Red red wine

God I love red wine. Especially when it is raining.

White wine is nice too, but it doesn’t quite live up to red. Red is fuller somehow. More comforting.

The first sip is a tangy smoothness on my tongue. Another sip warms my cheek bones.  Sip three and my shoulders loosen.

 

Wine dispels my anxiety.  After years of drinking red wine with dinner I’ve come to associate it with safety, with peace. Should I be concerned with this reaction? Refraining from intoxication is one of the five Buddhist precepts. But I’m not talk about intoxication. I’m talking about dulling my senses, in a controlled way of course.

Surely I’m not alone here. Mankind has been enjoying wine for over 8000 years. I hear the romans were fond of their wine, in fact both the Greeks and Roman’s worshipped a wine god (Dionysus and Bacchus respectively). Wine is also used in the Christian Eucharist ceremonies and the Jewish Kiddush. While I don’t believe I am actually drinking the blood of Christ when I sip a merlot, I do appreciate the power of the symbolism.

Australia, my land of origin, produces some beautiful wines. We can boast the Borossa Valley, Margaret River, Mornington Peninsula, Hunter Valley and even Tasmanian wine regions. Sadly we are known internationally for some of our cheaper wines (think Jacob’s creek and yellow tail), but don’t let them cloud your judgment! Good ‘ol Grange can compete with the world heavy weights.

A few weeks ago I had the very great pleasure of going to the Yarra Valley on a wine tour. It was one of those organised tours where a bus picks you up from your accommodation and you are grouped with 6 or so randoms for a day of getting boozed. Everyone starts out a little shy at first, but by 4pm you are guaranteed to be getting along like a house on fire.

 

 I tasted my first wine of the day, a sparkling at Chandon, around 11am. I did contemplate spitting it out in the tasting bucket provided but honestly it just seemed wasteful to do so. In the spirit of "not being wasteful" I spent the entire day sipping on over 20 different wines at 6 different wineries. It turns out that when I get tipsy I get purchase happy, so I now have many bottles of souvenirs from this wine tour. Just think of how much money I 'saved' buying direct from the cellar door...

Call me a snob but I wont drink red wine out of a bag. Now a screw top on the other hand, I would drink out of any day. While a cork is certainly romantic it can often ruin the wine drinking experience; whether it is just stopping you from ready access, breaking into stubborn crumbly pieces or fouling the wine. But try arguing that with a French person.

I’ve heard some say that wine should be drunk slightly chilled, because the ‘room temperature’ of the 1600s was a lot colder than it is now. Some people go over the top in chilling their white wine however – you don’t want it to be so cold that you can’t feel anything but a chill on your tongue. Ice-cream headache!

Musing about wine is fun, but drinking it is much more fun. Have a sip and remember you are sharing in an age old tradition.