Again, with the wine?

The last couple of days have been incredibly busy for us. Erin has been furiously working to get the trip for her dad set. Between organizing fishing excursions, wine tours, activities and everything, it's been a bit overwhelming for someone who doesn't normally plan out much. He arrives tomorrow afternoon, and it should be a great trip. There's pretty much nothing that could derail 3 people, who are both friends and family, having a great time together. I look forward to it. I also look forward to Erin's nervous bubble deflating and her calming down a bit. It's good, anxious energy, so she's wound a bit tight these days, all in anticipation of tomorrow.

Last night and Tuesday we hit our regular nights at the Vines of Mendoza. Tuesday was 50% off night and last night was winemaker night. These have become something of a regular event for us, something that is set in our schedule that we enjoy. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the event itself.

The Vines appears to be a swanky bar from the outside, with an intimidating bouncer who keeps out the riffraff. When you walk through the narrow, blood red hallway, there is a glass window displaying about 20 wines in a museum case. Or perhaps it's one of those break-in-case-of-emergency windows, but it looks more like a Smithsonian display. From there, you walk into the main room, which is divided into two parts, the outdoor patio and the indoor bar/tasting room. The patio is filled with comfortable chairs and small tables. The bar is a sleek and modern exercise in white. But it's nice, not as pretentious as it initially seems. There are a couple of side rooms where they keep the extra pretentiousness, waiting to be unleashed in case they need it.

We go to enjoy a glass of wine or two, usually not more. But if you go three times a week, which isn't uncommon, then we get 2 glasses apiece, that's 12 different wines we're tasting a week at this bar alone. We usually take notes, sometimes going into great description, sometimes just saying whether we like it or not. There's times that it's just a smiley face.

Erin tends to be a little more analytical in her wine tasting, talking about the body and nose and whatnot. I do that as well, but tend to put more of an image or something behind it. So, I'm going to share some of my favorite wine notes for those who want to get an insight into how incredibly dorky I really am. (As if you didn't already know)

Caelum Rose: It seems like I am in David the Gnome's house, with trees, roots and dirt, waiting for the Gummy Bears

Lorca Petit Verdot: Like being hit in the mouth with a dirty baseball.

GR Altamira: Like being downwind from a blueberry patch, hiding under a stone bridge over a river on a sunny day.

Some of my other favorite wine words are things like: "dangerous!", "yummy", "likey", any sort of smiley face, "terrible", "do not ever buy again", and, of course, "bah" and "alright-ish".

Now, if you do look through my journal, you will see lots of the more familiar descriptors, such as molasses, silky, dry, buttery, and the whole slew of words that wine nerds use to describe wines. I've just found that I remember a wine better when there is some place or scenario that describes a wine. It could be just about anywhere. For instance, I tasted a wine once and felt like I was "in a small cedar cigar box with a leather keychain". What does that even mean? Who knows, but I can remember exactly what the wine tasted like.

Being here in Mendoza, hanging out with a bunch of winemakers, sommeliers, vineyard owners, distributors and the world of professional wine people, I've had to step up my game, get more formal with how I describe a wine. I'm happy to say I've gained confidence in my wine tasting ability, but I still can't really tell people what I think. They're speaking in wine jargon and I'm talking crazy Todd jargon. Yet, that's the fun part about wine. It's so personal. It may seem like nonsense to anyone else, but I enjoy reading my notes and thinking, wow, that's a fun wine if it took me to the Zanzibar spice market. That, by the way, was the Punto Final Malbec Reserve.

(In case you're wondering what that smiley is on the side, it's a man with glasses, sticking his tongue out, smiling so wide that he has dimples. Clearly.)