With the fine summer weather it would be downright rude not to sit out on your balcony sipping a cool crisp white wine. Now I don’t pretend to know very much about wine but can happily invent all sorts of pompous descriptions if I am in company and feel the need to show off. After a couple of glasses the words just tumble off my tongue… Yes, I can detect undertones of cinnamon with a hint of distressed truffle - gentle ripples of vanilla radiating through the soft shades of elderflower… or my favourite, whispers of nutmeg enveloping echoes of rich oak.
My Occasionally Sober Friend however has given one of the very best descriptions of wine I’ve ever heard. Coming across a brand new wine in our local supermarket I felt obliged to investigate. ‘I had that one last weekend’ she announced. And when I asked what it was like she paused in thought for a moment before replying - ‘It was very cold!’.
My laughter only settled down about an hour later when I had a chance to examine the label in more detail at home and discovered on the back that it had ‘a third less alcohol than other wines’. I felt ridiculously hard done by! Less alcohol? And they’re proud of this? It was all I could do to prevent myself throwing the whole bottle down the drain. Until I realised with glee that this was in fact a wonderful thing. It means I can drink three times as much! Well, maths was never my forte in school.
Maybe if you have a very sensitive palate you can detect all those fancy hints of this and smidgeons of that, but my palate basically runs to yukk or yumm. Or as Jenny and I might put it “D’you like this one then?” “Not bad. Are you pissed yet?” There again, I think I detect a touch of cinema with an undertone of distraught trifle….
and was “cold” an accurate description?
Now that I’m living in a place with a balcony and the weather’s nicer, I’ll have to try sipping a glass of two out there – as opposed to the furtive, desperate boozing I usually do indoors.
This gives 1/3 off a whole new meaning!
NIck – What a fabulous range – I love it. I am going to borrow it if you don’t mind!
alan – it certainly was, after I accidentally left it in the freezeer. Anyway Happy birthday mister – I’ll be raising a glass of full-alcohol wine in your name this evening!
robin – that’s how I usually attempt things too but it always ends up the same hehe
grannymar – now that you mention it – surely it should have been a third cheaper….
Your wine descriptions are a fab way to flirt!
As in I go up to the next hunk I see and tell him he has undertones of cinnamon with a hint of distressed truffle???? Well if ‘you look like yer man from Lost’ works then it’s worth a shot
For that to really work you’d have to sniff him first, then swirl him round in your mouth a bit. You know, like all the proper wine tasters do.
catherine – I do believe you actually made me blush
Still, where’s the fun in such a tiny bit of alcohol? Did the wine still taste okay? My friends and I always pretend to be wine experts for a laugh… and then try and make the wineglasses sing!
No, no, no. White wine bad, red wine good. Rose extremely bad.
whispers of nutmeg enveloping echoes of rich oak
Tell me this and I’m ready to faint. Straight into your bed. I don’t know if it would work with guys though
All I know is I drank ‘champagne’ last night from a screw top bottle.
marjolein – the fun is in the fourth or fifth glass! I have to say that the wine was quite good despite it all
robert – snob
lenfercest – hmmmm I’ll have to remember this
xbox – well, champagne is champagne I suppose – unless it was made on a soda stream…
Turps is the only way to go my friend – it’s a bit rough on the insides though!
The man sat next to me on the plane this evening had a hint of distressed truffle to him. It was not at all nice, I can tell you.
And Rose is extremely good. In the Summer. Tastes like pop. Goes down like the proverbial vicar’s daughter. Or son
‘Hint of distressed truffle…’ must remember that one!
i love that description, sugar! it was cold
i’m so tired of wine snobs, i could spit! 
here’s to lovely weather and good wine! xox
the most fun I ever had at a wine-tasting party, post drinking days, was in tasting a pile of different colas with a little thimble and rating them:
“Hint of coppery tin” etc.
I wish I’d known about the distressed truffles!
XO
WWW
There was a time in Ireland when the only choice of we had was black or blue.
quickroute – I heard that 2007 was a particularly poor year for turps though
travelling – rose is strangely popular in NL – some of them aren’t even all that bad. (!)
jen – sympathetic fig and woozy walnut will also work
savannah – oh yes I’ll toast to that!
www – oohh was it like the pepsi challenge? I always wanted to do that when I was a little boy
primal – and along with all the ew choices come the rdiculous prices. What you can pick up for 5 euro here is 11 in Ireland. No joke! That is also why I feel I’m allowed to drink twice as much here.
Have been reading your blog and its hilarious. Congratulations.
And i know what you mean, i was once made to drink alcohol free beer in a place called Kaarst in Germany. It was the most gawd awful thing on the face of the earth.
Hilarious post. You really made me laugh this hideously rainy miserable morning. my sister and i call such inexpensive wines “hairy chest wine.” one glass and a werewolf like patch breaks out on ones chest area . . tres attractive, not.
Reading about your piss weak wine experience brings back some memories of drinking Thunderbird (http://www.bumwine.com/tbird.html) in the park as a student, that was one hell of a beast. I don’t know if they make it any more, it was proudly labelled as ‘fortified’ wine, there was none of this boasting about having less alcohol when I were a lad.
I am with Catherine on this one. That’s how wine tasting is supposed to be.
I got drunk on a bottle of non alcoholic wine once – I did feel a little silly the next day.
thunderbird sounds just like buckfast. the wine of the truly brave.
Hope you’re having a lovely day..
He he…I had just pured myself a glass of COLD white and sat down to your blog…how appropriate, notes of um…grapes?
Look, I know what this gap of silence is all about – you build up suspense – Geez wots Conor up to ? – well it ain’t gonna work on me – I don’t even care ! – I refuse to fall for this trap! – In fact I’m just not gonna comment on your lack of posts – period – Kapput! – How’ya like like dem apples? – Huh? – Bring it on – Suedo Amsterdamish Dude! – Shizer! – Damn it – how do you delete posts again? [alt] and [ctrl] and Alah Kazaam! – Help Anyone!
i’m so pleased to know i’m not the only one who prefers white, and that’s about as far as my wine knowledge goes – i like white (sounds racist but it’s only about the grapes). might i suggest the mightily twee phrase, “it smells of summer rain on hot cement”
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Omnipresent.
[...] open the bottle without leaving half the cork inside. This evening I will be busy brushing up on my imaginative arsenal of wine descriptions so I will able to make everyone drunk with my enthusiasm. Merry Christmas [...]
I like red Spanish wines with pictures of bulls on the front, lets me pretend I’m a character in something written by hemingway….(sigh)