Oct. 22, 2012 - 6:42 p.m.

Hail, Bacchus!

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Yesterday's "Wine-n-Swine" event was AWESOME!

Ok, ok. ONE guy had an absolutely miserable time. One of the husbands who really, really, abso-fucking-lutely did not want to spend his Sunday learning about terroir and French D.O.C. laws was seated front row, dead center, and ooooooooozed resentment out of every pore the entire time. I mean, head lolled over to the side on a clenched fist, studied blank stare, tightly pursed lips, not blinking, the whole thing. When each wine was poured he took the barest sip, registered zero emotion, put the glass down, sat back, and re-crossed his arms. I could actually smell the concentrated indignation.

It was so obvious, so palpable, that only a few sentences in I stopped my shpiel and gently asked if he was feeling ok. Would he like to go to my study and watch some porn, maybe with a beer? I wasn't mad. At all. Really, I wasn't. God knows if NewWifey(tm) forced me to go to some hours-long cross stitching lecture on my day off when I'd rather be doing anything else, even getting radiation treatment, I'd have the same demeanor. But as soon as I said it his wife gave me a massive stink eye, so I shut up and apologized to him silently. Didn't help. He stayed sullen and seething the remainder of the party, only rousing himself to grab at some turkey salad once in a while and swallow it without chewing.

But other than that, it was a resounding success of the highest order. Everyone paid attention to me - which is all someone like me ever wants - and they all got rip roaring drunk by the end - which is all anyone like them ever wants.

Really, other than Mr. Grumpy McPussywhipped all the other couples, husbands included, seemed genuinely fascinated and appreciative. They asked questions as I went along, all of them took notes (NewWifey(tm) having prepared a packet for each of them consisting of photos of each label if they wanted to look for them afterwards, space for tasting notes, and a golf scorecard pencil). They grasped the concept that even if a wine is not to your particular tastes, you can still tell if it's well made by dispassionately assessing its component parts. And to a person they were flabbergasted by how varied all the flavors were. Not one of those 8 wines tasted like any of the others, even the ones that looked the same in the glass. It was a real revelation to those lowbrows.

Not to toot my horn, but...ah fuck it: one of the best received segments was the technique I showed them with the Margaux. 2009 was a good year in Bordeaux, and a lot of it was made so it's easy to find. But it's only been released recently, and many are still a bit too young to drink. However, people just wandering in to a wine store may not know that. So they buy the bottle thinking "Oh, it's a Bordeaux from a decent year, and not too expensive. It should be perfect with dinner tonight."

Then they open the bottle and are immediately disappointed. It's still tannic, and the other flavors are muted. Unless dinner was 2 or 3 years later, they're gonna think "Bordeaux wines suck! What's all the fuss? Gimme a Bud."

So I poured them each a tiny little bit to let them taste exactly that. They all puckered up and said it was like drinking alum. Then I poured the rest of the bottle into a water pitcher, and poured it back-and-forth between two pitchers 15 times. Then I gave them each another taste.

They couldn't believe it. It softened the wine to the extent that probably 3 or 4 years more aging would have done. They loved it then, and declared it the best food wine: medium body that went with everything, complex flavor, and no astringency.

I was hailed as a god.

Rightly so, of course.

By the way, along those lines my stupid turkey salad garnered as much interest as the wines with some of them. There must be some really crappy cooks in my wife's circle. Some of the husband practically begged me to tell their wives how to make it. I didn't, of course. Bro shoulda known better when he married the bitch, y'know?

NewWifey(tm) went all out with the setup. She rearranged our living room, rolling out our kitchen island to one end and setting it up as a lecture table. There were all kinds of wine, fall, and Halloween themed stuff scattered around artfully, and all in all it looked a lot more professional that I ever would have come up with. She even wore a burgundy colored top.

So now she gets to thumb her nose at all the other women for a year.

Which is all people like her ever want, after all.

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Gotta hit the sack.

Salud!