Ravens Wood Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

I drank this bottle after yesterday's Spiral Wine selection. In truth I began drinking it before I was even done with writing that post. Now anybody will tell you that drinking two bottles of wine, back to back, will render a person intoxicated.  It did.  But not to be bested by a couple of bottles of cheap wine I went over to a friend's house and drank these also.

We might have had only one of these two bottles of wine, but I can't remember.  When I got home I fell asleep on the living room floor after having also eaten a xanax. At some point I made my way into the bedroom where I stayed until my back was hurting this morning from being in bed for too long.

My friend warned me to ease up on the Catholic priest / Mother Teresa jokes, saying that there are a lot of Catholics around here.  I suppose it is sensible to not make jokes about priests diddling young boys. I'm sure it's all just hearsay, speculation and wild imaginations anyhow.  I was once a Catholic, I suppose I still am, though I am a devout atheist catholic now, if there can be such a thing.

My wine recommendation for the day is stop after two bottles.  In fact, if you can limit yourself to one bottle you will be even that much better off.  You will have a little more spring in your step the next day.

"What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.”  - Charles Bukowski

Spiral Wines Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2010

Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" and a day off from work.  We'll see....

Earlier today my wife told me that there is a shortage of grapes this year.  This means that prices are certain to go up, at least for the bottles of wine under $15.  So cheap wines will start to be less so.

Last year this bottle was recognized by a cashier as being the best bottle at Trader Joe's for under $5.  I would try to persuade my wife to purchase many pallets of the stuff and then hold on and hope for the best when the market really turns, but I don't think she'd go for it.  She has other plans cooking for our future.

I've wasted $5 in far worse ways, and often.

The other night I had to drive into SF for work and when I was parking my car on O'Farrell, in the "tenderloin," as I began to pull myself together and collect my stuff to get out of the car, I watched a crack deal occur just outside my window.  Two men were talking and one held some money clenched tightly in one hand and another held his hand open, and there in his hand, not even in a plastic bag, were two small crack rocks.  The one with the cash looked at them suspiciously then held his hand out, the other held his hand out for the money.  These guys clearly didn't know each other well, or perhaps knew each other all too well.  Watching made me move my car to a parking garage.  It also made me want to smoke crack, but not as much as wanting to move the car.  First things first, etc.

But this isn't a crack-blog, it's a wine blog.

This wine is Spiral Tap.  I've tried to evaluate wines in the way that I know how, the time that it takes me to drink each bottle.  But I'm beginning to see cracks in that rating system as well.

I've moved on from Wilco. I won't tell you what's next, many people have a strong aversion to this particular artist.  I think he's a great songwriter.  If he were a woman then people would be falling over themselves to place her on the fast track sainthood, even before old Moth Teresa, a woman with a poverty fetish, who never wrote any cool songs that I know of.

Fuck the Pope.

Ok, I don't know where all of this negative anti-communion energy is coming from. When we were kids we all did a priest or two.  Jesus, we were tough, there was one priest we used to gang-bang every now and then, never on Sunday.  It was no big deal, we were just using him to get to God, and the wine.



"But I believe this - and it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns will later join the church."

-Strummer/Jones, "Death or Glory"

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St. Francis Merlot 2007

Some wines need to breathe.  

This one needs a little more breath than my humble monastic room has to offer, perhaps there is no saving it...  I don't even know if they make iron lungs any more.  I bet they're really expensive.  Sarah Silverman would probably know.  I loathe her.  She is a bona-shrinker.

This pseudo-catechism tasted just like foul grape juice with cheap vodka mixed poorly in it, on first sip.  

I'm beginning to think that I don't like Merlot, please send suggestions and prove to me that I'm wrong.  Also, anybody interested can buy me wine to review.  Please email me privately for details.  

My wife bought this wine.  She is very sweet, but she must know that I am naturally repelled, for both ontological and epistemological reasons, by St. Francis...   When you look at his name on the screen it really does read, "Street Francis"

(Cue: image below, at bottom of post)

He's like an anemic oompa-loompa in ecstasy, though he was very kind to the earth, a true christian rarity.  He's even short for a nearly pre-historic oompa-loompa, dressed in burlapse.   

I would worry about hurting Rachel's feelings but she stopped reading this blog once I posted a picture of a girl's crescent-pantied butt, twice, and then wrote about my fantasies of pissing in the sink.  She said that I've written my way right into the toilet on my new wine blog.  

She was right, of course.  Let's see if I can write my way out again.  

Oh well, my other blog has lost many readers also.  I think some people were upset that I used some derogatory phrases.  I'd list them here, but I'll perhaps save that joy for the other site. They were bad, I guess, and when I looked online all I could find were celebrity comedians apologizing for using the very same phrases.  The true mark of a cultural bulls-eye.  Get the comedians to apologize and dance backwards.

Jesus Christo, this wine is bad.  I'm afraid to even look for it online.  Gimme a sec... 

