THREESOMES



My long convalescence and continued vampiric schedule keeping me away from all but the most overtly accessible weekend jeebi, I am condemned to sit at home and open bottles by my monitor's blue glow, my only contact with the outside world being drunken emails with whichever unlucky geek also happens to be awake and chatty at three in the morning.

This kind of isolation leads to an overheated fantasy life--I wake up many a morning and shake my bemused spouse awake with convoluted dreams of old flames and winesoaked lubricity. She wisely files them away for practical use at a later date, as in "I'm not doing the dishes tonight, YOU'RE the one who dreamed about two of your old girlfriends and a vat of marshmallow cream..."

So. Which particular earthly delights will this week bring to the thorny garden of my unconscious? Let me see now...


MONDAY: To start the week off right it's me and two swinging Touraine gamays, Clos Roche Blanche Gamay Touraine 2000 and Marionnet Gamay Touraine 'Vinifera' Non Greffˇes 2000.

The CRB is earthier, leaner, less flamboyant, more matte black-purple, less red and glossy. Not very aromatic in its youth, the dark strawberry-plum fruit is quiet and substantial but not flashy -- it wears earthtone lipstick and sensible shoes. I love just hanging out with this wine doing chores around the house or paying the bills; there are few more reassuring and undemanding companions. It has never yet lied to me; there isn't an ounce of falsehood in its body and although it won't win any bathing beauty contests it's a salt-of-the-earth charmer, the freckled girl in overalls who lives across the street and brings you zucchini bread every year.

The Marionnet is much more bodacious, curvaceously fruity, rich and concentrated but not at all dense--there's a silkysoft partygirl streak here that borders on the flamboyant. But wait, the initial strawberried forwardness pulls back in the midpalate, turns honed and works its way into a tangy humming cherry-pit finish with a trace of light glossy tannins. A devil-may-care wine, the redfruit dances with tipsy abandon, gets its dress tangled over its head as it attempts to skinnydip in the moonlight, then falls and sits giggling helplessly by the fire for a good five minutes. The juice of gamay grown on its own roots likes to party, take my word for it, but when some attention is paid it becomes clear that this is no airhead.


TUESDAY: It's a dark rendezvous with two malbecs, Clos Roche Blanche Rouge Côt Touraine 1999 and Altos Las Hormigas Malbec Mendoza 2001.

The CRB is an angular slab of obsidian, dark and lean and glassy-sharp, quiet on the nose, shivlike acidity slicing up into my soft parts with a rush of hard red-black fruit, promising delights then leaving me crumpled in the gutter and roaring off cackling in a cloud of rough tannins. This wine is Tura Satana in Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, tightlipped with a cruel streak, needs twenty years to mellow, another ten to be approachable, five more to be safe to meet the parents. An imposing wine, not for the Kane of heart. Faint, I mean. Not for the faint of heart.

The ALH is an old cheapie favorite burger wine, but this year's version seems to have let itself go. Initially dominated by yeasty-candy-blackfruit aromatics, the nose settles down a bit with some air time but turns towards tarriness and scorched blackberry. The wine seems vague, loosey-goosey and diffuse, still an easygoing simple burger wine but with more of an astringent woodpuckery streak coming out on the finish, which otherwise could hint at espresso beans. A plain, cherubic wine that knows it's not a stunner but tries to please, this could be a decent companion for a night at home in sweatpants and socks. After a few hours though, it becomes apparent that we don't have a lot to talk about. I haven't sat down with this for a few years, and either we've grown apart or it has grown slatternly. Or perhaps both.

I find it charming that these two wines retail for approximately the same price (I paid $10 for the ALH, $11 for the CRB), one an easygoing jammy quaffer, one a coiled dominatrix demanding dark years in the cellar. Ain't wine funny that way?

Just say yes, humor me.

Thanks.


WEDNESDAY: Midweek is the time to hang with two Chinons, Baudry Chinon 1997 and Baudry Chinon 1998.

