Fun With Wine

Last night, at our weekly potluck, we opened up a bottle of red wine, and I fell in love. I was intrigued before the bottle was opened. You see, it was one of those random cheap bottles of wine the Consort brings home from the wine shop, just in case we want to imbibe, without snobbishness. Yes, I can be a wine snob if I choose: I prefer red to white, I prefer dry to sweet, and a small amount of Good Wine can be preferable to a large amount of vinegar. But sometimes, you don’t want the heaviness, or the expense, of Good Wine.

“Giddy pleasure, leaping grace … this red wine, blended from seven noble grape varietals, was crushed by the bare feet of 69 beautiful women in the wee light of dawn one misty October day.”

The Consort tells me we probably have about $2,000 worth of wine down in the basement (excuse me, in the caaaaahve). (I don’t know if this includes our homemade wines or not [but really, who can put a price tag on our Cherry Berry or the delicious Black Currant we took camping with us?]). Some of it is wine for those times we relish in our snobbishness, and some of it is questionable. Questionable in the sense that we don’t know yet if it is good, not in the sense of “hmm, I ran out of silver polish, will this do, d’y’think?” Because of the label, I hoped that last night’s wine would make the cut. Not to Good Wine (that would have been asking too much), but to good wine.

“The nose is deeply perfumed with wild dewberries, Himalayan breeding musk and horehound candy, while the flavors, so titillating they may only be disclosed in the Ecstatic Singing Mantra, will remain cloaked in silence until the bottle is uncorked.”

I like my winemakers to have a sense of humor. This is one reason why I like Frog’s Leap organic wine ("Time's fun when you're having flies"; but nope, last night’s was not Frog’s Leap). At the bottom of their labels, they have a note which reads, “Open other end.” Those are my kind of guys.

And now, I’ve found another table wine I can serve with a smile. Jest Red. They also make a Jest White and a Jest Pink (but I stopped doing pink wine in college). I don’t know about those. But if you are ever looking for a wine that’s fun to read while you drink, try Jest Red.

“Sip delicately, sing with abandon.”