Thursday, September 08, 2011

Catching wine


I just read an amusing article about a drunk elk that got caught in a tree in Sweden. Apparently, it was running after fermenting apples. Fortunately, I have never so much as gotten my foot caught in a sewer grate running after bottles of wine in the city.

However, several recent events have reminded me that when you catch the wine after running around town after it, you might not want to lose it again. Let me explain what I mean by that. It's that my mind has once again been jostled into the recognition that writing down the wines you taste is a good idea, along with maybe a word or two about them. (One hates to be stuck thinking: Was that blaterle* a white or a red?)

Exhibit A: "Any recollection of what we had on Aug 7th and Aug 9th?" writes S, a couple of days ago. Oh yeah, those two great dinners with friends and stupendously good food and lots of bottles. My brain now saw the evenings, though, like a scattered puzzle—of which many pieces had skittered under the radiator or behind the sofa. I remembered a Coche-Dury and offered, "I think it was a 2002, but which?" To which I was, humblingly, told: "Right, the Volnay." Ah, right. Coche-Dury red. Now I remembered, though my slipshod recall had been casting about for various Meursault Rougeots or the like.

Exhibit B: I went to a lunch just a few days ago—vibrant food and company, and a set of wines I had never seen nor tasted before, a sneak preview of imports soon to hit these shores. Talking about that meal with another friend who had not been there, I was asked, "What were the wines?" One might hang one's head to admit it, but for almost all of them, I had to go look at the pictures one of the lunchmates had taken and posted on a social networking site. For shame!

"Remember," said my friend, sitting there in scentless sensibility, "it's not unimportant to write down what you taste. There are reasons we do this."

So I will. And here, too.


*Don't worry, dear reader, I am certain that you know which color wines the blaterle grape makes.


Photo by Melody Dye

3 comments:

~J said...

It is a great habit that we need to get into so thanks for the gentle reminder. I will try to get into that habit, but I am usually having too much fun and taking a note would make me feel like I am working. The picture is a good reminder of all the wines we drank that evening and I hardly remember a specific one.

Jon said...

Great post! I always forget to bring my wine journal with me.

Wine country tours from san francisco said...

That's a lovely wine, its a great complement to most wine.