syrah

THE WOLFTRAP SYRAH MOURVEDRE VIOGNIER (2010)—Further proof of the Fluffy Problem

No matter what kinds of irresponsible shit I do, no matter how many hours I spend per day passed out or violating someone else’s personal space, my friends have my back.

I didn’t expect an outpouring of sympathy over my girlfriend Dolly’s defection to Fluffy, my deceased Granny’s teddy bear and probable golem. I failed Dolly in all sorts of ways—I even forgot about her for stretches. So I realize I deserved to get bounced.

But my friends rallied! Check it out, my fellow inebriates: my friend Scarybear, who doesn’t even really like me, had an idea.

OMG! Should I hit the “Like” button?

Except I really don’t hate Fluffy. He’s too out-to-lunch to warrant any antipathy. To give you an example of his coma state, the other night we were enjoying THE WOLFTRAP SYRAH/MOURVEDRE/VIOGNIER (2010), and I offered Fluffy some. He didn’t even move. What the hell?

A $15 Friday-night splurge, THE WOLFTRAP had caught my parents’ attention with its unusual blend of varietals, vinified separately and then combined as per South African winemaking law. Sixty-five percent syrah was the perfect answer to my fruit-forward jones, and the 32% mourvedre component promised to weigh in with earthy tannins and structure. And the bonus: 3% viognier for spice. The combo didn’t disappoint.

Although I never advocate cellaring anything unless you’re so made of money that you can afford other things to drink while your precious wines develop, I did find myself wondering what a year or two would do for THE WOLFTRAP. Yes, it was rich and heavy and leggy with generous black fruits, floral notes, spice, and it had a satisfying mellowness, but its oak ageing was quite conspicuous. I’d venture that—if one could handle waiting to crack this bottle—it would pay dividends in terms of maturity. Still, it didn’t lack for balance; it was an excellent casual sipper and a great find for the money.

If I were Fluffy and my new bear friend LB were offering me wine, I would have responded somehow—maybe nodded, advanced toward the glass, or something. But Fluffy was completely impassive.

AND YET. Since Fluffy arrived, Strange Things have been happening in the house. Noises. Cold spots. Girlfriend stealing.

I asked Dolly if it bothered her that Fluffy is probably possessed by Granny’s ghost. She said, “Isn’t he cuddly? He smells like Fleecy.” Punctuated with a giggle.

I think Dolly might be a sociopath. She is a known furvert (Type 4 furrie) whose fetish leads her to seek the sexual company of bears, but she nevertheless admires Toshiko Shek’s decapitated-bear purses. If there is a dichotomy here, Dolly is unaware of it.

Given Fluffy’s lack of response to Dolly’s affections and how undeterred she is, she might also be a necrophile. But I’ll stop right there because I don’t want to say anything bad about her.

I wish she’d come back. 😦

In the meantime, my friend Rachael had a tremendous idea:

I suggest trying a Ouija Board with Fluffy. Maybe you’ll be able to break through that catatonia and find the REAL reason that bear is so frighteningly quiet.

Would that work? We don’t have a Ouija board here at LBHQ; my mum has too much Catholic baggage to permit one in the house. So how can I get hold of one without her knowing???

MORSE CODE PADTHAWAY SHIRAZ (2009)

My Fellow Inebriates,

If only I could catch up on reviewing the wines we tasted over the holidays without becoming morose about the lack of wine in the house now. It’s tragic not to have any wine in the house—unreasonable really and a general travesty.

I can’t dwell on the superlative festive wines we drank last month or I’ll end up in tears. Instead let’s talk about MORSE CODE PADTHAWAY SHIRAZ (2009), a reasonably decent Australian offering ($13.99) with a healthy alcohol content (14.7%), a nice-looking label and a catchy name. Reviewing MORSE CODE won’t plunge me into desperation, simply because it wasn’t extraordinary. It was pretty good and certainly inoffensive, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to have it again, unless you were sitting beside me bogarting it or perhaps playing keepaway with it to hurt my feelings and impress on me how short I am and how much of a loser.

