Thursday, May 8, 2008

Taster B's got a Drinking Problem

Maybe we'll open some wine tonight. Maybe we won't... I'm trying to cut back a bit--doing a cleanse. No coffee/no alcohol (well...less alcohol). This can have a bit of an adverse affect on the ol' blog. I guess I'm not the only one going through a bit of a wine-blogging fatigue phase at present. I've heard a couple of fellow wine bloggers mention a similar lack of blog inspiration lately, so at least I'm not alone.

I love opening new bottles of wine. My problem is finishing them. What I really need are single-serve bottles. I know this is a terribly un-green thing of me to say. But, really, how many two-thirds drunk bottles can one accumulate on one’s counter before they eventually aren't even fit for the stock pot? And that's another thing: How many 'stocks' can one reasonably be expected to cook? I can add a splash of red wine to spaghetti sauce now and then but, I'm not cooking veal cutlets in wine reduction sauce on a regular basis, know what I mean?

As of this moment, I have a 1/3 bottle of a $25 Sancerre Pinot Noir (which I never even wrote a blog post on because it didn't move me), a 1/4 bottle of Malbec (just informed Malbec was dumped and there is a 1/3 bottle of Côtes du Rhône I wasn't aware of in it's place), 150 mL Trimbach Gewürztraminer, and a third bottle each of Vin de Pays and Riesling laying around. That doesn't even speak to the several glasses worth of wine that has been dumped down the sink in the past month (no it wasn't California wine...I would sooner drink a Loire red than dump a CA wine down the drain).

Anyway, I don't feel like drinking those old things. Although, I wouldn't mind opening a bottle from our recent wine club shipment to make sure it wasn't cooked during it's toasty stay at the ship-to state wine-sitters...

Yes, I definitely wish there was a way I could purchase smaller vessels of wine without adversely effecting the carbon footprint (or drinking bag-in-a-box). Oh well, perhaps I just need to 'strap on a set*' and finish my wine like the responsible adult I'm posing as.

*Thank you Twitter for teaching me useful slang (specific phrase attribution omitted in deference to discretion).

Extra Credit: Who wants to guess what the head shot of Michael Caine has to do with this post?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain - sort of. I always want to open an new bottle to try it, taste it, evaluate it, becuase it is my passion my hobby. But the wife and I don't always feel like finishing a bottle. And i know I can leave it for the next night, but by the next night I want to open something new, but I don't want to waste wine because that would just be a travesty. So single servings it is, although I don't think that would help us be "greener" drinkers.

bonus points - does it have something to do with that movie he was in called "Blood and Wine"?

Cheers
John

Anonymous said...

extra credit: The lack of coffee in your diet means a lack of sweetness in your beverage provided by an ingredient sourced from a plant known as the sugar "cane?"

Richard Auffrey said...

Could the Caine connection be the movie "Alfie" where he spends only a little time with all of his different women, never finishing any relationships? His general malaise with women, causing him to continually seek out new ones?

Taster B said...

Thanks all for the comments!
John: Wouldn't it be cool if wine shops could buy wine by the firkin, and you could just go in with your own container and buy a couple of glasses worth?

Jeff: very creative answer--thanks for playing. :)

Richard: Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner (not to be confused with winer). :)
I chose this c. 1966 photo because it was taken the same year as the film "Alfie" came out. I was only thinking of the theme song "What's it all about, Alfie?" in relation to my recent lack of blogging inspiration but, you found a deeper level of correlation that is spot on!