Thursday, December 11, 2008

Where it goes down


My current wine life is not unlike braille: everything stands out. You want to run your fingertips over these wines in appreciation, such good things have I had.

And that, from all angles and walks and stripes of vinification, age, grape, and climate. One day last week, I went from a 1976 Lopez de Heredia Bosconia GR to a 1990 Carbonnieux Blanc. Another day, I drank aged mourvèdre and young old-vine carignan as a chaser to Crémant du Jura.

Which creates a problem, here. In the lapse since I delved into rosy self-questionings nearly two weeks ago, there are too many things that have been poured under the bridge (or into the gullet) to roll out a detailed report: because, as we all know, long screeds of tasting notes are so bleedin' boring.

So maybe I can talk about the places that these things were drunk. Because that is part of it, too. Wine comes from a place, but it is also consumed in a place, and you're not going to have the same reaction to a pour of Rhône syrah out of an Enomatic machine at Lavinia as to a glass of prosecco on the balcony of a hotel in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood, where the apartment building across the way has shirts and socks on clotheslines waving in the breeze. A pink glass of Selosse Rosé tastes different in a white-tablecloth restaurant than in a broad chai full of barrels.

Maybe that would enliven tasting notes, actually. "Grüner Veltliner on a bridge." "Morgon Côte du Py with a picnic on the bed." "Volnay in a tiny, warm restaurant." Etc.

I'll do that. Just not right now.


Tasting notes, however, can be seen here, here, and here.

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