As I was coming home from the show last night I got such a craving for red wine. I tend to lean towards white wines and blushes normally, mainly because they won’t give me "wine tongue" or "merlot mouth" while drinking them, but every now and then I ignore that and go for a nice cabernet. Last night I wanted, deeply, a shiraz. And since my other cravings have been denied (bah, Lent), I decided that this one should be fulfilled. I went on a hunt for a liquor store still open, but due to my shoddy memory of where to buy hootch in Lansdowne, I didn’t find places until after 5pm, i.e. closing time for the demon liquor providers in the Quaker State. Thus, my dream of curling up for the Oscars with a glass of red and popcorn while drooling over the funny and sexy Mr. Stewart was shattered.
But tomorrow is another day, right? I picked up some wine after work tonight. As I cooked dinner of asparagus risotto and chicken with vegetables in a cream sauce (I make it sound more impressive than it was. I bought it frozen from Trader Joe’s), Mike examined the bottle of Yellow Tail shiraz I had gotten.
"See, I never understand descriptions on alcohol. ‘Impressive spice, licorice and red berry aromas. This wine is perfectly balanced with silky tannins, accompanied by big, ripe fruit flavors.’ Can you really taste all of that in the wine?"
"Um…sort of," I said as I poured myself a glass. "You sort of need to be paying attention to it…and…also, sometimes the food you’re eating will bring different things out. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain."
By saying this, what I really meant is: You need to drink more to understand.
I took my first sip of the shiraz and what I tasted was not the licorice, berry, or even the grapes. What I really tasted was summer. I tasted the twilight on a balmy July evening. I tasted bare feet and fire flies and good conversation.
Sometimes, when you taste or smell something, you can be transplanted back to a Happy Place. And that’s what the shiraz did for me. I was taken back to this past summer, or late spring at the very earliest. It was before Tree and Al had moved to Baltimore and we were gathered on their back deck. By "we" I mean the girls: Nina, Laren, myself, and of course Tree. Al had been banished somewhere, possibly he was with Jon or working late. We had gathered to talk about writing because at this point we were a "writing group" together, although we had just started out. Of course once we all convened on the deck and the wine came out, talking about writing was out of the question. We talked instead about boys (I was in a full-fledged raging CRUSH on Boy at this point, and I can’t remember if we talked about him specifically or not), our career hopes, friends we had lost track of, how we wanted to be moderately fabulous, religion, and of course memories. We sat there and talked the entire evening, until all the cheese was gone and it had gotten too dark to see Nina sitting across the deck. The night wasn’t particularly exciting or full of Big Moments or anything. It was just a perfectly relaxed, happy, enjoyable evening spent chatting with girlfriends. I remember thinking as I drove home (in Red Menace, so it was before Albus came into the picture) about how simple and nice it had been. And how I had wanted to make it into a regular thing. But then Tree and Al moved and so did I and writing fell by the wayside and we all got caught up in our various lives.
That night, specifically, is what I tasted when I had my first sip of shiraz. I tried explaining this to Mike after I had swallowed and come back to reality. He didn’t get it. Again, Mike, you need to drink more.
But I did. I wasn’t craving the shiraz, I was craving the people I drink it with. The ones who don’t care that my lips and teeth get stained within 4 sips. The ones who will listen to me lament about Boys who don’t get it. The ones who will constantly amuse me. The ones I love.
But tomorrow is another day, right? I picked up some wine after work tonight. As I cooked dinner of asparagus risotto and chicken with vegetables in a cream sauce (I make it sound more impressive than it was. I bought it frozen from Trader Joe’s), Mike examined the bottle of Yellow Tail shiraz I had gotten.
"See, I never understand descriptions on alcohol. ‘Impressive spice, licorice and red berry aromas. This wine is perfectly balanced with silky tannins, accompanied by big, ripe fruit flavors.’ Can you really taste all of that in the wine?"
"Um…sort of," I said as I poured myself a glass. "You sort of need to be paying attention to it…and…also, sometimes the food you’re eating will bring different things out. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain."
By saying this, what I really meant is: You need to drink more to understand.
I took my first sip of the shiraz and what I tasted was not the licorice, berry, or even the grapes. What I really tasted was summer. I tasted the twilight on a balmy July evening. I tasted bare feet and fire flies and good conversation.
Sometimes, when you taste or smell something, you can be transplanted back to a Happy Place. And that’s what the shiraz did for me. I was taken back to this past summer, or late spring at the very earliest. It was before Tree and Al had moved to Baltimore and we were gathered on their back deck. By "we" I mean the girls: Nina, Laren, myself, and of course Tree. Al had been banished somewhere, possibly he was with Jon or working late. We had gathered to talk about writing because at this point we were a "writing group" together, although we had just started out. Of course once we all convened on the deck and the wine came out, talking about writing was out of the question. We talked instead about boys (I was in a full-fledged raging CRUSH on Boy at this point, and I can’t remember if we talked about him specifically or not), our career hopes, friends we had lost track of, how we wanted to be moderately fabulous, religion, and of course memories. We sat there and talked the entire evening, until all the cheese was gone and it had gotten too dark to see Nina sitting across the deck. The night wasn’t particularly exciting or full of Big Moments or anything. It was just a perfectly relaxed, happy, enjoyable evening spent chatting with girlfriends. I remember thinking as I drove home (in Red Menace, so it was before Albus came into the picture) about how simple and nice it had been. And how I had wanted to make it into a regular thing. But then Tree and Al moved and so did I and writing fell by the wayside and we all got caught up in our various lives.
That night, specifically, is what I tasted when I had my first sip of shiraz. I tried explaining this to Mike after I had swallowed and come back to reality. He didn’t get it. Again, Mike, you need to drink more.
But I did. I wasn’t craving the shiraz, I was craving the people I drink it with. The ones who don’t care that my lips and teeth get stained within 4 sips. The ones who will listen to me lament about Boys who don’t get it. The ones who will constantly amuse me. The ones I love.
1 Comments:
oh katie. I miss those nights too! We must have them again and soon. Love, Tree
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