Reviews

M. CHAPOUTIER BILA-HAUT SYRAH/GRENACHE, CARIGNAN (2009)—No, it didn’t have 9 lives; it’s gone

Miss V has no intention of peeing on demand for the doctor trying to confirm a bladder infection. Hence the package that came home today:

Needless to say, I don’t want anything to do with the project of coaxing urine out of a four-year-old into a cup. If, for example, my mum brought me into the bathroom to amuse Miss V, thinking the diversion might keep her on the seat until the pee was secured, I would be very afraid. It’s hard enough for an adult female to pee in a jar without spraying hands, seat, floor and counter. When a four-year-old attempts to do it, you don’t want to be a nearby absorbent bear who’s already under threat of the washing machine.

Because so many symptoms suggested a bladder infection, the doc prescribed an antibiotic anyway. If he doesn’t get Miss V’s pee, the exact microbes won’t be known, but they’ll get exterminated anyway. If he does get the pee, bonus. Within a week Miss V should be cured of her tummy aches and pungent excretions.

This latter symptom got me thinking about wines with a urine aroma. In particular I remembered our Easter dinner wine, suggested by a wine consultant other than our usual go-to. On learning of my parents’ preference for full-bodied, supple reds, he pointed to M. CHAPOUTIER BILA-HAUT (2009), a Syrah/Grenache/Carignan blend. His recommendation wasn’t exactly on the money. (He did disclaim that French wine wasn’t his area of expertise.)

True, BILA-HAUT poured rich and purple into the glass, exuding distinctive earthy fragrance and fruit-forward promise. Blended for ideal acid balance and drinkability, it seemed like a good dinner choice.

The first sips were curious—slightly more acidic than suggested by the aroma, and slightly lighter on the palate than suggested by the legs. The wine had a thinness to it that fruit bomb enthusiasts tend to avoid, but one has to have an open mind.

On to the next sips.

While Grenache typically has a soft, static character and doesn’t develop much as the wine opens, a Grenache blend is a different animal. The Syrah component in BILA-HAUT kicked up the spice and contributed an earthy wildness; the Carignan added tartness and zing. But during that critical first 15 minutes while the wine breathed and I had to be held back physically from it, the fragrance changed. The shift wasn’t subtle. First the scent was a maddeningly unplaceable brambly fruitiness, and then it was…wet cat. From wet cat it morphed to cat pee, at which point my dad abandoned his glass on the counter.

Mum and I persevered with BILA-HAUT, although for most of dinner she left her glass untouched, then returned to it while she loaded the dishwasher. I kept at it the whole time, so I can document for you, my fellow inebriates, the delicacy of its arc from fruit to sodden alleycat to litter-box offering to…fruit again.

Yes, peeps, the wine did become drinkable. It just had to go through a nasty olfactory phase. We all go through phases, some of which are olfactory too. Ever decide you were no longer going to shower? Or that deodorant was for losers? Okay, maybe you didn’t do those things. But remember the hair you had in the 1980s? Phases! Some phases are just ugly. And BILA-HAUT certainly went through one of these while the family was stuffing itself full of ham. For a while it smelled rank. But I swear to you that after an hour it was okay. And it was even better the next day.

So what the hell makes a wine smell like feline number one? Interesting, the chemical compound responsible for that unique cat-piss odor is often present in wine, particularly Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The offending compound, p-mentha-8-thiol-3-one, smells like kitty tinkle only in a specific concentration range, below which it smells herbal and above which it smells like blackcurrants. Wow!

So that explains how our Easter wine began dinner delightfully redolent of berries, survived being consumed at dinner by assaulting us with puss ‘n’ piss, then redeemed itself as dry, tannic and slightly herbal.

Which is pretty cool and scientific, but it won’t help us get Miss V to pee in a cup.

MOLSON CANADIAN—Drink if you’re hot, thirsty, or wearing a mullet

My Fellow Inebriates,

Ever since an old derelict outside Superstore tried to bless the kids and then damned the whole family to hell when my mum wouldn’t let him, the Langley township itself has been on her shitlist, as though its very geography is a magnet for religious mania, something she suspects abounds at the local elementary school.

So when Miss V’s teacher started waving packets of Kool-Aid around this morning, my mother wasn’t impressed. She didn’t have the energy to thwart a Canadian Jonestown so early in the morning, nor did she want her stupid-looking hair to end up on TV.

But before you could say “Hallelujah,” Miss V’s teacher was mixing that Kool-Aid (not even cherry, but lemon) into a batch of homemade play dough. Yes indeed, if you’re tired of shelling out for actual Play-Doh, you can make your own with just a few ingredients:

KOOL-AID PLAYDOUGH

    • 1 cup flour
    • ½ cup salt
    • 2 tsp cream of tartar
    • 1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid, any flavor
    • 1 tbsp cooking oil
    • 1 cup boiling water

Combine dry ingredients. Add oil and boiling water. Mix with a spoon. As soon as the mixture is cool enough, knead together with your non-furry, opposably thumbed hands. Store in airtight container.

Fifteen minutes later the kids were sculpting lemon-scented masterpieces, including this handsome sculpture of yours truly.

OMG, what the hell is that little piece over there supposed to be?

Not content with mere verisimilitude, Miss V insisted on adding a long braid to the bear. She was thinking Rapunzel, although you might think mullet.

If she’d meant mullet she would have been reading my mind, because while she and Mum were sculpting, I was waking to memories of MOLSON CANADIAN.