Ok, I did...

I like it a little bit more now that I've come to realize it's not a shamefully cheap bottle of wine.  I'd been out in the California sun jus' a tannin, a little too long perhaps, but there's a depth to the flavor that is just starting to appeal to me, to open to my mind.  

I'm nearly halfway done with the bottle and have wasted almost $10 whole dollars in Romanesque frivolity, but it is subtly creating a crevice in the pleasure of my palate.

Well, it could be the hurried breathing it's been doing, knowing that its finale time has come, and nobody liked him in this town anyway, he was a red, spreading dead ideas.  

The flavor is really mellowing a bit and it's getting much, much easier to agree with.  Perhaps my rating system won't work so well on wines that need to breathe.... either that or I'll have to start handicapping them with a decanter.  Oh Lord, being a critic is like having a hard-on for the darkness. 

"Thank you for your wine, California...
Thank you for your sweet and bitter fruits
Yes, I've got the desert in my toenail
And I hid the speed inside my shoe..."

-Jagger/Richards "Sweet Virginia"

(St. Francis, A-sissy)

Robert Mondavi, Cabernet Sauvignon2009

(time-stamped evidence)

This wine was hideous.

I tried to drink a glass of it at 2:09 a.m. and was repulsed by its juicy jobless jagged jitters.

It could have been me.  It was late and I had been out drinking earlier, vodka and beer.

Perhaps my palate was polluted.  I will try it again sometime with a fresh eye on its appearance, my nose trained on its aroma, braced for its aftertaste.

As I didn't even finish the glass that was poured for me this bottle receives the worst rating ever yet given by this reviewer so far, eternity.


Avoid this wine and people who drink it, they are likely just petty art thieves.

.

One reader responds, spiritedly

I just found an angry email in my inbox, chastising me for using the picture below on a "wine blog."

I explained that this site is not really a wine blog but instead it is a thinly veiled attempt to lure young women who have just turned 18 into the very lucrative world of internet pornography and as such has no obligation to uphold any moral standard, and certainly not one imposed from the outside.

I haven't heard a response back yet.  I'm sure my next conversation will be with the FBI.

The picture is no worse than many that I've seen in women's magazines that litter the offices of any doctor's office than I've been to. They seem harmless enough at first, with subjects like "health now" or "women today"... you open them up and voila, there on the first few pages is an article about getting rid of cellulite, and get this, every picture is just an assortment of delicious looking butts that have never had a single spot of cellulite on them. They are, of course, all getting massages and enjoying some light homo-erotic playfulness.  All the article lacked visually was a pillow fight in panties to celebrate their collective victory over butt-fat.

Don't ask me to cite my sources on this.  I'm certain that I wasn't imagining the article, but you get the idea.

I will keep my dedicated wine aficionados abreast of any legal developments this site encounters.

Soon we will be soliciting donations for legal defense.

Buena Vista Merlot 2007

Last night we went to the Sonoma Farmer's Market. There was a jazz band playing, Terry Disley's "Big" Experience.  They were doing alternating numbers by Vince Guaraldi and Dave Brubeck, to celebrate the region's jazz history.  It was pleasant. I preferred the Guaraldi tunes though I know I probably am not supposed to admit that.

I doubled my knowledge of how to drink Merlot with a simple suggestion made by a fellow listener and jazz fan. At some point I'll get around to some wine tricks that might help some of you along in your journey to enjoy wines.  My review from last night was written under the spell of the Merlot, and a few glasses of Cabernet that I had at the Roche tasting room, and a couple glasses of Sauvignon Blanc that I had imbibed at The Swiss Hotel even before that.

So, that is how it all came to pass.

We sat at the bandshell and listened, recounting our first date in NYC, at Small's jazz club.  It was a special time for us, neither of us having any idea that we would eventually marry (at Buena Vista Winery) and move together to Sonoma to start a family.  Though last night she certainly must have had her reservations. When I came home I decided to piss in the sink.  I don't know why.  It just seemed like something I wanted to do at the time.  Upon morning reflection it didn't seem like such a great idea any more, though not entirely without merit.  The idea of doing it without her seeing still held some charm for me.

No, I only kid.

On the other side of us at the concert sat two men, somewhat disheveled, in sweat pants and t-shirts that matched only in general dress sensibility. The cloth was tattered here and there and seemed to be in need of a washing, or to be discarded altogether.  One of them sitting closest to my wife recounted to her that she should avoid pit bulls, they can smell her being pregnant, they'll attack and kill her.  There are apparently roaming bands of them in the area seeking out fresh pregnant women to devour.  The story has been kept out of the press only by shrewd political manipulation of the facts and submerged police reports.  When these pit bulls cannot find a pregnant woman to hungrily feast upon they will oftentimes eat one of their own, singling out the weakest in the pack.  At this point my wife excused herself to go shop for tomatoes and pita chips.  I encouraged her to keep her eye on the horizon line, we don't want any pit bulls coming down from the hills, sniffing out her aroma in estrus, and subsequently turning her into their own little pita chip snack.