The '97 is quiet, smellisticallywise. Light red cranberry and a vague dark tarry note underneath, hints of Band-AidŖ brand adhesive bandage along with a dash of moist fur. Tastes more lively than it smells, medium-bodied and precise, if a bit lean and mousey. Pretty decent if you don't mind a little brett, your friend's sister with braces who you take to the movies once as a favor and to whom you are extremely polite.

The '98 is medium to medium-light garnet in color, smells cherry-stony, flecks of rubber tire and tobacco. Some tart fruit races up to greet you, but the midpalate turns vague and watery and the finish is more of a whimper. Seems to have issues with self-esteem and only wants to talk about astrology. I try to be polite but there's no chemistry here and I excuse myself as gallantly as I can without hurting any feelings. I generally like Baudry wines but these leave me cold tonight. Maybe I'll sneak out for a late night rendezvous with a certain Croix Boissée...


THURSDAY: Ever in need of something sweet and cheap, tonight I go for two $15 Vintage Character Ports, Niepoort Vintage Character NV and Quinta do Infantado Estate Reserve Vintage Character NV.

The Infantado is rougher textured and chewier, berry-brambly-dark in the meaty middle, turning towards scorched cocoa on the finish. Medium sweet, a little bit of a burn, a wine with rough edges, not pretty but earthy and sexy and possessed of a sly gleam in its eye. The Niepoort is silky, glossy and smoothly blackfruity but hasn't the depth or the reach of the Infantado. It's a sturdy wine with a clear character, but the Infantado is a black-eyed beauty with a salty mien, Salma Hayak now or Sonia Braga twenty years ago.


FRIDAY: Two wines made from grapes that have 'blanc' in their names, Domaine du Closel Savennières Les Coulées 1995 and Pierre Frick Pinot Blanc Alsace 1999.

The Closel is a pale straw-gold color. I've had my nerves jangled by hearing Kane shriek "QUINCE!" in the middle of too many jeebuses to not be curious, so I finally go out and buy some quince preserves and yes, it does have an aromatic similarity to some Loire chenins with a few years on them. Here it's a quiet quinciness mingled with light honey and lemon-tea/paraffin-pollen aromas over Savenni¸res earthiness. Reticent at first, opening up over about twenty-four hours into a wine that I'm charmed to finesse my proboscis into, really delightfully complex Closel nose. I was a little disappointed at first, but this is just a shy one, although it does fess up to a certain lack of mouthgrab, a purposeful nondescriptness. In the piehole not as structurally pure as many of the 96s nor as fun and rich as the 97s, but is very cohesive and just a bit on the ungiving side, with an uncharacteristic roundness to the structure. An odd Closel, but it's still a Closel and thus hard to beat. An intellectual wine, a professor of Elizabethan literature who is also a weekend runner and part-time marathoner, a wine that doesn't know how attractive it is because it thinks of itself as an ivory tower type.

I've been somewhat ambiguous about the Frick wines that I've tasted; many of them have an unvarnished, straightforwardly honest quality that can seem a little frumpy or Birkenstocky, and the 1999 pinot blanc is no exception. Bartlett pear, lemon and rainwater on the nose, with a suggestion of an earthy streak just beneath the muted yellow fruit and a trace of gardenia just above. It's a quiet, unassuming wine that just goes about its business of being pinot blanc, it may even be wearing a flannel shirt and worn bluejeans, although the shirt is knotted in front and a flash of smooth midriff isn't out of the question. Steely around the edges, there is that limpidity in the midpalate, despite some tangy fruit and sufficient acidity, but the finish is earthy and sustained and there's a beguiling side to its straightforwardness. Fits somewhere on the continuum between Sarah Plain and Tall and Ellie Mae Clampett.


SATURDAY: Two Puzelats, Clos de Tue-Boeuf Le Buisson Pouilleux 2000 and Clos de Tue-Boeuf Chardonnay Vin de Pays du Loir et Cher 1999.