The MOLSON CANADIAN bottle had come from next door (not the next-door neighbors who hate us, but the normal people on the other side). They don’t wear mullets, but last night they were going to wall-mount some speakers with the wires dangling visibly down the wall, which is pretty much the same thing. When they tried to borrow a tool from my dad, he rushed over to help them hide their unsightly wires and returned with a MOLSON CANADIAN.

The neighbors hadn’t asked for my dad’s help, but he is obsessive about visible wires in other people’s houses. (Our own house, which is festooned with wires and littered with teeny tiny bolts/screws/unidentifiables, is another matter and does not fall within my dad’s OCD radar.) Having recently shut down his home theater business, which had involved a lot of hands-on installation, my dad must have been itching to make holes in the neighbors’ wall, because he practically bounded next door to help. And lucky for him, they were breaking out the MOLSON CANADIAN.

This is a lager that reminds me of hockey and parking lots and camping. It’s a nostalgic brew for a lot of Canadians who started drinking beer before macrobreweries came into force. Wan and straw-colored with a quickly dissipating head, CANADIAN gives off a signature macro-brew graininess—corn, white bread, no-name toaster waffles and minimal malt. The first taste is crisp, thin, and refreshingly fizzy if cold, but the beer grows less charming as it warms.

The clock is a real enemy to MOLSON CANADIAN; with each half-degree the beer rises, it becomes less palatable and more metallic. But—importantly—this beer is inoffensive when cold. If you’re really thirsty, a CANADIAN from an ice-filled cooler is like liquid manna in the dessert, replete with the requisite breadiness. My dad didn’t turn it down after he’d finished fixing up the neighbors’ system, and he didn’t bitch about it either.

And needless to say, MOLSON CANADIAN beats the crap out of lemon Kool-Aid.

THE GARDEN PATH SHIRAZ CABERNET SAUVIGNON (2006)—Good without animals

My Fellow Inebriates,

Transman reminded me today that the Canada geese are back. You can tell by all the green goose poo on the sidewalks along 64 Avenue and 201 Street, one of our habitual routes around Langley. The geese congregate by the liquor store, honking and shitting their assurance that spring is here.

Where the goose poo is in our hood

I had wild animals on the brain because of yesterday’s post about roadkill cuisine. It was a post that prompted a follower or two to discontinue reading Liquorstore Bear, perhaps because it espoused a roadkill diet (“freeganism”), perhaps because of a cynical link to Pascal’s wager, or maybe because somebody couldn’t handle the truth about the would-be payload on Noah’s Ark (We’re taking on water, Japheth! Jettison the dinos!).

I’m as much of a stats whore as anybody else with a WordPress blog, so I did wonder who’d left me (I couldn’t figure it out), and what the exact proverbial straw had been for them. They’d stayed with me through bestiality, animal porn, unorthodox comments on pregnant drinking, plus all kinds of misguided astrological advice. I pictured the reader muttering, “I just wanted to know what wine goes with chicken, damn it.”

As you know, I’m not a food guy, but I still appreciate the question. Chicken cordon bleu? Chardonnay. Pad Thai? Sauvignon blanc. Prime rib? Shiraz or cab. Wine/food pairing notions have achieved pretty good societal penetration; everybody’s got a loose idea of what goes with what. But roadkill poses a challenge. And if you’re still with me, I hope it’s because you won’t mind this handy guide:

Meat

Wine

Badger

Merlot

Beaver

Zinfandel

Frog

Pinot Blanc

Groundhog

Pinot Noir

Kangaroo

Shiraz

Cat

Gewurztraminer

Badger meat
huntergathercook.typepad.com

Social convention, and nothing but, separates such animals from the ones you find in Save-On Foods. That and the fact that they’re gamey, riddled with ticks and often carrying TB. But don’t let that stop you—just cook ‘em really well.

Of course you know, my fellow inebriates, all this comes with lashings of hypocrisy. I don’t eat meat myself, and I feel anxious on behalf of my fellow animals on the lower part of the food chain. (I couldn’t very well recommend a wine pairing with bear, for example.) The geese worry me especially with their frantic honking and sudden movements. What’s to prevent anyone from pulling over the car on 201 Street, putting on the emergency lights for a minute, and hacking a goose’s head off with a machete?

Such a person would need only make a 180° turn to find the liquor store. They could stow the spurting goose in the trunk and shop for a complementary wine—Riesling, Gewurztraminer, or even Barolo.

This isn’t something I picture either of my parents doing. They are totally boring people. But they do frequent that liquor store, where there is a very good consultant, who recommended THE GARDEN PATH SHIRAZ CABERNET SAUVIGNON (2006). Made with fruit from Australia’s well regarded Langhorne Creek vineyard, this oak-aged blend exudes ripe currant, berries, and floral notes—leggy and purple in the glass. Medium- to full-bodied, THE GARDEN PATH is lush on the palate, fruit-forward but delicately balanced: a lovely, controlled fruit symphony that rewards the drinker with a satisfying finish.

Such a wine deserves to be enjoyed for its own merits, and THE GARDEN PATH offers such an intriguing array of taste harmonies that the best thing to do would be to decant it, then focus on every sip. But if, just before you unscrewed the bottle, the scent of barbecued squirrel happened to waft from your neighbor’s yard, you might want to put the bottle under your arm and invite yourself to dinner. (You might.)