wine tasting

ROBERT OATLEY SHIRAZ (2009)—Fails to lure Glen Bear back to LBHQ

My Fellow Inebriates,

Glen Bear has disappeared.

Glen Bear attacking Miss P

Glen Bear attacking Miss P, 2006.

You may not remember Glen…. Big fluffy polar bear…hates summer, likes the freezer, could devour a whole seal if one flippered its way through the house….

I started looking for Glen last week when the temperature dipped under 0° (Celsius, my fellow inebriates, otherwise I would have been dead). Glen only really likes his environment when it’s freezing cold, and it’s the only time he’ll allow a cuddle. I needed him to warm me up. And that’s when I realized he’d vanished.

Scary, me, Glen Bear, and Carnivorous Duck, late 2006. Only Glen was happy about the snow.

Scary, me, Glen Bear, and Carnivorous Duck, late 2006. Only Glen was happy about the snow.

My dad said he moved with us for sure back in August. But I can’t really remember. The last time I saw him, the kids had stuffed him into some tight space—maybe a backpack or a box—but what happened to him after that? I don’t even remember which house we were living in then!

It’s sort of a good lesson about drinking, really. Being blasted all the time, I haven’t paid enough attention to Glen’s whereabouts. A big animal like Glen could lumber off anywhere. Polar bears have ridiculous olfactory sensitivity; he might have smelled a female down the street and gone off in pursuit.

Miss P says he didn’t go anywhere. She says Glen “doesn’t really walk.” I said of course not, of course Glen doesn’t walk—he has more of a four-legged gait.

Glen looks more like this when he drinks Polar Ice

Glen looks more like this when he drinks Polar Ice.

When Glen gets mobile, the floor shakes. He’s at least 50 percent bigger than Scarybear—a massive, awesome creature (also our under-recognized resident vodka expert).

So where is Glen???? The kids are curiously unconcerned. One thing is clear, though—if I’m to manage my anxiety, I’ll need some liquor. Not vodka, though—that would remind me of Glen. Maybe ROBERT OATLEY SHIRAZ (2009).

The Mudgee region is one of Australia’s less-advertised wine areas, known mostly for providing blending grapes for such larger wineries as Hunter Valley. ROBERT OATLEY SHIRAZ represents a Mudgee play for higher status. Let’s open it.

Glen has helped me open bottles occasionally, mostly by smashing them, but in his absence my parents had to help. First impressions are earthy, peppery, dense fruit with a hint of taxidermy. The scent does not radiate good behavior, but 14.1% is what’s needed to contend with an anxiety like Glen’s disappearance.

robert oatley shiraz 2009The first sip of ROBERT OATLEY SHIRAZ is a reinforcement of concentrated fruits: blackcurrant, tinned jam, decent acidity, moderate-to-aggressive tannins, and distant wombat farts. Which is to say: it’s not half bad. For you solidovores, it would pair nicely with savory foods, barbecued meats and such. For my “liquids-only” friends, it’s a bit of a chore on its own. Likely you’ll be comparing it to the last really good Australian Shiraz you enjoyed—and there are so many out there that comparisons will pop out immediately. ROBERT OATLEY SHIRAZ approaches the good-natured drinkability of its typical $20 Australian cohort, but it evinces too many conflicting and barnyardy notes to hang with truly awesome Shirazes. It’s just okay, and maybe even a little obnoxious.

Drinking a bottle of Shiraz did not sharpen our memories as to where we last saw Glen—not mine or my parents’. As for the kids, they think maybe he went with them to Nana and Papa’s. Or to school. Or no, maybe not either. They don’t care; they’re watching TV.

FABULOUS ANT PINOT NOIR (2011)—Bad taste? Don’t look at the wine, look at my family…

Despite five years under her belt, and perhaps because she has an aversion to Barney and anything he promotes, Miss V does not possess an “indoor voice.” Thus when she tried on a necklace in Walmart’s jewellery section and declared, “THIS NECKLACE IS TOO BIG, MUMMY, IT HANGS ALL THE WAY TO MY VAGINA,” the family pretty much scored a Walmart Bingo.

I heard about it after a lonely day at home trying to open a bottle of FABULOUS ANT PINOT NOIR (2011). Screw tops sometimes yield to the paws, especially if I can recruit other bears to help, and in this case I lucked out…the bottle had been opened the previous evening. How I didn’t notice this I don’t know. I just assumed it was sealed because my parents rarely, if ever, leave a bottle of red wine unfinished. They are wine gluttons.

FABULOUS ANT, however, had suffered only a tiny sample. This was a bad sign. Not for me, of course—I was over the moon about getting the bottle open—but for the wine in general, which may well have been deemed soup- or stew-worthy and placed for that very purpose where I found it by the stove.

Additionally, this Hungarian Pinot Noir’s presence at LBHQ represented a violation of a cardinal wine-buying rule: no animal labels! The $13.99 price tag, too, was potentially iffy.

