The Internets are a wondrous place, full of fanciful idealisms, high-strung commentary, and wine accessories that you must own, being you are the consummate wino. For the sake of brevity and the well-known fact that a picture is worth 1 billion words, I give you your images/accessories of the day. Cheers.

Wine Spoons.

What the fuck do I need a wine spoon for? I for one drink a hell of a lot more wine in a single sniff than could be had in one of these “spoons.” Perhaps if they were just a bit, oh I don’t know, shinier.

Ah, there we go. Something I can see my face in, unlike the pretentious “wine glass” that can only manage to pass light rather than reflect it. Still, I’m not quite getting the sip I aim to enjoy. I ain’t no wine sipper, sir, I’m a swiller.

Clearly, a shitty design. Moving on.

Wine “Holders”

Outside of my hands, I can’t really pictures a better method of holding a glass of wine. However, a few genius types have imparted upon the word THE ACCESSORIES.

1) A picnic with the ol’ lady

I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about this design. Excepting for the fact that when we went to drive it into the water-soaked grass, I didn’t apply exact pressure on either side of the stake, which caused me to snap the “table top” off and sprain my wrist in the process. Fuck you, pretty-picnic-wine-holder designer guy. Or girl.

Fail.

Acceptable.

On Thursday, April 24, I attended an event on Capitol Hill called Cheap Wine & Poetry at the Richard Hugo House.  It was a really good time, with four poets and “2 Buck Chuck” a-plenty. 

Poets Roberto Ascalon, Elizabeth Austen, Rebecca Loudon, and Seattle Poet Populist Cody Walker took the stage to read some really great work, riveting the quiet audience to their seats.  The cheap wine flowed, which paired very well with the spoken-word.  My favorite poet was Cody Walker (heart-wrenching poem about Spam), while I drank several glasses of Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon.  While the wine wasn’t anything to write home about, of course, it did add to the Beat poet feel of the event, and at $1 per glass and no admission charge, anyone could afford to indulge.

The Richard Hugo House is a non-profit “center for readers and writers.”  There are writers-in-residence, and they offer services to promote the creation of new writing.  Hugo House is a cosponsor for the Cheap Wine & Poetry reading series.

On Thursday, Josh and I hung out with Victoria Odell of Seattle Swirlfame, and Tanya Darling, an expert in all things Port at Mainstage Comedy and Music Club by the Key Arena.

The event was fascinating, and though port doesn’t really agree with my palette (it’s too sweet for my taste), I gained a huge respect for port. Tanya Darling is erudite and passionate about port. She filled our heads with history, methods of production, and factoids that kept me leaning forward in my seat. For example, port was invented because of an agreement between Portugal and England where Portugal would only buy wool from England, and England would only buy wine for Portugal. However, most wine would sour by the time it reached England by sea, so port was the solution to preserving the wine. Port is only fermented to about 6% alcohol by volume, and then fortified with brandy (made from grape must) up to 20% alcohol by volume. Short fermentation means lots of sugar, and the fortification means lots of alcohol. What you end up with is a very sweet, heavy wine that can knock you off your feet.

After sipping on ruby, tawny, vintage and late-bottled port, I couldn’t handle any more. However, I may consider port in the future for a nice dessert wine at a dinner party.

Taste Washington was a Candyland for wine enthusiasts. Going to Taste isn’t altogether different than going to an event like Bumbershoot. You begin by standing at the gates and strategizing your plan to see everything you want to see. Once inside (and after a couple of glasses), you start winging it.

We talked about spitting (as unsightly as that is), in order to increase our longevity. The spitting, however, just didn’t happen. It may have been smart, but it seems like such a waste of good wine. And good wines were everywhere.

With the VIP pass, you get to taste wine for six hours (you get in two hours before the non-VIP types). About two hours in, you go into palette shock. After that, it takes a pretty powerful wine to snap your tongue out of its stupor. One wine that did that was a 2004 Apparition blend by Illusion Winery. The name of the winery and the mysterious label almost turned me away from their table, thinking it would be a rancid novelty wine. But, my glass was empty and I was standing there, so I gave it a whirl. I was bowled over by the intense flavor of this wine.

The Walla Walla gang was out in force with some great wines. Some of note were Amavi Cellars, Gramercy Cellars, Fort Walla Walla Cellars, Pepper Bridge Winery, and Syzygy, and many more.

It’s been three days since Taste, and I’m suffering from separation anxiety.  After being in a room with so many wines, one finds themselves despondent at the smaller selections at local wineshops and tasting rooms.  I’m sure I’ll recover, and begin enjoying my favorite wine-haunts again, but I’ll be looking forward to Taste Washington until next year.