A Tasting of Fine Whine
A pre-birthday birthday story
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And now, a very short story inspired by only sort of true events…
A Tasting of Fine Whine
First I need to tell you about this chocolate cake.
It's a recipe Julie found years ago. You start off with basically what you'd expect -- flour, a generous measure of melted chocolate, butter, milk, etc. But then you pour a cup of dark roast hot coffee directly into the batter. This makes the crumb (the technical term for the cake part of the cake) light and moist to a degree that you literally cannot believe unless you try it.
You build three or four layers, with chocolate mousse between them, and the whole thing robed in a semi-sweet ganache.
It is the final word on chocolate cake. It is the platonic ideal. It is the one all others aspire to.
By the date of her 30th birthday, Julie had become an old pro at making this cake. So that part was trivial.
But this year, she also wanted to find out what kind of wine would pair well with this immaculate confection. She did some research. OK, she did a lot of research.
Thing is, we aren't wine drinkers, my wife and I. For cultural-religious reasons first, and then eventually for health reasons, we've been teetotalers our whole lives.
The only major difference between us in this category is that while Julie can appreciate a small sip of a well-crafted cocktail, or enjoy the bouquet of a fine wine on special occasions, I literally do not touch the stuff. Like ever. Never saw the appeal. I'll go to parties with plenty of liquid courage sloshing around, and everyone just gets a little dumber. Or a lot. Plus I hate the smell.
I can't even remember the last time I tasted alcohol. I think I drank a swallow of hard cider by mistake in my early 20s. More than ten years ago by this point. Safe to say booze is not my vice.
My distain is further stoked by reading all the studies that stack up the potential risks and inevitable costs of drinking. It's bad for you. Full stop. And it makes you dumb. Why do people do this?
So it is without my support or concern that Julie arrives at her decision to bring a bottle of 2016 cabernet sauvignon from Sonoma to her own birthday party.
Doubtless I would have remained contentedly unconcerned if she hadn't started getting so many damn compliments about her choice of wine. Finally, I wander over and show some curiosity.
"Do you want to try it?" she asks, holding aloft a glass with barely a finger's depth resting at the bottom.
I consider the offer.
At stake are two things: foremost, my pride; but my aversion to the taste of alcohol itself is a close second. There are few things worse than a surprise mouthful of something disgusting.
But hey, I'm a refined sort of guy. I like my aged cheeses and my single-sourced bars of dark chocolate. I pay attention to ingredients when I cook. I tried a 25-year aged balsamic vinegar from Modena once that made me so emotional I had to leave the room. If ever there was a spirit I could see myself happily imbibing, it would be wine.
In fact I have, on several occasions, had the pleasure of enjoying de-alcoholized wine. Yes, this is a real thing — it turns out that there's one variety that has won awards in French wine competitions. I've had it. It's great.
So yeah, wine.
And here's Julia and her friends saying this cab pairs so well with the chocolate cake. Of which I have already eaten two pieces. That silky sweetness and heady bitter tang still lingers in my mouth.
My wife hands me her glass. I take a whiff. I refrain from making a face at the caustic scent of the ethyl compounds.
I sip it the way you’re supposed to, with plenty of air. I swish it around. I swallow.
I hand the glass back.
"Well?" she says, eyes glittering, friends watching.
"Not for me."
"Really? I think it's great."
"Well it would be great," I agree, "if the complex flavors of fermentation weren't being completely drowned out by that awful taste of alcohol."
"Huh," she said. "I didn't really notice it."
"How could you not notice it?!" I didn't shout, but I might as well have, such was the depth of my incredulity. "It's like someone took this nice, subtle bouquet and poured kerosene all over it. I hate it."
"It's not that strong," someone else protests.
"It's practically all I can taste," I retort, doubling down.
"You're just not used to it," says Julia, who's experience with so-called adult beverages is a semi-annual occurrence, at best.
The whole thing is pretty galling. All these people sucking down poison and pretending to like it.
Or maybe they really do like it. I can't decide which is worse.
Doing my best to hide my disgust, I walk away on a road so high my nose might start bleeding.
I join a conversation on the other side of the room about Star Wars.
I share strong opinions between forkfuls of my third slice of cake.
Alcohol is actually a really fun thing to talk about — almost as fun as religion and politics, but without quite as much risk of incinerating friendships.
So: What are your thoughts about drinking? OK in moderation? Invention of pure evil orchestrated by the cloven-hooved devil himself? A wonderful excuse to make an ass of yourself at otherwise insufferable social gatherings?
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This is not true.
I’m with Brian: I want the recipe! But ah, the drinking questions are interesting. I’ve had a long relationship with alcohol, which I have until fairly recently viewed as unabashedly positive. I very rarely drink to excess, but for many, many years enjoyed a drink or two almost every night of my life, usually beer but for some stretches gin or bourbon, mixed in cocktails. But problems cropped up over time: I grew to feel somewhat dependent on my evening drink, and in times of stress, felt that I really had to have that drink in the evening. I don’t like to be dependent on anything, so this bugged me. And as I’ve grown older, the negative affects of alcohol (poor sleep, fuzzy head, frequent urination) just really started to get to me. When my wife broke her wrist before Christmas she stopped drinking altogether (not for the reasons you’d think), and I joined her. And one month in I have to say, I like myself better without alcohol. That answer was too bloody long, but you asked ...
Haha! I’m so prone to suggestion, this post made me pour myself a beer :)