This is what happens when you eat chili before bed.

Okay, before I get to the clip, a quick blurb about what I'm up to.  Light posts lately, I know, forgive please!  I am exhibiting in a trade show which starts Sunday, so there's a lot of scramble! scramble! in the month of January.  Also, I am behaving myself and eating super crazy healthy and drinking no more than 10 oz of wine per day, if at all.  Doesn't leave a whole lot of space for sampling, but I have very much enjoyed Generation Seven from Chateau des Charmes 2009 red this month.  When I first read the list of grapes that goes into the bottle, I thought someone had gotten a bit over-zealous in the lab--Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot and Gamay Noir.  I know!  Seems like a wacky combo, right?  In fact, it's really nummy.  This is one of those good value wines; I think I paid all of $12 for the bottle, and the wine totally overperforms for the price.  It's in the VQA section, so go find and enjoy.  Score one Ontario!

Okay, the real reason I got off my butt to post was to show you this.  I thought maybe I was having one of those dreams again, the kind you have when you eat chili or cheese right before bed.  Vincent Price as a polar bear selling wine coolers.  Because that makes sense, right?

Enjoy!

Toronto Wine and Cheese Show

Hell yes.

Folks, the Toronto Wine and Cheese show is coming up in March.  Do you think I can get John Szabo to autograph my bosom?

Ticket's are $15 in advance.  I'll be getting a hotel room nearby so we can wine and cheese without having to drive.  Who's in?

http://www.towineandcheese.com/

2011 Spring Show


Friday March 18 to Sunday March 20, 2011

International Centre, Hall 5

6900 Airport Rd., Mississauga

Friday: Noon - 10 p.m.
Saturday: Noon - 10 p.m.
Sunday: Noon - 6 p.m.

Wine shoe revisited

What a month so far!  Besides having a gold-star hangover on New Year's day, I managed to give myself food poisoning, and had a kid sick at home this week.  Oh, and there's a mountain of work to do before the gift show at the end of the month.  Needless to say, wine has not been on the menu for almost two weeks now.

Now that I've chased the evil micro-invaders out of my stomach, I should be back to wine reviewing in no time.  Meanwhile, I can't believe I forgot to tell you all this: at Christmas, I opened a bottle of wine with a shoe!  Remember that wine shoe video that was going around a few months ago?  Well, we were in a pinch with a broken cork, so I borrowed dad's shoe, headed out to the garage and gave it a go--and what do you know, it worked!

I will have to repeat for the video camera sometime, but meanwhile, please enjoy this drunk French dude doing the very same thing out on the street.  At around :51 he bends over to pick up his shoe, and I thought for sure he was going to land on his ass.  Apparently drunk Frenchmen weeble and wobble, but they don't fall down.

Enjoy!

The cure for champagne is...

...champagne!  And lots of it.  If you find yourself jonesing for the bubbly, do what Karen and I did on the first day of 2011 and kill four bottles of the sparkly stuff.  Guaranteed to make you not want anything bubbly for at least 4 days.  Or at least that"s true for some of us.  While I lay in bed having a near death experience, Karen popped in to coo and pat my head and feed me gingerale, with barely a scratch to her liver!  It's those good French genes, I tell you!  Karen, you were meant to drink champagne EVERY DAY, preferably on a chaise lounge, in a satin dress and feather mules.

ANYWAY, I reveal my champagne-drinking inadequacies not to garner any sympathy (I deserve none), but rather to share with all my lovely precious-doves (you) the different bubbles that led to my near-demise.  Now I've been saying champagne, but truthfully I don't think any of our bubbles were actually champagne!  Ah yes, it's all coming back to me now; we drank alternate bubblies on purpose to sample fare from different countries!  Starting with

MezzoMondo Sparkling Rosé from Italy



With nice, fine bubbles and all the yummy goodness of the berry patch, this off-dry sparkler was a nummy way to start the night.  When that bottle went bye-bye, we moved on to...

...Mumm's Napa Brut Prestige.  We've had this before, and I was looking forward to the repeat.  I swear on my life you can taste the sunshine in this wine!  Light as a fairy, fruity as a fashion designer. 

Next up we have Bottega Brut Prosecco from Italy...



The design on the bottle is a bit sperm-like, so I already know you sluts out there are going to be all over it *heh heh heh*!  But seriously folks, it truly was the best find of the night. (Know-Nothing wine education alert: Prosecco is the grape in this delicious offering.  According to Karen MacNeill's Wine Bible, Venetians quaff spumante prosecco every afternoon as a 'pick me up'.  How civilized!) This is what I would say is a good value wine.  It had lovely, never-ending fine bubbles, was just the right amount of dry and a pleasing acidity that made it very refreshing.  AND it was a mere $12.95!  Bargain!  I am making this my default sparkler until further notice.

Still adding to the mix, we tried a wee bottle of Freixenet Brut Cordon Negro Cava.  It's those little black bottles of sparklies you'll see at the cash counter in the LCBO.  This was my first foray into the world of cava.  I think I need to keep searching.  The most memorable thing about it was asking Trevor to please help me open this bottle (as I was beyond tipsy at this point), only to have him discover that underneath its faux plastic stopper lay a screw top!   Hardly any bubbles at all, and they were 'frog-eyes' at that (big, clumsy bubbles, not those lovely fine streaming bubbles you'll find it finer offerings).

Lastly was a bottle of President's (This was my affordable drink of choice as a young acting student.  I remember drinking the pink version once at a closing-night party for a play, and having a killer hangover the next day.). We intended it for orange juice, but what to do?  We had cleaned up our other fare.  So chug a lug.  And you know, it wasn't that bad.  Not really.  You could do worse.

I am much recovered, and frankly, not drinking ANY wine at all.  I have a feeling the next few posts will be largely academic, rather than actual wine reviews.  And that's ok, right?  I mean, it's the new year--we're all being a little extra good right now...at least for another 2 weeks until we all decide dieting and exercise in large doses is BORING and go back to our wicked ways.

Wicked me, signing off,

B.