No Swish and Spit

[luckycanuck]

It was a good weekend with a positively enormous amount of good food, mostly Italian, including the first cannoli I have ever had and plenty of pizza and a really good carbonara.  I could have had plenty more.

Friday Cupcake Goddess and I drove out to Griffith and checked in to the backpacker's hostel before meeting Mitzi who had come up from Deniliquin.  Dinner was had in what was possibly the most Italian place I have ever eaten so I took special care to sprinkle a few Godfather quotes into my dinner conversation.  I also found out that apparently I have been tasked with getting Mitzi in to the Canberra Jewish community.  I never fancied myself as a matchmaker and I still don't, but I am perfectly capable of introducing one friend to others without feeling awkward about setting people up.

On Saturday we visited wineries.  I was with two people who knew about wine, and we went to two cellar doors staffed by people who also knew about wine.  I, on the other hand, can tell red from white, but I can't tell a merlot from a shiraz or a chardonnay from a semillon.  There were heaps of people around commenting on the taste and nose and colour.  There was a visitors book that had been signed by countless people who were waxing lyrical about the flavour of the wines on offer.  My comment: "That definitely tastes like wine."

I frequently say "I don't know much about x but I know what I like."  With wine, however, I don't even know if that's true.  I really can scarcely articulate an opinion about wine, and I certainly can't comment on or distinguish wines.  What is more, I honestly can't be bothered.  Often if one expresses ignorance about a subject other take it on themselves to educate.  But I can say with sincerity that when considering questions like "What is moscato anyway?" or "What is the difference between this Pinot Noir and that Pinot Noir?" there is probably too much for me to learn and precious little interest in learning it.  I have drunk wines that people disparaged as "undrinkable" and thought they were fine.  Similarly, I have seen people rhapsodise about wines that I thought were rather ordinary.  I honestly can't tell the difference.  My reaction to most wine is, quite simply, "that tastes like wine."

I've come across people that I think are pretentious or snooty about wine.  Someone once claimed to be able to "taste the sea" in a wine made from grapes grown near a beach.  I am willing to concede my own ignorance, but I'm tempted to call shenanigans on things like that.  I also got the impression that some of the patrons at the cellar door had semi-retired and made wine their hobby.  I have my own hobbies that others might find dull or distasteful.  I do, however, find some of the people at the cellar door (or at least my impression of them) to be people I'd be kind of scared to find out I'd become.

Also, the whole swish and spit thing I just couldn't do.  Every few seconds there was someone hunched over the spittoon to expel what they had just swished through their mouth.  I drank.

I was happy to be there with CG and Mitzi though.  They enjoyed it and spent much of the weekend in a state of high excitement, and that was nice to be around.  Today we went to some more wineries where I didn't drink and was starting to switch off from wine banter.

On Saturday evening we had a night out on the town with a pack of mostly German and Chilean backpackers from the place where we were staying.  I hadn't stayed in a hostel for some time, and it was actually a lot of fun.  Staying there rather than a hotel menat we were staying somewhere interesting.  I travelled through Europe when I was 20 and stayed in hostels almost the whole way through, and being there last night was a bit like being out with myself 12 years ago.

No workouts this weekend excepting a run to Griffith Airport.

Comments

[yurusumaji.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fun weekend! :)

Me ... I can't handle alcohol. I just think it tastes awful and I hate wine the most. Sophisticated drinking just ain't my thing, I guess.

[luckycanuck.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to drink beer, which I can appreciate, though I wouldn't take that to the extent that some people take wine.

Sometimes I think people cross the line that spearates sophistication and snobbery.

[minxyminou.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fun weekend. My wine knowledge is limited despite the fact I really enjoy drinking it.

[luckycanuck.livejournal.com]

You would have loved it, what with all the nomulent food.

[minxyminou.livejournal.com]

It's true. I'm a sucker for the nomulence :D

[bakerypenguin.livejournal.com]

I belong to the 'I know what I like' school of wine tasting...but I am happy to taste a wide variety in order to determine that!

[luckycanuck.livejournal.com]

That's the thing. I couldn't tell you what I like. I used to say I like shiraz (it's what I will normally buy), but I can't really say that, since I don't know what shiraz tastes like or differentiate it from any other kind of red.

Mitzi toasts ...

[(Anonymous)]

Olfactorily challenged as I am, nothing will get in the way of me and a good bouquet. Wine producing is an ancient art which began with Noah who planted grape vines when arriving on Ararat. With a tradition that goes back to the Flood, it's not surprising a realm of sophistication has sprung up around the beverage and all it has to offer. I believe that "taste of the sea" drinker, because some of those Marlborough wines of southern NZ are similar: you can literally taste the passionfruit that's growing in the field over the hill. Australians take pride in Boganising but really they have a great tradition of fine quaffery that's just too big to hide behind.

Re: Mitzi toasts ...

[luckycanuck.livejournal.com]

When I heard that "I can taste the salt in the sea air" remark I nearly broke out in a fit of laughter.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/03/070903fa_fact_keefe?currentPage=all

Studies suggest that the experience of smelling and tasting wine is extremely susceptible to interference from the cognitive parts of the brain. Several years ago, Frédéric Brochet, a Ph.D. student in oenology at the University of Bordeaux, did a study in which he served fifty-seven participants a midrange red Bordeaux from a bottle with a label indicating that it was a modest vin de table. A week later, he served the same wine to the same subjects but this time poured from a bottle indicating that the wine was a grand cru. Whereas the tasters found the wine from the first bottle “simple,” “unbalanced,” and “weak,” they found the wine from the second “complex,” “balanced,” and “full.” Brochet argues that our “perceptive expectation” arising from the label often governs our experience of a wine, overriding our actual sensory response to whatever is in the bottle.

Subjectivity much? The thing is, I can't even be subjective.