The Tue-Boeuf smells of white grapefruit and quinine water. Cloudy as always, I am a little alarmed at the stringy striated patterns that emerge when I pour it, but some vigorous swirling dispels any thoughts of ropiness. Tart, white-grapefruity and limey, it's a gin and tonic wine with a grapefruit garnish. Hints of chalk. This wine's strangeness is sometimes compelling, sometimes offputting. It wears a fringed leather vest and fringed boots and burbles enthusiastically about crystals, but there's an earth mother quality that is very attractive as long as you know that you won't be spending more than a little while with it.

The chardonnay is my backup cheap chardonnay for when I feel like something less elegant and focused than Brun. Lightly tropical nose, pineapple and pear, smells like fresh pear juice infused with a streak of date. Neither sharp nor flat, slightly rounded but brightly flavored with a rather broad mouthfeel. It's not a well honed wine, but it's fresh and amiable and real, turning towards flintiness on the finish. Nice, peasanty.


SUNDAY: To finish off the week with a bang, two zinfandels, aRidge Zinfandel York Creek Late Picked 1999 and a De Loach Zinfandel Russian River Valley Pelletti Ranch 1996.

The Ridge is first at bat. Here's a plummy raisined nose, traces of sawdust and that evocative spicy-coconutty 'Draper Wood Regimen,' along with a whiff of acetoney VA. A sip, and there's an odd rush of sweet jammy black cherry fruit, then things get weird. The midpalate turns tart and muddy-thick, with noticeable sugar and an astringent licorice-tar dark streak that rises up and dominates the finish, joining forces with some drying tannins to produces a squinchy-face-making bitterness running parallel with that oddly cloying sweet streak.

Ugh.

Look, I'm a diehard Ridgie, but this is a disjointed mess, a carnival of winemaking flaws. I try another bottle, it's identical. I want this out of my house. I don't know what happened here, but this wine shouldn't have been released without a warning label. This is any of several dissolute psycho characters played by Jennifer Jason Leigh --Georgia, Single White Female, take your pick. Don't try to help it by lending it money or giving it a place to crash: run the other way when you see it coming. A Chris C. Blaaaarghhh!

Okay, the zinfandel thing is cancelled. Just forget it. The Deloach can wait--I need a new start tonight, a whole different paradijum. Deep breath.

Here we go, two (mostly) grenaches, Châ:teau Beaucastel Cô:te du Rhô:ne Coudoulet 1999 and Daphne Glorian Priorat Clos Erasmus 1997.

The Coudoulet smells of leather and red berry laced with traces of wet sheepdog. Comes at me sternly at first, stonily tight, slightly hard red fruit with a rocky core, tangy and crisp. Good thrust and sustain, but there's a hint of shrewishness here, and some fine tannins don't reassure me. Normally it's the kind of wine I would dally with, racily stony-berried, well balanced and with a bit of funk and some complexity, but there's a certain selfishness, a coldness about the heart. I don't know, maybe I'm being hasty and it simply needs time to find itself, but I'll take any woo-pitching rather slowly with this one and not wear my heart on my sleeve.

The Clos Erasmus is in the giving vein, aromatically warm and lush, black cherries and red clay with a barky, dried pinecone streak and a dollop of shoe polish, interesting to smell. Here there be gobs, plenty of fleshy and curvaceous fruit held in by a strainingly skimpy corset of structure. The only edge to the wine is the zippy tartness of the fruit and some light tannins, which serve (just barely) to keep the wine from bursting out at the seams. This has a trashy Mariah Carey appeal that and I feel a little pang of Judeo-Christian guilt for enjoying it, but we are all creatures of our desires, and it rubs me the right way tonight.

If one had described these two wines to me I'd almost certainly have expected to find the Coudoulet more to my liking, but as the kids say, "That's why we open the bottles, yo."

So that's my week. How's yours been?




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