Revelation Meal

Tonight, hosting a small, small as in two couple dinner, I realized my wino voice has been stifled by this faux desire to be PC and poetic. The reality is I'm not such a good writer anyway, especially when I'm forcing it. No, if I want to be true to myself I need to be me.

The dinner was very nice.

• Crab Salad on Endive
  
• Shot of Butternut Squash Soup
  
• Mango Fruit Salad
  
• Spaghetti Carbonara
  
• Ice Cream over Chocolate Covered Graham crackers.
  

The wine was even better. Our guests brought a wonderful, actually one of the only champagne's that I've ever liked, Veuve, then we launched into a self selected group of wines.

• Champagne - Veuve Cliequot
  
• White Wine - Ermacora Tocai Friulano 2005 - an explosion of fruit that adequately backed away. It was a nice complement to the salad but not a particularly spectacular or memorable wine.
  
• Red Wine - Far Niente 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon - silky with distinctive leathery tobacco or some kind of distinctive stuff...well I think it was distinctive and tasty.
  
• Dessert Wine - Late Harvest Zinfandel Bella 2005 - blackberry syrup sugar bomb, for some that would be a degrading mess but this holds up to the strange praise. We've had 4 bottles of this and not a one has disappointed.
  

Late night, literally way after the zin, our temporary roommate (that's another story :) came home looking to extend the night. So out came another bottle. This time we went dropped down the quality bar, picking out a bottle of Chevera! wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile. It's a gimmick wine, cheap and shitty. It lacks any substance, smells like poop and tastes about the same. At 2 AM you don't care too much but I'm not sure I could finish this bottle in a sober state.

All in all it was a very good night. Good conversation, good food and great wine, ok, it was until I ruined it with that errand shot at the end. I guess the moral of the story is to just call it a night when you don't care that you're drinking a crap wine.

Comments

[todd2006]

I know exactly what you're talking about regarding the Chevera wine. I had a sweet bottle of HunterHill 2005 Merlot last night. After finishing that, I opened an inexpensive Syrah and just couldn't drink it. Not a bad wine in itself, but coming after the peppery flavors of the HunterHill, it just wasn't possible.

[todd2006]

Who's the new roommate, btw?

[Josh]

Roommate was my sister's boyfriend who was staying with us for awhile.

RE: Wine - I can't drink shit stuff after good bottles unless I'm drunk, which unfortunately doesn't happen enough. So I try to be on top of $10 gems - mostly south of the equator wines - so we have something to open following a nice bottle w/o dropping $50 each time. Funny how wine can add up in a hurry :)