I Promised a Wine Rant!

Wine, wine… like the sign says, ‘Wine a little, you’ll feel better!’ So, in the spirit of distraction, here we go. First off, it's Pinot, not 'pea-not', and definitely not 'piño'. It's French, not Mexican! And folks, there are many different Pinots. If you ask for Pinot, you need to finish the phrase, not stand there and act like the wine specialist is the idiot when they don't know which one you want. Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier... they aren't all the same. And please, for the love of God, it's Pinot Noir, not 'pea-not no-water.'

Don't ask for 'red wine' or 'white wine' when there is a variety of each and act like it's a nuisance when you are asked for more specifics. Hmm... Champagne comes from France. The Champagne region of France, hard as that may be to believe. Sparkling wine is what comes from other places, like California. Hell, even 90% of sparkling French wine isn't Champagne. Oh, and Muscat and Moscato are dessert wines. Moscato is typically carbonated, but not always. Bubbly Moscato is not automatically Moscato d'Asti- Asti is a region in Italy, where effervescent Muscat wine originated. D'Asti means it's from Asti, that's all. Look for the green DOCG tag sealing the stopperage to the bottle.

Finally, Syrah and Shiraz are the same grape, same wine, with usual differences that come from the terroir, of course. Oh, and incidentally, Shiraz is pronounced shur-oz, not sheer-azz.

Enough wine-ing for right now… brief tangent, that I can express best (here, at least) with this quote: “I know what happened to them. It’s happening all over. Bad apples taking over the barrel.” And is it any wonder? The bad apples are the ones that are rewarded now. Anyway, I just have to pray that the prediction of one of my best friends doesn’t come true in this situation. I’ll just say simply that Jann was right… at times, at least. I wasn’t born for these days.

Ah, that's better. I turned ranting into general philosophy, lol. Let's see here, what else. Oh, one awesome quote from Chef Scott the other night, when I was carrying a really tall vase. His opinion was blunt: "Hell, let's take that thing and use it as a mead horn! Bolt two of those things onto a helmet and we'll get tanked. Have a damn Ragnarok in the front yard!" Gotta love his easy going attitude, surprising knowledge of Norse mythology… and his creative use of glassware, lol.

As always, more to come when time allows. Hopefully over the weekend or next week, amidst finals! Take care out there, everyone. Don't die this summer. Quite enough of that already.