This month’s virtual Web-wide tasting, brought to you by DHonig over at 2 Days per Bottle, has the Negress trying to find a wine appropriate to celebrate the end of the Bush era. To paraphrase a favorite Monty Python routine, I wanted something with not so much moose in it. As far as we know, this may be the first time in this country’s history that recovering alcoholic was in charge, which may explain the increasingly convoluted and confusing laws related to wine shipping and interstate purchases. If the Negress wished to highlight that particular frustration, she would speak only of the Paumonok Vineyards 2007 Chenin Blanc, a dry, subtle, delicious entry from the North Fork of Long Island that had to make a detour to a friend’s apartment in NYC before she could retrieve the pair of bottles. The winery could not ship it directly to New Jersey. The delay may have made the wine more lovely (notes of pear, honey and a touch of stone), but we suspect the winemaker and a crazy fabulous vintage out in the land of recovering potato farms may be more influential factors.
Some of my fellow bloggers drank French in honor of that country’s refusal to jump into the Middle Eastern quagmire, but the guy in charge in France is getting crazy about social conservatism to the point of shutting down alcohol-related websites and insisting on warnings out the yin-yang. So, even if he has a hottie for a spouse, can’t do the French thing.
With the economy suffering from a kneecapping thanks to short sellers and little long-term vision (when we downsized all the old people, business lost institutional memory and therefore engaged in practices that were sure to be ruinous AGAIN. See John McCain and the Keating 5 for a refresher course), it seems celebratory and appropriate to drink American. Not Charles Shaw (the Sarah Palin of wines, no?) American, but well-crafted American.
Thanks to a recent summer celebration including crab cakes, sweet corn, fresh tomato and basil salad, and a cucumber dill salad, a pair of independent voting friends and I drank to honor the country’s best (and to get a buzz. Let’s get real people). We started off with Bedell Cellars 2005 Taste Red, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Syrah that was rich, structured and flavorful with black fruit in abundance and supple tannin. We moved onto Gnarly Head 2006 Zinfandel that was tight as a tick upon hitting the glass but opened up nicely. The fruit was bold but not jammy and the tannin balanced. We finished up with a bottle of 2001 Castello Di Borghese Cabernet Sauvignon, which benefited from some cellar time. Unlike the flabby Cabs of Cali (they are middle class in the McCain sense, $5 million worth of overbearing tackiness), this one whispered, “I am making love to your mouth.” In short, a wine appreciated intellectually and sensually. The reign of error has demonized those qualities. So drink, think, then vote before it’s too late.
