Belly's Wednesday Wine & Food Pairings

I realize it has been a while since the last BWW&FP. However, this time I have a good excuse for my apparent slothfulness! Plus, in the meantime BWW&FP gained a veritable anthem in a wonderful song by Blondes, titled simply "Wine." 

(Incidentally, I make an appearance in the video around the 3:00 mark.)

Now, why have I been tardy in bringing you your weekly wine knowledge? 




Well, quite by accident, I imbibed a bit too much of the über-sweet selection of the last BWW&FP and fell into an insulin coma. When I came to, a week or so later, I decided that it might be time to branch out, to explore new horizons. After all, there is more out there than just incredibly cheap, nauseatingly sweet white wine. Thus, I chose a 5-liter premium cask of Almaden Vineyards Heritage Chardonnay ($14.99, from California), which I anticipated would be an incredibly cheap, slightly less sweet white wine.

No food this evening: I'm trying to get SHREDDED for a wedding I'm going to next month. One must look one's best when striking out with the ladies. But anyway, you are not here for nutrition or dating advice, as valuable as my insights in those fields may be, so let's get to the characteristics of what will undoubtedly turn out to be a singular vintage.

Ugh. Originally, I had intended the joke in this post to be something along the lines of: "This box of Almaden Vineyards wine tastes exactly like that box of Almaden Vineyards wine, despite being ostensibly different varieties." Hilarious, right? Unfortunately things are not working out as planned. Instead, I am confronted by a humongous cardboard box containing a plastic sack of liquid that is an abomination to my senses, and nothing like my beloved Mountain Rhine. This may actually force me to make an honest attempt to describe the wine on hand, a practice I prefer to avoid here at BWW&FP in favor of selective, sometimes wholly fictional accounts of my experiences, constructed for the sake of spawning petty melodrama or as a vain attempt at a cheap laugh. I'm not sure if I'm up for this, but I'll have a go.

First, let's begin with the bouquet: What do we have here? From the smell, I would guess that what we have is a petroleum-based product, possibly kerosene, though one can also catch the aromas of turpentine and burning hair if enough attention is paid. 

Intoxicating...

Now, to the tasting proper: Believe it or not, the overpowering odor of kerosene is a good predictor of the wine's introduction to one's palate. However, I do not want to give you the impression that this vintage is a one trick pony; that it most certainly is not. If one can withstand the first wave of "flavor," some surprising and distinct notes emerge. Tin for one; or perhaps aluminum? It is definitely some sort of cheap metal. Perhaps this is residual flavor from the casks?

Welcome to Almaden Vineyards!

Moving on, I also detect a subtle hint of... yes, it's rubber cement: The product that, out of all the arts and crafts materials, perhaps inspires the most fascination in children.

C'mon, I know you've all tasted it at least once. No? Oh right, me either.

There's also one more trace of something, but it's so delicate that it's hard to grasp. Ah yes, I've got it: gravel. It's as if I'm being transported magically back to the days when I was first learning how to ride a bike and took such a drastic tumble that I ended up with asphalt embedded in my lacerated tongue.

Interestingly, while this tasting session diverged at the outset from my previous, positive experience with the Mountain Rhine, the two vintages are comparable in the sense that they both evoke the ambience of childhood. On the one hand, you have the Mountain Rhine, which paints a serene, impressionistic emotional vista that recalls the feeling of innocently and contentedly savoring candy-like, syrupy liquids, with no thought of the physiological consequences. Alternatively, the Chardonnay that we have sampled this evening conjures the nightmarish prospect of a youth spent ingesting paste and being injured badly enough to feel fear profoundly for the first time, in addition to the nausea and loneliness that results from being left in the car at a gas station for too long. Sounds delightful, no?

Ultimately, I have only myself to blame for this debacle. I took a chance and tampered with a good thing. But at least I've learned a valuable lesson: Never try anything new again.