The Wine Report

I don't know very much about wine. Sad to say, most of the wine I've had over the years has come in boxes, except for the two gigantic magnums of wine I was saddled with after my brother's wedding. I felt a little odd going back to the hotel with wine bottles the size of infants under my arms, but they insisted I take them.

Never mind. It gets iniquitous from there.

The point is that I don't know anything about wine. I have a friend who tries to teach me wine lore, but it's a little bit like trying to teach a chimpanzee about fire. Her task is both Herculean and thankless, but I appreciate the gesture anyway.

So with that in mind, I now wish to give my review of Redwood Creek Syrah, a bottle of wine I just happened to find in the pantry.

My attempts to taste said wine were frustrated by the fact that the bottle was sealed with some thin but incredibly tough material that reminded me of scrith from the "Ringworld" novel. I could find no obvious way to get through the scrith, and somehow I don't imagine gentlemen gnaw the stuff off, so I found a small knife and managed to hack my way through the tough material with only a small loss of personal dignity.

So now I hefted my enormous German-made corkscrew and gave the bottle a once-over. Yep, there was the cork, and yep, there was the corkscrew. Within a few seconds I had the screw in the cork, and then progress shuddered to a halt again.

My corkscrew isn't a lever-action corkscrew; it's basically just a heavy brass handle with a steel screw in it. No levers, no mechanical advantage. Now, I'm not a weak person. I can usually break kitchen gadgets without really trying, or meaning to, but I gave the corkscrew a good yank and nothing happened. Presently it turned into a classic contest of strength, brute force versus the immovable object. I knew I was starting to lose the war when the idea of squirting a little Liquid Wrench onto the cork occurred to me. But then I remembered all those movies where suave gentlemen open wine bottles with magnificent poise and without breaking a sweat and use of Liquid Wrench.

It finally came out with a loud and startling foomp sound, and the recoil of my hand flying toward the ceiling nearly hyperextended my elbow. At last it was out, but surely there must be a better way.

So I poured a couple of fingers into the nearest thing I have to a wine glass, which is to say, a regular tumbler. But at least it was transparent, allowing me to appreciate the subtle colors of the... Hey, what gives, it's black! And so it was, jet black, looking more like a slug of flat Jolt cola or really old coffee than wine. I turned on more lights and suddenly the color became apparent - deep red, very rich-looking, so close to black that in bad light you'd be excused for thinking it was a cup of old motor oil.

I like to smell my wine before I drink it. I think it makes me look sophisticated and helps to make me feel less guilty for washing out relish jars and using them as emergency drinking glasses. So this Syrah struck me has having a particularly bold aroma. I couldn't tell you if it was fruity, smoking, redolent of flint and tinder, wonderfully mineral or what. I just know that it was a lot smellier than the wine I get out of the box.

And then, on to the taste test.

Hey, it's pretty good! I can't describe it, but I like it.

And people say I can't be taught anything!