wine

COUNCIL’S PUNCH BOWL SAUVIGNON BLANC (2011)—S’not much better than this

My dad busted Miss P the other day for smearing her boogers on the wall.

No one had thought to tell her not to do it. But when Dad caught her in the act, all the weird grey-brown sticky patches on the walls—over the last year—made sense.

As for my mum, she must have just thought that walls do that—they develop brownish, unidentifiably adhesive streaks over time. The thought had occurred to neither of them that P would excavate one or both nostrils and deposit the treasure on the walls.

Dad had just finished painting the girls’ room pink with purple polka dots, a process he took so seriously and performed so exactingly that he had difficulty allowing anyone else to pick up a brush. His scrutiny of these walls was already intense, which enabled him to notice P’s dried slime and, if not put two and two together, at least have an Oprah-style (albeit lesser) aha moment when he finally witnessed the crime.

Needless to say, he was really grossed out.

Finding snot all over the walls, I suggested, was sufficiently traumatic to warrant opening a bottle of wine. As long as the wine wasn’t sticky or gluey or brownish like P’s old boogers.

Who knew that Nana and Papa would arrive the very next day with COUNCIL’S PUNCH BOWL (2011) from Ganton & Larsen Prospect Winery? This fresh, unoaked Sauvignon offers up lively tropical and orchard scents and hits the palate with refreshing dry crispness—like a sunny, booger-free meadow.

As you know, at LBHQ we don’t usually gravitate to light, refreshing wines with only 12% alcohol. Neither does my Nana, who bought the wine by accident. A happy accident, I say, because we needed something with light and fruity high notes to overcome the lingering effects of a household-wide realization that throughout the course of who-knows-how-many months the walls have been gradually painted with a six-year-old’s nasal drippings.

Enormous thanks to Nana for mistakenly buying this summer sipper (a steal at $13!). Needless to say, she’s been apprised of the booger situation, and no doubt when she and Papa return to Vancouver Island, where the kids stayed a couple of weeks ago, they’ll assiduously check the walls for snot trails.

There are worse things to find on the walls, of course. My mum read a scene in a novel this morning in which a severed arm was thrown against a wall four times. Snot’s not so bad. S’not so bad. But COUNCIL’S PUNCH BOWL is much better.

BARAHONDA ROBLE MONASTRELL SYRAH (2008)—Whatever the hell Labor Day is, this wine should be part of it

In diapers

For bears like me and Scarybear (and lately Fluffy too), Labor Day marks not the beginning of an arduous work cycle but the end of two months of being dragged through the yard, decorated with flowers, festooned with miniature ponies, draped with various dishtowel-cum-frocks (you know what I mean, don’t be dirty)—in short, a laborious summer. We bears don’t care if we can’t wear white shoes after September 3, as long as we don’t have to don any more dresses—at least not before 3 p.m. each weekday. Yes! The kids—both kids—are returning to school, and we bears will be left to hang out and stare at the walls, or whatever you might think we do when nobody’s looking.

In bondage

What the hell does Labor Day signify anyway? Who really has the whole summer off? Nobody at LBHQ had the summer off. Dad worked, Mum worked (here and there), the kids worked on their X-box skills, Scary and I got worked over by the kids, and we all changed headquarters, which was a lot of damn work.

Despite the bear abuse freely countenanced by my parents, I’ll miss summer. The best thing about it was that, as soon as it got hot out, my dad would buy beer. In fact, everything about our summer was a trigger to buy beer. Packing? Beer! Moving? Beer! Unpacking? Beer!

But surely autumn offers equivalent booze-buying triggers. If anything the approach of inclement weather should spur us to polish off the gin, pound any lager occupying the fridge, and welcome heavier, more robust delights like the BARAHONDA ROBLE MONASTRELL SYRAH (2008).

Also known as Mourvèdre, Monastrell grapes are known for producing intensely fruity, tannic, high-alcohol wines that, if not aged correctly, can evince barnyardy notes. The grapes are hard to please, preferring hot sun and high irrigation plus a crapload of viticultural TLC. Monastrell is often blended with Syrah because of the tannic structure it imparts, as with BARAHONDA ROBLE.

Our favorite liquor store consultant hadn’t yet tried this wine; he said it was new to the store. But he did advise pairing it with food—barbecued animal perhaps, or pasta with red sauce. Even though this dude is the full-on maestro when it comes to wine tasting, we decided to ignore his advice. My mother assured him she would cut some cheese, which was a lie, at least in one sense.

