Shame on Me

Shame, shame double shame. Well, not really, because I'm pretty sure I'm incapable of feeling shame, but you get the gist of what I'm saying. Shame for not posting. My wine loving groupies, you must have thought I'd given up wine and moved on to the next thing. Not true. Sort of true. Definitely not drinking as much wine lately as the summer found me busy as a Japanese beaver and fussing over my waistline. But after tonight I say dammit! Damn it all to heck! Because good food and good wine are what makes life extra lovely. So I'll just waggle my behind a little harder up the street on non-wine drinking days, and indulge guiltlessly on the days I do tipple. Because life is short, and there's so much good wine to be had!!! Do I hear an amen?!

I have been thinking about the wine blog over the last few weeks. See?


Now darlings, this is what becomes of your wine journal when you've had one glass too many. Notes on this wine are actually 4 pages long; this was one of the more entertaining pages. Sadly, this is the Chianti that Lorri brought home from Cambridge. We enjoyed it two weeks ago at Karen's poolside, and instead of blogging about it diligently I flopped my pen about paper in my goofy state and took haphazard notes that does no one any good. I didn't even note where the wine was from for cripe's sakes! Oh bad me! Bad, bad, bad me! Lorri, you're reading this I know, and I'm sorry. Not only did I drink this wine without Eileen's permission, I can't even blog about it properly.

So, I'm not making that mistake with the next wine, which is the 4th of the 5 wines that came home with my sister. Tonight we had Steve and Karen over for a dinner of Herbes de Provence chicken, roasted garlic new potatoes and Trevor's spectacular Caesar salad. What did I wash this gastronomic masterpiece down with? Les Aphillanthes L'Ancestrale du Puits 2007 Cairanne, a Cotes de Rhone Villages which went sooo perfectly with our meal. Decanted for about 2 hours before drinking, there is a lightness to this wine; you would be surprised after trying it to learn it's 14.5% alcohol, because it doesn't taste hot. I expected this wine to be a little more muscle-bound. I taste Grenache, but not Syrah. I suspect there's Mouvedre in there. Creme Caramel, tobacco, black fruit are the first flavours that jump out at me. Definitely an understated wine. It lifted the flavours of our meal nicely. Le sigh. Content.

FYI remember that mind blowing Pinot Noir from Oregon I tried last time? I contacted the winery; there are no wine distributors who carry Belle Pente wines in Ontario. This is a travesty! I peeked at the LCBO's special order page; they advise that prices per bottle go up THREE TO FOUR TIMES their price in their home country, due to THEIR MARK UP. They actually baldly admit that on their site. So that $35/bottle (U.S) suddenly becomes unreachable. What the hell? Really? Seriously? I mean, is this a communist freaking country? I can't import my favourite bottle of wine from the States without the government rubbing their grubby, greedy selves all over it? For crying out loud, it's not like I'm importing nuclear warheads or heroin. I'm a wine lover for cripes sakes! And I'm being penalized for it! Time for a revolution, my loves. We'll call ourselves Friends of the Noble Grape. We'll wear berets and meet in secret rooms, smoking cigarettes from extra-long cigarette holders. We'll wear red lipstick and have code names like 'Purple Rose' and 'Terroir Hund'. We'll plot the demise of a dictatorial government that restrains our liberty and right to enjoy good wine. And we'll start just as soon as I finish this glass.

xoxo

Til next time

B.