Category: basics

The last note for a while about my burgeoning cellar, I promise: when shopping at Ikea recently for kitchen cabinets (we’re remodeling our kitchen at the end of the month, a fact which fills me with unreasoning dread), my beloved and I stumbled across a wine storage system which would store 80+ bottles… for only $100!

While Tom could very easily make me a wine rack, we’re embroiled in this remodel currently, and he’s also working on building us our own tear-drop trailer. So we figured to take the easy way out, and he put them together for me yesterday, an unusually cold rainy Saturday which would have kept him in doors anyway.

We located the new rack in the hall closet. I don’t know where we’re going to put all the camping gear that lived in there before – it’s hunched in the corner of the guest room, whimpering and bewildered.

For those of you that dream of someday owning your very own wine collection, bottles gently aging toward perfection, there are a few things you need to consider in the placement of your treasure trove. Firstly, light: wine hates it, and you don’t want your wine to learn to be a hater. Choose a wine storage location away from light.

Secondly, temperature: we call wine collections “cellars” because traditionally wine was kept in the basement, because there is little to no temperature variation underground. Sure, if you spring for a refrigerator to keep your wine in, you can store it at 55 degrees Fahrenheit, just like it would be kept in a cellar. Or if you actually have a basement (something largely uncommon in my neighborhood of houses built on solid limestone, and not so much with the tornados), you can keep your juice there with much sense of tradition. But simply giving your wine somewhere to sleep that will have a constant temperature (in my house, this means in the center of the home, close to the floor) is completely acceptable. Especially if you’ve got the dark part taken care of.

Thirdly, inclination: with the advent of the Stelvin closure, this is becoming less vital, but if you are storing bottles closed with corks, you need them to stay wet. Horses may sleep standing up, but wine doesn’t like it. Treat your wine better than the airlines treat all of us, and let it lay down to rest. Your corks will stay moist and pull-able, and everyone will live happily ever after.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Life’s too short, right? Well, bullshit. There will always be that party where you’re the “wine gal,” so you get the special bottle of Turning Leaf Pinot Noir they’ve been aging on top of the fridge for 5 years, or that gathering where you are forbidden to bring anything and everyone’s drinking Franzia Merlot from plastic cups.

The fact is that there are times when you have no choice: due to social or psychological pressures, everyone eventually is trapped into drinking bad wine.  Fighting it won’t help you.  Quit struggling.  Accept that glass of pukey juice with a smile, confident that you can knock this fucker out with panache.

1. Drink very little.  Accept your glass gracefully and then contrive to lose it somewhere, and then switch to water after a decent interval.  If anyone raises an eyebrow, make some comment about feeling dehydrated.  That shuts everyone up.

2. Keep it cold.  Cold is your best friend when it comes to bad wine.  When given a selection of seemingly identically bad wine choices, choose the cold one: cold mutes a wine’s flavor, you will taste less of the badness.  If your bad wine choices are not refrigerated, ask for some ice.  Even Franzia Merlot is almost palateable over ice; the blueberry flavors almost conquer the bile flavors when it’s cold enough.  Plus, ice will dilute it, and you won’t be too drunk to go get a decent drink after the party.

3. No smellsies.  I know it’s a reflex to swirl and sniff everything, even your coffee cup and water glass, but don’t go sticking your nose in this crap!  It’ll only remind you of the misery of your situation and exaggerate the nastiness of your swill.  Even better, close off your nose when you swallow — you know how you kind of close the back of your throat when you drink?  Like that.  Keep your throat closed for a few seconds before and after your swallow, and you’ll minimize the amount of flavor you can perceive.  (This also works when you have to down nasty-tasting medicine, and Jagermeister.)

4. No sipping.  Take big gulps, using the throat-closing technique, and soon you’ll be buzzed enough that the ick won’t bother you as much.  This will invalidate your ability to go find a glass of something bearable later on unless you have a driver, I’m just warning you.

5. Mix it.  If you’re given bad champagne, splash some Kir or cranberry juice into it. Bad white wine can also be fruited up or made into a (more) drinkable spritzer.  If you’re really desperately staring down the barrel (no pun intended) of 4 bottles of rotten red and no way out, cheerily suggest Sangria.  If your hosts have no fruit, just throw some ice and OJ into your glass. Colder, dilute, and the juice will mask some of the skank.

Do you have another secret way to withstand bad wine?  A good story about learning that life’s not too short after all?  Pull up a comments box and tell us all about it!