Pinot Noir is a famously unforgiving grape, both to cultivate and to vinify. When it’s good, it’s very very good, and when it’s bad it’s horrid. Thus $13.99 for Pinot Noir is more of a gamble than $13.99 for Cab or Shiraz. Often thought of as a “food wine,” Pinot Noir is lighter than those full-bodied varietals and gives greater rein to the earthier characteristics of its terroir—at the expense of a certain lushness, perhaps (the reason my parents hadn’t finished it). Indeed, if you’re used to big, sumptuous reds, Pinot Noir’s relative thinness (not to mention its slightly lower alcohol percentage) may come as a shock. But there are things to savor.

Aficionados of the grape delight in Pinot Noir’s earthiness. Truffles, game, strawberries, cherries, and leather are just some of its sought-after tasting notes, although with its delicacy, it can sometimes fail to mask a preponderance of earthy tones. When done right, these flavors play back-up to balanced fruit and tannins while politely conveying the character of the growing region.

Very well, but do these positives apply to FABULOUS ANT? Hell no, my fellow inebriates. FABULOUS ANT is okay, and it stops short of being offensive, but in a word it’s sallow. It doesn’t do the nuanced dance that Pinot Noir fans seek, nor is it robust enough to clobber you with fruit if you’re not seeking nuance.

Basically, if you’re not a fan of Pinot Noir, you won’t be converted. If you already dislike lighter wines, its less-than-opaque tawny color won’t win you over, nor will its sharper chords, carried as they are on a halfhearted wave of dank earth. It won’t gross you out, but it won’t give you an overwhelming urge to buy more Pinot Noir.

A fellow Walmart shopper

If you are a fan of Pinot Noir, you’ll probably find FABULOUS ANT to be par for the course in its price range. You’ll probably drink it with baked salmon or pasta and it’ll be fine.

Fine I was not by the time everyone came home from Walmart. Sure, FABULOUS ANT has only 12.5% alcohol, but I’m a little bear. I was so wrecked that I continued to hear all sorts of irregular stuff:

From my parents, regarding Movember:

“IF YOU GROW A MOUSTACHE THEN ANY ACTION IS GOING TO HAVE TO HAPPEN FROM BEHIND.” For some men this would be motivating, but they haven’t met my mother. Holy crap, people, I wish I could un-hear that.

From P and V in the bath:

“LET’S BUMP VAGINAS! READY? ONE! TWO! THREE!”

Big splash.

“OWWWW!”

JAMES MITCHELL CABERNET SAUVIGNON—Big enough to chase away your trauma

My Fellow Inebriates,

Unless you are unnaturally hirsute, if you haven’t started cultivating your Movember stache you are pretty much shit-out-of-luck. Even if you start now, there you’ll be on November 30 going, Look everybody, look at my upper lip, look at my rad…baby-soft down. You’ll have to watch your copiously moustachioed pals head off for their triumphant end-of-Movember shave while your own peach-fuzz trophy succumbs meekly to the Hair-Off Mitten®.

Despite this logic, my dad has steadfastly refused to get his stache on. At first he cited work policy: “No facial hair.” But then he slipped up and mentioned that several coworkers were doing it.

“So you have to do it. You have to do it, Dad, because I can’t.” You see, I had only recently realized the static nature of my own fur growth. It is what it is, people; it doesn’t grow! (I’d always thought I was just growing and shedding simultaneously like wild bears do. OMG! This revelation was almost as traumatic as the one about my missing genitals.)

I meant to keep bugging my dad but was distracted by the severed arm we saw on the way home from elementary school drop-off. Any other day of the year I would have panicked, and for a second I did, but then my two brain cells reminded each other that yesterday was Halloween.

At afternoon pick-up the arm was still there although it had been tossed from the curb to someone’s front yard. Five-year-old Miss V asked casually if it was real or fake. She seemed receptive to either answer.

When you see something as shocking as a severed arm, you need to process the image so the horror doesn’t overwhelm you. You might even need a sedative to arrest the involuntary recapitulation of the unspeakable apparition by your unwilling retinae. I sought such a chemical this evening in JAMES MITCHELL CABERNET SAUVIGNON (2009). Its 13.9% alcohol seemed just the ticket.

Grapes from the Lodi region of central California enjoy a Mediterranean-style climate with warm days and cool nights, along with rugged, loamy soil. JAMES MITCHELL CABERNET SAUVIGNON is a good example of the area’s brawny viticulture. From the moment the cork is extracted this wine takes no prisoners—boisterously rich black cherry and lingonberry come out swinging with a hefty dose of oak, flaunting the wine’s quintessential Cabernetness like a handlebar moustache.

With these olfactory harbingers, the sipping doesn’t disappoint. This is a big, gorgeous Cab that doesn’t pull punches. If it’s been a while since you’ve had a Cabernet, get ready for a striking one. Tannins parch the tongue masterfully as berries, oak, and licorice go to town on your mid-palate; the finish reverberates with lingering dark fruit. This is a serious wine for those who like getting down with big, bold booze. And if you get some in your moustache, well, you get to enjoy it even longer.

All of which is much better than dwelling on severed arms or your dad’s non-compliance with Movember.