Ok, I could go on for hours telling stories of the subtle insanity of the place, and those herein, but I'll leave some for tomorrow.


I almost forgot, this bottle of wine took me about 50 minutes to drink.  I had employed a more leisurely pace, considering the setting, etc.

Raunchy Tabasco, Z-infidels, 20009

I found the picture of this wine bottle in my phone while I was browsing for barely remembered pornography. 

I vaguely recognize the surroundings, the mise-en-scene.

I must have been party to its demise, a party accomplicated.

Florid, is my new word for wines served in stemware.

It reflects a waxing crescent, if my calculations are correct.

Some call it art, others merely sign language, a science if ever there was.

In my future assessments of wine I will try to find a corollary butt image that reflects my sensations of the appearance, the potential, and then the finish.

Enjoy.  It is just, art.

(smallbutts@earthflesh.org)

Decoy, Pinot Noir 2009

Delicious, it went very well with my mood.  I lost track of time.  I forgot my name.  I sent strange texts to old girlfriends, or women I once stalked.  I might have even pissed myself.  I can't be sure.

We went to a friend's house for dinner.  I gluttonously drank most of the bottle while we were eating.  It must have been as much as a week ago now.  

Here are my recollections of it: The wine's appearance was colossally cooperative, its aroma was auspicious and axiomatic, in mouth it was melodically majestic, its finish was futuristically flawless and furtively final.  A very complex Pinot, to be sure.  This was no Decoy, this was the genuine Mallard.

In truth I bought it because I've been searching for labels that interest me.  This one made me think of hunting ducks, going out into swampy areas with other like-minded nimrods, tricking the birds with special whistles, surprising them into flight, aiming quickly, shooting them out of the sky, having dogs descend on them in their last seconds of life - having trained the dogs well - hearing the sound of their necks break as the dogs jaw clamps down on their frightened and wounded bodies, only to return them proudly to me... pleased hunter that I am. 

Ah, happiness.... is a warm gun, and a dead animal.

Don't worry, we always eat the duck and then convert the feathers into headdresses for the local schoolchildren with down.  We would never let any of it go to waste.  

This wine would go well at an NRA rally. 

If they enjoy this wine they really should try our Waterfowl Merlot.  It's breathtakingly balanced, with a gamey potential.

Decoy's motto is "The everyday wine for the ill-informed."

Mark West Pinot Noir 2009

Tonight my wife and I (with Barkley, the dog) drove slightly up onto a hill to watch the full "harvest" moon rise. I drank a bottle while we watched the moon ascend, from the hills and up towards and then into the sky.

Rachel had made some food and we sat and enjoyed the changing color temperature of the sky, the hills around us.  If it wasn't for my excitement towards our coming baby I would have wanted to sit there with her forever, or all night, whichever came first.


I drank two bottles of this wine, one there on the hill and one after.  I went to bed without posting this review.  The pictures of the bottle tell the tremulous story.

I have nothing snarky to say about it.
It was lovely, and free, and I was happy...  I am.


This Christmas will be the first one in a long time in which I believe I will not feel lonely.
I always struggle with forced sincerities, requirements.

I'm looking forward to it like the rising of new moons.

BearBoat, Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast, 2008

I drank my first glass of this wine in 27 seconds.  Things are looking good for this vintner so far. It wasn't a full glass, just a normal size glass, about at the halfway point of a relatively normal red wine glass. 

I've decided that it's best to write my reviews of the wine while I'm drinking it. The problem with that is that it distracts me from drinking and it adds time to my rating of it. I'll have to find a way of compensating for writing, or perhaps for handicapping wines that I drink while not writing.

That's absurd, I'll do no such thing.  

This winemaker also makes a Russian River Pinot, but I chose the Sonoma Coast one because I am a geography snob, a locale bigot.  

I prefer things from where I am, and generally detest things from other places, unless they're places I like to visit or have been told are cool by people whose approval I seek, etc.

I'm over halfway done with this bottle and I'm at:

Not bad, not bad at all, this non compos nectar.  I highly suggest it.  There are many factors involved in my assessment, you see... I almost went into San Francisco after work, to meet people younger than I, most likely to do some mild drugs and drink whiskey with them, at first, but instead I didn't... Hero that I am... I went home to my pregnant wife, stopping at the wine store and treating myself to this message inna bottle, which was only $18.99.  Not that a $19 bottle of wine is a treat but I wasn't even going to write an entry today.  I did it for you, humble reader.

Also, it is Saturday. ... 

In my younger and moorish venereal beers my fathead gave me some anvil that I've been turning over, mr. mine, ever-senses.

Ok, I'm drinking full glasses now, the bottle is nearly gone.  Well, the bottle is still here, but its contents have gone on to a better place. 

My absent gods !!!!....  Isn't a nice bottle of wine a wonderful thing...?