Holiday Spirits

It's that time of year again. We've trimmed the tree and mixed the eggnog, gone to parties and listened to the Nutcracker soundtrack one too many times. We've also booked our tickets home and made plans to visit the Ohio folk in our compressed visit to the midwest.

There's only one more tradition to stay true to...

I actually tried to get out of holding the Holiday Spirits party this year. Last year's event was great and fun but felt a little cramped, given the confines of our roomy-for-two-but-not-so-much-for-40 condo. Also, perhaps it's just the 30-year-old talking, but getting a big group together for the express purpose of drinking lots of (granted, new and exotic) alcohol felt a little too fraternity all of a sudden.

But I was outvoted. The response "I was thinking of not doing it" to the question "so when's the holiday spirits party" did not go over well at our Thanksgiving shindig, nor did it go over well the next few dozen times I said it. Eventually I got the hint and acqiuesced. And now we're on for next Saturday.

So what new drinks will be presented this year? Highlights of last year's event included Ralph's candy cane shots (very festive!) and Barbara's chocolate martini (such a surprise, coming from a chocoholic). On the menu so far for the 17th are hot buttered rum and eggnog. With less than 10 people attending this year, no one should get too inebriated. Now that we're all entering that mid life midpoint, the frat party behavior seems a little too...immature.

A Word about Vocab

I was listening to a podcast not that long ago on which Karen MacNeil, author of the Wine Bible, was being interviewed about why her book has been so successful. She gave the pat answers about how most people are highly intimidated by wine and her book 'broke the mold' by making the subject easily understandable for the masses. As we all know, this claim is a yawner by now (who hasn't made wine accessible to the masses, I ask you) but then she went on to talk about something that was actually interesting....the words we use to talk about wine.

She made the point that the descriptors so often used to describe the smell, taste, and experience of a wine have nothing to do what's actually in the glass or the real definitions of the terms used. When we talk about a cab being fruity, and smelling the roses and berries in its nose, we don't really mean we taste apples and smell flowers. We're only grasping at language that may, kind of, sort of, convey the impression we're trying to communicate. Not an exact science, to say the least.

So two questions come to mind: 1.) why did early wine critics and writers choose to reappropriate common nouns and adjectives to describe ths particular alcoholic beverage, rather than coming up with their own unique descriptors, and 2.) why use mostly food and earth labels? Why not use words associated with art, or music, or sports?

Perhaps the answer to this second part is obvious, but I like thinking about the alternatives that might have arisen.

"The harmony in the nose of this chard is just grand."

"I can really sense the muse of the winemaker behind this cab."

Can you imagine?

Grace at Thanksgiving

Aaaah, Thanksgiving, that most gluttonous of Holidays. The opportune occasion for stuffing oneself as full as possible and never having to look sorry. This year we hosted our annual orphan dinner with the usual suspects, along with two friends from Ohio who flew in for the weekend. A total of ten ultimately sat at our table (thoughthree were actually relegated to the 'kiddie' table set up next to our dining one), and trimmings included the traditional fare: the turkey, brined as usual, the stuffing, two types of potatoes, green bean casserole, etc., etc.

And then there was the wine...

We started with the Beaujolais, as it's tradition of course. Then Tim moved on to a pre dinner vouvray. After the mimosas we had been drinking all day, these two fruity wines were an appropriate continuation. Then, an 03 Rombauer chard was popped to prep everyone's palate for the good stuff.

The good stuff included an 02 Dehlinger Pinot and a 95 Leonetti Merlot, which was over the hill and, as Len put it, "was kind of like chewing on a barrel." He also popped a Grace Family cab. I believe this was in thanks for finally getting on their mailing list (05 will go down as the year his kiss up letters from 98 worked at Marcassin and Screaming Eagle as well -- he ended up on all three of these mailing lists in the last 6 months. Coincidence?)

After dinner activity included the watching of a Cavs game, and a truncated, new-rules-apply game of Trivial Pursuit. Neither of these had a desirable ending however (cavs lost; so did my TP team), so after a round of solace sought in pumpkin pie, we called it a night.

Til next year...