Shut up about alcohol levels, for Christ’s sake. You don’t know what you’re talking about. And what ABV (Alcohol By Verisimilitude) is it that you’re referring to, the number listed on the label? Moron. Those numbers aren’t real, they’re imaginary, guesses made the same way contestants make pricing guesses on “The Price is Right”—they try to take a shot without going over the actual retail alcohol level. Taking the alcohol listed on the label seriously is like believing the guy’s height or the woman’s weight on Match.com. How stupid are you? The wine is always going to be shorter and fatter than you expected.
For more suggestions about what to avoid writing about on your Stupid Wine Blog, head over to Tim Atkin's award-winning site. And don't forget to add your own insights about topics you'd rather never see again on wine blogs, either at Tim's, or, for those of you cyber-challenged, right here on HoseMaster of Wine™.
TIM ATKIN M.W.
Why doesn’t HoseMaster of Wine™ have a Wikipedia page? I wonder about this. There is no end of worthless crap listed on Wikipedia, why not HoseMaster? Who do I talk to about this? Is there a Sultan of Wikipedia who decides this stuff? I don’t really understand how Wikipedia works. Are there any standards? Are there topics that are turned down that are too stupid for Wikipedia? Doesn’t seem like it. Unless HoseMaster of Wine™ was. That might make sense. This shit bothers me.
In the Switcheroo Department, someone robbed the French
Laundry.
My wife and I had a lovely Christmas Eve lunch at Tra Vigne
in St. Helena. I brought a bottle of 1998 Chateau Rayas, which, is, of course,
the perfect foil for Italian food. Rayas was one of my earliest wine
epiphanies, and, like a first love (oh, Evelyne, wherefore art thou?), it
forever has a grip on me. I’m a sucker for Rayas, and I suspect that even if
the bottle had been seriously corked, I wouldn’t have had the mental acuity to
notice, or, if I had, I’d have forgiven it, as one would forgive an old flame
with irritable bowel syndrome (Oh, Evelyne, wherefore fart thou?) The ’98 Rayas
was grand. It’s the benchmark for Grenache, don’t you think? I wish I could
afford it now. While Rayas has had its ups and downs over the past thirty
years, it would certainly be on my list of the Great Wines of the World.
Speaking of which, for Christmas dinner at home, a beautiful prime rib, we
opened 1995 Ridge Monte Bello. Wow. It’s easy to say that Monte Bellos deserve
20 years of age, and another thing to keep it that long, but, well, this bottle
of Monte Bello was inspirational. A wine that reminds me of why I fell in love
with wine shared with the woman who not only puts up with me, but truly loves
me. Such a perfect Christmas.
One of the strangest challenges of writing HoseMaster has
been trying to understand what makes a particular piece take off. Many times,
maybe even most of the time, I publish a piece and I think, man, that piece is
just going to die. No one will like it. It’s not funny enough. It rambles and
rambles and doesn’t go anywhere. And then, BANG, that piece takes off. It
lights up on Twitter, it makes the rounds of eBob or wineberserkers, and
everyone starts to comment on it. The piece “The Emperor in Winter” was like
that. I was sure it would tank. Instead, it gets enormous buzz. Then I’ll write
a piece I love and, PLOP, it just lies there like a bad date. For the most
part, I’ve given up trying to predict a piece’s popularity. But I think about
it often, and then I’m really damned sure I’ve got it figured out--but I don’t. Not at
all. You people are nuts.