To wit: MORSE CODE is pretty good. I want to tell you that it’s fruit-driven but just saying that reminds me of this recipe for Chemical Apple Pie, described by its originator as “an old chemistry lab experiment to teach the limits of human senses.” The pie has no apples, if you follow me—but it apparently tastes like it’s made with ‘em.

So if I tell you a wine is fruit-driven or fruit-forward or fruity, well, I’m not trying to differentiate the wine from a UVIN chemical experiment in which fruit was not used. I’m just saying it’s a fruity-tasting Shiraz, meaning you can pick up on various berry and currant notes, plus the grapes that reviewers usually don’t think to mention.

MORSE CODE isn’t even the most fruity Shiraz—not by miles. But its product literature emphasizes that aspect of it, perhaps because the all the other flavors in MORSE CODE comprise an imperfect orchestra.

There’s a bunch of them: berries, currants, licorice, tannins, eucalyptus and—almost intrusively—tobacco. The whole thing is sort of tight, as though some of these flavors would like to knock the tobacco out but they’re too nervous to get a posse together.

We probably should have decanted this wine, and more importantly we probably shouldn’t have drunk it second to a better merlot that spoiled our palates. So I would give MORSE CODE another chance if somebody (the vintner maybe) sent me another bottle. I would decant it and let it open up for a good 45 minutes. I wouldn’t have any other wine before it; I would simply wait, twitching with DTs. Then I would knock it all back and dance on the table, wiggling my bum.

The resulting review would probably be more positive than this one, but unfortunately the experience I did have with MORSE CODE (sedate family dinner, better vino first) is all I’ve got. It tastes pretty good, and it would really appeal to fans of mouth-drying tannic and tobacco notes. The good news is it’s definitely made from grapes.

So would my mum ever make a Chemical Apple Pie? Holy crap, I hope not. Although if she did it would probably indicate a lowering of standards that might allow her to get out the debit card at the local UVIN and cook up 200 bottles of abysmal plonk for the dark days when I just need to pollute myself.

ESCORIHUELA 1884 RESERVADO SYRAH (2009)

The house was feeling downright funereal, and wine seemed in order. One of my visitors had urged an Argentine malbec upon me recently. No objections here, so I hustled my mum out the door to fetch one.

She really took her bloody time. I had to distract myself by reading the news, which filled me with paranoia and dread—especially this item, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/05/MN3V1LOKC9.DTL, about an asteroid that will barely (bearly) miss us next Tuesday. If only I’d been able to contact my miserable parent to exhort her to get three or four bottles so we could have a properly apocalyptic evening.

Unfortunately restraint ruled the day, and she returned with one wine bottle, and not a malbec (she was not to be, seemingly, commanded by a 7-inch ursine alcoholic) but a syrah, albeit from Argentina as per my instructions. Fair enough.

Scientists tell us very casually that asteroids skirt our atmosphere by mere hundreds of thousands of miles every decade or so. OMG, people. I had no idea. I thought the main threats to my life were young children bent on torture. I thought I might get accidentally beheaded one day maybe, or lose an eye. But here we have massive rocks the size of city blocks careening toward us with a frequency I couldn’t have imagined.

I asked my friend Scarybear if he knew about such things. He told me to chill out and added that I am a “retard.”

So when the wine came back I was relieved. I just had to endure some DTs throughout dinner/bedtime and we were on.

The 1884 RESERVADO syrah (2009) had a real cork, something I hadn’t seen in a while, and of course yet another reminder of my limitations vis a vis dexterity.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of this wine was that it was perfect out of the gate. No need to decant—my tremors bowed instantly to this supple, intensely violet, complex syrah.

As the wine opened up it revealed ripe black fruit, hints of mocha and vanilla, and lovely, balanced tannins. Aged in French and American oak for eight months, this wine lingers on the tongue with an unforgettable intensity.

And at $16.99 it’s an absolute steal: the sort of wine I RECOMMEND buying by the case—the sort of wine I’ll be hitting Santa up for this Christmas.

By the time we finished this bottle I didn’t even care about that stupid asteroid. But I’m still preoccupied with my thumblessness. Find me an invention so I can open bottles, people, and I’ll be yours forever.