Chronic Negress

You have doubtless read about food and wine pairings on many spots here in Web world. However, as this has been the week to forget I am going to suggest wine and spirits pairings for life events beyond your control. Let’s just say, to pick a squeamishly autobiographical example, that your ornamental plaster ceiling collapsed eight months ago and the company repairing it has yet to finish the final two steps of completing the ceiling. Add to this ordeal the storage charges you are paying on the carpet and furnishings that the old ceiling got all schmutzy. Each weekly phone call gets the “one more week” response for the past three weeks. You have been confined to your bedroom watching your beloved hockey team go through a losing streak and an offensive drought that are poorly timed as they are about to enter the playoffs. At work, you are delivering copy so fast that you are making the kinds of mistakes that would make even the most callow rookie scribe wince. Then, as the last dead horse of a tale has been beaten into submission, you achieve one bit of domestic harmony. The AC guys bring the replacement unit on time. You finish an interview and drive your barely three month old auto-baby to work. A block from the office, you are T-boned by a guy pulling out of a parking space in a Volvo. The car remains drivable but the passenger side is all crumpled and fumy air is whistling under the caved-in door. You finish the story, call your insurance company and try to contact the miscreant, whose cell phone number you have. You go home, regroup and then head to Carnegie Hall on the subway for an evening of dissonant vocal music by Thomas Ades. You like the music, which sounds like a gay liturgy co-authored by Dr. Seuss and Chaucer all hopped up on goofballs. You go home. You sleep soundly for the first time in weeks.

Alcohol consumed this week:

The last 1/8 of a bottle of Woodford Reserve small batch bourbon
a quartino of Rosso di Montalcino Siro Pacenti 2005
a glass of no-name prosecco bought for me by the antipasti waiters at Trattoria dell’Arte
Three glasses of Magnus Riesling 2005 Clare Valley which is something of a citrusy nightmare

I will soon be submitting tasting notes to Vinfolio. I’ll let you know when they’re posted.