s so distinct, it’s incredible. It’s so clear, it hits you right away. Right off the bat, what do you get?”
He’s giddy with excitement. I take a big sniff.
Me: “Cheese farts.”
Mr T: “Wait, what? Really?
Me: “Yep. Cheese farts. Not super strong but it’s definitely a fair whiff of it."
Stunned silence. Not always good.
Me: "You know, if we feed Shadow too much of the cheddar…”
Mr T: “Yep, no, I got it.”
I sense he’s a little crestfallen.
Me: “What did you get then?”
Mr T: “Roasted marshmallows, like s'mores. Or like Thanksgiving or…”
Me: “Oh man, that’s way better than cheese farts!”
I take another sniff and he watches in the vague hope that maybe I might get something other than cheese farts. Nope, cheese farts it is. In an effort to redeem myself, I taste the wine and it truly is delicious.
Me: “It’s AMAZING! Totally wine of the week material. This would for sure make it as a top contender. Like a honeyed apple right on the taste, with some lemon zest and maybe…”
I’m not totally making it up, and it is an absolutely splendid wine. But here’s the truth of it: I’m not wine expert. I’m not even a wine amateur to be honest with you. I’m just a drinker of wine. I love it, I love drinking it, it makes me very happy, but I know nothing other than what I like and what I don’t. And even that can be unpredictable.
And this will be how it will be on our trip. We are going to visit so many of the world’s great wine regions like Champagne, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Provence, Tuscany, La Rioja as well as places off the beaten path like Sant Saphorin in Switzerland, Jura in France, Douro Valley in Portugal and much more besides. We’ll also visit Calvados for the brandy and cider, Vilafranca del Penedes for the Cava…essentially we’re going to be boozing the whole way around! But when it comes to the wine, no matter how hard I practice (and trust me, I put the hours in), my knowledge just doesn’t evolve that much. Mainly because I’m too busy drinking to pay attention.
So we’ve evolved our idea a little bit, and I think it’ll be all the better for it. You will still see a regular Wine of the Week on the blog. But instead of just the expert review, you’ll also get the lay persons view of the wine. The man on the street view, if you will. Or, as I have branded it, “the Drunkards Review.” It’ll be an honest, unflinching review of the wine as I taste and smell it, no matter what the results. Cheese farts and all. And if that’s not something to look forward to, I don’t know what is.
Drink on friends!
P.S. I know you're all wondering what the cheese fart/marshmallow wine was. Truth is after that discussion we drank more wine and before I knew it the bottle was gone and I forgot to take notes. We'll do better next time.
