Saturday, October 21, 2006

Wine and Refinement

Would it be wrong to have wine for dinner? I very nearly did last night. My blood sugar had plummeted, and I had poured and swilled a big glass before Slag picked me up off the couch and whisked me out to meet L for Mexican food. I discovered that Mexican food is even better with a glass of cheap, red wine as an appetizer.

I’m usually not much of a wine drinker, but I love the stuff I was drinking last night. I scored a bottle of it while we were in Indiana last weekend. It’s produced by a winery there and so is impossible to get in Texas. I wrapped the bottle in about fifteen yards of bubble wrap, stuck it in my suitcase, and hoped for the best. Thankfully, it arrived intact.

This wine is named “Soft Red Wine,” which didn’t seem strange until I thought about it for a second. Most wine is named after the grape it’s made from, right? Like Merlot? Pinot Noir? OK, I guess Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill is an exception, but it at least has “strawberry” in the name. So, I looked more closely at the label and, in very small print on the back, it says that this wine is made from Concorde grapes.

Concorde grapes?

And then I burst out laughing. It’s Welch’s Grape Juice on steroids! Give a case or two to someone’s granny and she could make a batch of grape jelly out of it. Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it? Don’t let anyone tell you that I don’t have a refined palate. Because I don’t.

Next time we’re in a fancy restaurant, I’m planning on ordering a glass of their “finest Concorde,” just to see the response I get. The tip will be double for any waitperson who can tactfully explain my mistake without rolling his/her eyes out of their sockets.

P.S. Turns out, “Soft Red Wine” is the winery’s best-selling wine, so I guess my tastes are a little more mainstream than I thought.

8 Comments:

Blogger Anthony said...

I'm sure any wine snob at a fancy restaurant will treat you like an idiot. "Ma'am, there is no such *thing* as Concorde wine."

12:27 PM  
Blogger Stucco said...

"I'm sorry ma'am, but we've run out of both Thunderbird and Ripple. Might I interest you in a 2006 Night Train?"

Hee hee. Drink whatever you like, and damn the torpedoes.

3:32 PM  
Blogger Jill said...

crimsonking, I think you're right. I would be exposed as the unsophisticated girl that I am.

stucco, you've given me the best belly laugh I've had in a while. Slag too. I've never heard of Night Train before, but when looking it up on Google, I found this: http://www.bumwine.com. A whole new world has been opened up to me.

6:15 PM  
Blogger Ian said...

Mad Dog! Mad Dog!

For my wife's birthday, I bought her two bottles of wine (she imbibes, I do not). One was from a local winery on the Western Slope that I knew she liked. Then I had to call her because the place didn't have the other fruity wine I was looking for. I read off some names and she settled on one. It was the one for $5.

She loved it.

Ian

11:41 PM  
Blogger Cheesy said...

And don't pass on the Manischewitz Wine either!! Another cheap concord wine thats been around foreveaaaa....

9:29 AM  
Blogger Stucco said...

Have you looked through the comments on bumwine.com? I found this: "I once drank 2 bottles of the obsolete clear Mad Dog and had to take a dump. I passed out on the toilet, and when I woke up the next day I realized that a log had made it half way out of my ass and hardened. The thing fused to my butthairs. Cleanup was no fun. "

Oh... My... Gawd...

4:33 PM  
Blogger Jill said...

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Ugh!

There are some things in life that just don't need to be shared. With anyone. Having a petrified log stuck to your butt hairs is definitely one of them.

Bleah.

(Will have to go read through those comments though...)

8:27 PM  
Blogger slaghammer said...

That is the funniest log story I've ever heard.

1:36 AM  

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