wine

No chardonnay for you, zombies!!

My Fellow Inebriates,

No matter what we like to think, the little people run the show around here. This makes my days much more wholesome than I’d prefer. It also means a lot of random and scary things happen to me. You never know—I could get sealed up in a fluffy pink purse for days, freaking out, and no one would help me.

It’s all about imagination, though. For four- and five-year-old girls it’s a pink and purple world, all unicorns and birthday parties and singing ponies. They love to make wishes. In fact, they’ll wish on anything: dandelion seeds, birthday candles, the moon—and lately the bay leaf in the soup. These monkeys will fight to get that bay leaf, because they believe it has magical powers. It’s a damn good thing no one’s grooming them to be albino hunters, because they have enough savagery to be good at it.

So last night the five-year-old emerged from the evening scrap with the coveted bay leaf. With 24 days to go until Santa comes, I figured she’d wish for presents or a big Christmas tree or maybe a trip to Walmart to buy some giant blow-up snowman or something. But she didn’t. Instead little Cindy-Lou Who said: “My wish is for Granny to come back so she can be here for Christmas.”

OMG. See, here’s the thing. Granny is dead. She died almost a month ago. So if Granny did come back she’d be, well, a zombie. My parents should really have explained that to their well-meaning little girl, don’t you think? They should have said, “Hey now, don’t go wishing for Granny to come back from the dead. We have to keep the dead dead. Otherwise they become the undead. The only way Granny can come back is as a zombie, and you don’t want that. Do you, kiddo?”

Just that simple! A five-year-old could totally understand that! But instead my parents just kept letting her make that scary wish on the bay leaf. I’m a tiny bit embarrassed to tell you…I’m actually terrified it will come true.

And I am freaking scared of zombies!!

Don’t get me wrong, I liked Granny. She was a person who understood bears, and she would sometimes split a bottle of chardonnay with me, although if we’re being honest she usually got most of it. It’s comforting to think she’s at some wine bar in the sky, but my fervent little human friends have seeded a more sinister idea now—that Granny will come lurching back from the dead looking for us. OMG!

The first order of business, then, is to eliminate the white wine, because ZG (Zombie Granny) would come looking for that first. Luckily (in this case at least) we don’t carry much inventory at LB HQ, but we do have one gorgeous bottle of California Cult Classics chardonnay tucked away. OMG, chardonnay! That would be ZG’s absolute favorite. So we obviously have to drink it so it’s not here, tempting the undead.

Give me vodka and I’m yours

My Fellow Inebriates,

I have a new favorite person in my life, which is too bad for Julia Gale of Broker’s Gin, with whom I was thoroughly enamored until she advised me to cross the border into the U.S. to buy her fine product (although she did clue me in to it being 47% proof rather than the 40% I’d find in Ontario).

Nope! Not Blackie. Safe for another day, buddy.

Why I fear traveling to the United States

I can’t imagine I’d be welcome in the States. The border guards couldn’t fingerprint me, and my sewn-up rectum precludes a cavity check. Not to mention, as a bear and therefore technically wild game, I’m frightened as f#ck to even share a continent with Alaska, and the knowledge that Chuck Testa has stuffed a bear almost identical to my bro Blackie Bear keeps me up at night. Basically paranoia and angst, plus my inability to reach the gas pedal of a car, will keep me out of that great nation to the south.

So toodles, Julia, and hello Pixie! Yes, my new favorite person is named Pixie. Yesterday Pixie, touched by my pleas to replenish the liquor cabinet, sent my dad home with a lovely bottle of California Cult Classics chardonnay and a freaky skull-shaped bottle of vodka.

My dad has kept his acquaintance with Pixie a big secret from me for several years, probably because he thinks I would stalk her, which I intend to.

This is exactly how I imagined LB headquarters operating, with a healthy influx of booze to keep me from feeling unloved, and two new products that await thoughtful tasting.

My deepest thanks to Pixie, not just for caring about my inventory and keeping the enterprise going, but for believing in me and touching my heart with her generosity. I am going to get totally wrecked on that chardonnay and chase it with the vodka.

SANTA RITA 120 CABERNET FRANC-CARMENERE-CABERNET SAUVIGNON (2010)

My Fellow Inebriates,

Apparently my DTs were a minor matter to my parents last night, as they decanted our chosen bottle of wine and let it sit for almost 45 minutes before I got my chance at it.

One of many offerings from Chile’s SANTA RITA, the 120 CABERNET FRANC-CARMENERE-CABERNET SAUVIGNON smelled young and thin, like an ordinary table wine. I’m not saying I wasn’t excited, because I was totally dry and would have gone for anything at that point. I’m just saying the fragrance that initially wafted from this vino didn’t quite transport me.

So the first sip was a splendid surprise. Whereas the smell had hinted at thinness, the wine actually had good body, lots of fruit, nice acidity and warm tannins.

It wasn’t as complex as I would have liked. Once the initial rush of alcohol had calmed my jones and the ability to discern flavor had kicked in, I found myself wishing for more…more something.

It did have some stuff going on. Behind the blackcurrent and plum notes there was a satisfying leathery twang to it, a hint of Elastoplasts that kept me returning for a curious sip. It was very fruity, but somehow full of contradictory tastes.

I should mention I was watching Breaking Bad, this show about a chemistry teacher who decides to start cooking crystal meth and ends up in all kinds of scary situations. There was this scene where he taped a big bandage to a horrible-looking leg gash, which might have suggested bandages to me, but not the specific brand name I was tasting. I definitely think the wine hinted at Elastoplasts rather than Band-Aids. You may think that’s very pretentious of me to distinguish between the two, but if any given plonk-reviewer can assert the ascendency of cassis over blueberry in a wine, then I can tell you which type of bandage I think might have fallen off someone’s toe during the stomping.

Breaking Bad actually stresses me out, and the wine helped a lot. I’m kind of an idiot when I watch TV because I forget it’s pretend. With its 13.5% alcohol content, the SANTA RITA 120 blend calmed my jitters and eased away the idea that druglords were going to attack the house. There isn’t even any crystal meth here, peeps, because my parents are super-boring, and that’s okay.