FREIXENET CARTA NEVADA BRUT—Questionable choice to ring in the New Year

I love New Year and the sparkling wine that comes with it, but OMG, my fellow inebriates, I can’t get my nose into those narrow little flutes.

Thankfully, Miss P had a solution. She used an empty apple-sauce container as a trough for yours truly so I could enjoy New Year as well.DSCN2998

“Isn’t that a bit humiliating?” someone asked.

Well, you tell me. Is it more humiliating than trying to stuff your head into a 1.5-inch hole?

Ahhhh, but that’s how you enjoy the bubbly experience. Flute-shaped stemware helps retain carbonation with its reduced surface area at the opening. The whole idea is to reduce nucleation so the bubbles keep sparkling as long as possible.

But does it matter? With a champagne flute, I get nothing. With P’s trough, I get some of the cheap-ass bubbly (my parents went all out: $4.72 for a 200-mL bottle of FREIXENT CARTA NEVADA BRUT). Thing is, once it’s been poured into my trough, the bubbles are gone.DSCN2997

But how does it taste?

I’ve had it with bubbles and I’ve had it without. And it definitely needs bubbles. It needs them as a distraction from its tangy-sour-bitter nastiness. While Freixenet has some reasonable bubbly out there, this is not among those offerings. Imagine drinking something at the stroke of midnight that reminded you of dissolved Aspirin—persistent screaming high notes, a medicinal chord, and little else. All it has, my fellow inebriates, is fizz.

So do not drink it out of a trough, friends, even if a helpful little seven-year-old offers her apple-sauce cup for that purpose. This stuff is difficult to drink—it needs all the help that effervescence can give it. If the New Year’s ritual were important to you, maybe you could slug back one flute, but more would be masochistic.

My dad, however, went over the line. He threw his FREIXENET out without finishing it. Like no one would have helped him with it.

COPPER MOON SHIRAZ—Cheap stress relief when you almost lose your Chihuahua

OMG, we almost lost Chihuahua today. In the hurried exchange at the ferry terminal, Mum and Dad remembered to pick up the kids but left behind an Important Gym Bag containing Chihuahua, Fluffy Chihuahua (its newer doppelganger), Cookie (nondescript but beloved puppy) and Purple Bunny, who has been with our family as long as I have. OMG!!! The family drove away, leaving the bag in Arrivals.

Only when Nana sent a text to let Dad know there was also a pie in the bag did the family realize there was no bag. Panic set in. They left urgent messages with BC Ferries Lost & Found, scarfed down lunch at the restaurant where they were catching up with relatives they hadn’t seen in two years, and flew back to the terminal where, thankfully, the bag was waiting.DSCN2457

Thank goodness those animals are safe. Bedtime would have been a nightmare—it wouldn’t have happened without those animals in safekeeping. And thank goodness—as my dad said on the way home—we don’t live in a place where a bomb squad would have been called in to blast Chihuahua & Co. to smithereens.

But mostly, thank goodness I didn’t have to see V and P upset about their precious animals. Not that I mind being the occasional Comfort Animal—but I couldn’t have filled the void left by those yappy creatures.

Not without losing stuffing at least.

Not without losing stuffing at least.

copper moon 750mLBottom line: big stress, big relief. Which calls for wine. I’m thinking—since we burned $25 extra in gas today—we should buy some cheap wine. Maybe COPPER MOON Shiraz, which we first tried on Vancouver Island. Available in three sizes, starting at $8.69 for 750 mL, this Canadian offering is soft and drinkable—thoroughly inoffensive, but not at all playful or suggestive of any particular character.

Even if you’re not stressed out, COPPER MOON would be fine for you solid-foods eaters as a dinnertime accompaniment, and chances are you wouldn’t guess its low price. By extension you could foist it on dinner-party hosts without arousing their suspicions about your parsimony; with its tasteful label and mellow notes, they wouldn’t be the wiser—unless of course they’d espied the big honking box at BC Liquor Stores for $27.99. And who really skulks around the liquor store that much?

I know, I know…It’s how I cope with stress.