At the time of drinking, the kids were on Vancouver Island with their (our) grandparents. The house was very quiet and calm. The mess hadn’t ratcheted up throughout the day. There wasn’t the usual post-bedtime fallout and clean-up. I’d spent the day on the same part of the couch all day, unsummoned for play. It was eerie.

Now, either this weird calmness conjured up some crazy, silvery sensitivity on our palates, or BARAHONDA ROBLE was freaking awesome. Maybe both. Rich maroon in the glass, it demonstrated generous legs as it whispered huskily of blackberries and oaky refinement. Swirled in the glass, those blackfruit flavors concentrated into an olfactory rush, layering on luscious dark fruits.

And the sip? OMG, my fellow inebriates!! Does wine really taste that much better with the kids out of the house or was this wine just that insanely good? Ahhhh, to ever know that, we’d have to buy another bottle and drink it with the kids at home. But yes, this wine is—apologies, Robert Parker—this wine is fucking-A. Crossing the front palate like an old-money guest with an armload of gifts, BARAHONDA ROBLE redoubles the fruit-laden generosity promised to the nose with cherry, dried fruit, and gorgeous minerality. It unloads its parcels in the foyer then charges to mid-palate, still producing gifts—well-integrated oak, rich jam, and deep earthiness. It continues rhapsodically discharging these wondrous flavours, finishing with grippy tannins before depositing its wonderful 14% alcohol in one’s furry tummy.

Was it a sensory orgy? BARAHONDA ROBLE was too disciplined, too structured for that. It stopped just short of that, and just as well. You wouldn’t—couldn’t—get the impression that this wine wasn’t in control of the dance.

What a marvelous under-$20 find from the Spanish wine aisle in our local booze shop. A spectacular summer ender, too, and a product to stock for the coming cold months.

With a product like BARAHONDA ROBLE warming your fur, who needs summer? Labor Day’s arrival is welcome, especially if it occasions another wine purchase.

THE WOLFTRAP VIOGNIER CHENIN BLANC GRENACHE BLANC (2011)—Another one Dad missed out on

My mother and I made twin (fraternal, not identical) realizations this week.

Hers: When we buy gin we drink it all. We mustn’t buy gin.

Mine: When we buy gin we drink it all. We must buy in bulk. We must get more samples. We must take our gin consumption to the next level.

These complementary insights aside, it was a good week for drinking. We moved house, which involved a lot of beer, and my dad went on another golf-tourney-calling-itself-a-business trip, which always means white wine. You see, my fellow inebriates, my dad isn’t a fan of white wine, so whenever he goes away, we buy it. For several reasons:

We deserve it. We are doing all bedtimes, all meals, all playdates, all the time. We need it.

We are afraid. We don’t know yet if Fluffy left his paranormal squatter at the old townhouse or if he moved with us. And since this house, being older, naturally goes bump in the night, we won’t know for a while if Fluffy is still haunted. So we need something at night to take the edge off while Dad’s away.

My dad is useless about white wine. He doesn’t get it at all. So we break it out when he leaves town.

This time we chose THE WOLFTRAP VIOGNIER CHENIN BLANC GRENACHE BLANC (2011). We hadn’t been disappointed by this much-lauded South African winery before, and we had $15 bucks (and not much else) left over after paying the movers, which amounted to a hell yes.

The only downside to drinking white wine are the tall glasses. I have to stand on my toes to get any—you’ll have to believe me because my mum wouldn’t take a picture (she said I was a narcissist). Although we have a set of Reidel stemless red wine glasses, we’ve resisted buying their white counterparts—because why would you want to get your sweaty paws all over your lovely chilled glass? Whether the glass shape makes a perceptible difference…I defer to The Dogs of Beer.

After a long day of unpacking (one of us) and observing the unpacking (the one without thumbs), THE WOLFTRAP was exactly the wine we needed. French oak-matured, this intriguing blend features 57% Viognier, 32% Chenin Blanc, and 11% Grenache Blanc. It wafts scented pear and grapefruit peel with ripe peaches behind—all items bears crave and would root through someone’s garbage for. But unlike my friend Scarybear’s Ideal Lunch, these aromas are zesty and fresh, with satisfying follow-through on the palate. The mouthfeel is generous and layered, almost buttery yet zingy with hints of vanilla and hazelnut, lingering much longer than I had any business expecting.

This intriguing white blend is a find for under $15—well worth having again, even if my dad’s home, which he is now. Did I mention he won a bike at his company’s golf tournament? Not bad, Dad! But he forgot to wear sunblock, so now he looks like a lobster.