Because I'm sort* of a wanker, I was just perusing my wine collection and noticing that quite a few recommend the type of food the wine should accompany. This seems fair enough, maybe one's sommelier is having the evening off. But quite a few again actually recommend the situation and even the company one should keep when drinking a particular vintage. The situation is invariably 'good times' and the company less-than-daringly 'family and friends'.
This has me worried.
I'm not always having 'good times' and while, most of the time, I'm with either family or friends or both, sometimes I'm not.
Where are the wines for 'stressful Tuesdays'? Or 'the final hours of a long weekend just before you realise that you don't have any clean dacks'?
Those would be easy for any vigneron worth his or her grapes. I would like to see something challenging being produced by our world-class wineries.
How about a wine for 'the first time you lose a digit'?
'For the discerning 42, 3 months and 15 day-old' - one that was piss vinegar on any other day.
'A vintage created for anyone thinking of purchasing a donkey.'
The suggested company would be even more of a challenge:
'Drink among second cousins'
'Enjoy with people you've only just met, but whose faces seem eerily familiar'
'Perfect for imbibing among those who have tree-loppers in their immediate family.'
Actually, writing this out now, I'm realising that pretty much any occasion and company other than 'good times' with 'family and friends' will almost certainly require wine by default and it is therefore unnecessary to suggest it on the bottle.
* I have two wine racks and real wine in them, not just bottles of cheap spirits left over from cocktail parties or stolen bottles Caterer's Blend Chardonnay. I used to. But I drank them all.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test
Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
That doesn't mean you're a wanker, that just means you're a bit older than you were.
ReplyDeleteSomehow that seems worse.
ReplyDeleteLove this!
ReplyDeleteI do, however, recall a wine writer for the Age in the 1990s (he's dead now) who once wrote, "This would be great with KFC on a Friday night," and he wasn't being insulting; he wanted to specify that there were (are) times when you still want something decent but might not want to get out of your trakky daks or entertain that tactiturn second cousin in order to have it.
That reminds me of that scene in Sideways where he's glugging down the unicorn of wines in a diner out of an all you drink cup. Althouhg i'm sure that was symbolic of desperation of something.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that wine writer is probably dead for a reason. Everyone knows that KFC goes with litres of low-carb fizz beer.