Is it Bullshit?
Sniff, sip, swill, spit…
Wine tasting, where you decide if it’s plonk or not plonk.
I read a post yesterday, or the day before on The Wine Wankers about the difference between wine drinking and wine tasting.
It made me think.
Why do we taste wine and not drink it. Tasting seems such a waste. We don’t have beef tastings where we spit the half chewed morsel out and announce that it tastes of spring manure.
Is wine tasting just an act of snobbery?
Wasted
Obviously I am a peasant and don’t understand it.
Wine for me is a simple case of buy a bottle, if I like it I drink it. If I don’t like it, it goes down the sink, and I don’t buy it again; which, I might add, doesn’t happen very often.
Don’t get me wrong. I love wine. There is nothing more than a good wine and cheese to set my tastebuds on edge. There you get a chance to have a glass, or more of many wines. But you do drink it.
But the spitting, nah, that’s a waste.
Wednesday Whine
I had a wine ready for review today, but I drank it.
Finishing the bottle at the botequim, I forgot to bring it home… I had hoped to get another, but haven’t been out of the house for the cold.
It was French, red, good… Not plonk. Name started with a B, not Burgundy.
Heres the blurb I wrote on the day of the crime:
“Yes, today, weinerschnitzel; all crumbed and ready to go. Boiled potatoes and buttered peas and cauliflower cheese on the side. French Bordeaux in the offing…
Oh, I know how to do it on a Sunday.”
I’ll do better next time.
I really must stop drinking wine before I’ve featured it here, but I am such a weak person.
Wednesday Whine
Just a quick note.
I am adding a new feature on a Wednesday.
A glimpse at what I drink at home and other unsavoury places.
I am not a wine snob, nor can I be considered a connoisseur, but I have a fair idea of what’s ‘plonk’ and what’s not. In other words, I know what I like to drink.
My general criteria for buying wine is the price; I don’t have stacks of money being an impoverished English teacher.
A bottle may take my fancy, it may be the colour of the bottle or the label, I’m a label buff. Being an artist, both in oils and graphic, I have a sense of design.
These need to be sent back from whence they came
Wines will inevitably be dry, or demi-sec, but not restricted to, they may be either white or red; but one thing is certain, they won’t have a screw-on-top. A screw-on-top is a ticket straight back to the shelf without further consideration.
I live in Brazil, a country that, sadly can produce neither an acceptable beer nor a great wine. But Brazil is fortunate in that it has good neighbours like Argentina and Chile. Then there are also European and South African wines readily available.
So, come and check out Wednesday Whine with me… on Wednesday.
Red Kerosene
Cab Sav
It’s not often that I am overly critical of wine. I may make the odd disparaging comment, but nothing to compare with my opinion on this one.
I opened a bottle of Finca Flichman Cabernet Sauvignon Roble 2007 to enjoy while laying comfortably on my sofa on a wet miserable Sunday afternoon and the watch football game yesterday afternoon and nibble on a selection of cheese giving me some 90 minutes of transient bliss to combat the weather.
Honestly, I struggled to finish the first glass. I persevered in the hope that I might find a redeeming quality that I had missed, but in vain, it just wasn’t there.
Red kerosene would have been preferable, it was harsh and unpleasant on the palate. Certainly not my cup of tea, ah wine.
The bottle was recommended to me by the owner of my local supermarket. It was moderately priced, not cheap, but well within my normal drinking range; a range I might add that I have never been critical of before. Not like some of the ‘plonk’ I have tasted in cheaper ranges.
I was extremely disappointed; and will be reporting that to the owner, as he did recommend it.
It is the first time I have been so let down by a wine from Mendoza in Argentina. For me Argentinian wines from Mendoza are synonymous with very good to excellent.
My Pet Hate – 2011
This year I made a startling discovery.
Screw-Caps for wine bottles.
That’s disgusting, it’s nauseous, irritating and more than bloody annoying. (Get the idea I don’t like it?)
Well, good, because I don’t. It’s cheap and slovenly.
It was bad enough when ‘fizzy wines’ had those obnoxious white plastic stoppers instead of a wired cork, but the advent of screw-top wines is just going too far.
I got caught. I bought a bottle of Brazilian wine, a brand I have known in the past and liked, it wasn’t until I had chilled the wine and went to drink it a week or so later that I discovered it was a screw-top.
I don’t usually make New Years Resolutions, that way I never disappoint myself. But this year I am: a personal crusade against the trends in the wine industry to cheapen and degrade their products.
If your wine has a plastic stopper, a screw-top or a synthetic cork, it won’t fall into my shopping cart.
Now I am not a sommelier, nor even a connoisseur of fine wines, I am a normal person who enjoys good plonk. I don’t buy $3 wines, nor do I buy wines over $30. I live in Brazil but I rarely drink Brazilian wines, preferring by far the neighbouring Argentine and Chilean products, even the occasional Bolivian from the Tarija region is acceptable. But I refuse to accept any wine that does not have a bona fide cork.
It is time that wine-drinkers stood their ground and made the companies realise that you’re not going to accept a shoddy product. I urge you all to refuse to buy a second rate stopper, or better still, write to the company and tell them why you didn’t buy their wine. In this day and age, it is easy enough to communicate with a wine company by email and it takes all of a minute of your time to do the rest of the world a great service.
Sunday Quickie
OMG!
Get your mind out of the gutter!
.
Pork cubes in Tomato Sauce (NOT ketchup!)
Here’s how… Fry off pork cubes, healthy squeeze of garlic sauce, double healthy squeeze of soy sauce, pinch of black pepper, salt to taste, chopped tomatoes (fresh from garden), generous double pinch of chopped parsley, one small jar of tomato extract, one small box of cream. stir, serve, eat. 15 minutes in the making. If you want to get fancy serve on spaghetti or rice. If you want to get really fancy, open a bottle of plonk – red or white who cares when you dine alone.
Today’s lunch, leftovers…
Fresh bottle of plonk.
argentumvulgaris
Things that Fizz & Stuff 