The Next Vintage of Our Lives

Morticia’s Cellar will be one of the few blogs this week who will NOT recap 2008 as we move on to the great year I hope 2009 to be. All I aim to do is tell you about what we drank on New Year’s Eve and this morning. Hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s and that this year is one of your best!

Rather than spend a quiet evening home alone this year my husband and I decided to have a semi-quiet evening home with family, so his brother, his brother’s fiancée and a few of their friends came over from Queens for some Rock Band and Dick Clark. Though much of it became an exercise in Making Dennis & Stefanie Feel Old — for any of the Rock Band songs that were older than 20 years the kids handed us the mic, and I didn’t recognize most of the acts on Dick Clark’s NYE special — we certainly had fun. This time I mulled some wine a little differently than the party in December: our Zin was a NV HRM Rex-Gloliath Free Range Giant 47 Pound Roaster Zinfandel from Lodi and Central Coast and rather than go all out with the Williams Sonoma mulling spices I used my own combo from the pantry, heavy on the cinnamon sticks. Very, very tasty.

At the midnight countdown we toasted a NV Gloria Ferrer Sonoma Brut from Carneros brought by my brother-in-law’s friend. Highly enjoyable! This morning after starting the year in my favorite way I drank the last of the sparkly in a bellini with some homemade eggs benedict (my man can COOK! reeeaaally well too). Now we’re just having a lazy day, I’m sipping the rest of the mulled spiced wine (chilled this time) and catching up on backlogged blogging (“clogged blog”?). Also I just ordered some business cards with my CWP title on them for when I eventually go look for wine jobs.

Some things I aspire to do this year:
Priority #1, January-February: get certified in my day job so I can keep paying the bills.
- After second quarter when I find out whether I still have a day job I plan to go further down the path of this wine career pursuit, probably consulting and trying out some wine service.
- Take singing lessons.
- Take Chinese lessons so I can finally understand my in-laws.
- Go to France, specifically Paris, Burgundy, Provence and wherever else our palates take us.
- Take swing dancing lessons.
- Hit that treadmill more often (you knew that had to be in here somewhere).
- Meditate more often. Being Wiccan it’s a challenge to take time to observe my own holidays since the world doesn’t typically take a break for the non-mainstream ones but now that I’ll have my own room for worship (rather than a dirty corner of the basement) I hope to have more spiritual focus going forward.

Should be busy!

For the Horde!

This weekend some of our World of Warcraft friends came over to our place for a holiday party, the first gathering since the big June one in NYC — a great time was had by all. Some of the guys brought some outstanding beer as is the case when you have beer aficionado friends (one who brews at home and aspires to brew professionally), my new favorite being Dead Guy Ale. Also one of my friends reminded me about the PKNT Carménère she recommended. Must hunt that down! Remind me next time I have a party to get extra tequila! We only had enough for one batch of margaritas. There was plenty else to drink — I mulled some wine (unsweetened) with Williams Sonoma Mulling Spices and a Rosenblum Cellars Zinfandel (can’t recall which one specifically and the bottles are out to recycling), served warm in a punch bowl my mom handed down to me long ago. My only complaint about the Williams Sonoma mulling spices vs. others (or home-combined) is that there is too much star anise, which ended up compounding the anise flavor in the Zin for too much black licorice flavor than most people care for. Ah well, it was tasty and people liked it.

Toward the end of the evening we went out into the back yard to saber a bottle of Presto Brut Prosecco for a toast — I know everyone says this but I really do NOT recommend trying this at home. It is not about chopping off the top of a bottle; it is very VERY dangerous and you risk being riddled with glass shards if the bottle explodes. You could hurt a guest or damage property. I received a demonstration in school from a professional with a lot of experience but even I probably should have just opened it normally until I got adequate practice doing it alone. Either way we all bundled up and filed into the back yard where I stood about 20 feet away from the group and faced the bottle away from everyone to shoot the cork toward the fence about 50 feet away from me. Plenty of room! We ran into a snag: it was way too cold out and the bottle would just not pop. Finally my friend who has professional training with blades (and safety) tried it with a little more umph at the bottle neck on the last stroke and POW it worked perfectly. Not sure why no one took a picture of it but we at least got some shots of folks in the kitchen for the toast.

Obviously we did more than just drink — there was much catching up between old faces, introductions with new faces, many many turns at Rock Band, a hilarious group viewing of “The Princess Bride”, general silliness and tomfoolery, hugs and good cheer. And yes, inevitably someone talked about World of Warcraft.

Champagne Brunch

Happy Slightly Belated National Coming Out Day!

Yesterday I met up with my friend with whom I went out tasting last month to have brunch with a group of mutual friends at an Irish pub on Orchard St. (but, ironically, not for National Coming Out Day — we’re all out already). The pub has an unbelievably affordable all-you-can-drink champagne brunch until late afternoon including an admirable selection of Irish breakfast dishes. So . . . we had some brunch with our champage. Word of advice: if you move on from brunch and mimosas and pick up at the bar where that left off you should probably have another meal in there somewhere. Several hours and 3 glasses of a 2005 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon later (which I guessed blindly, but did not recognize the winery) with no additional food I was sloppier than I like and VERY sick. Ugh, bad move. But somehow we all bid each other adieu and I got my friend to her Madonna concert on time and I got home on the train safely; no hangover today (drink lots of water before you go to bed!), and a lesson learned. Sometimes it’s not about what’s in the glass but the group around the glasses.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men (and Wine Chicks)…

. . . often go astray. AH THE IRONY! I had been planning a little “wine tasting 101″ party for my wine tasting club for several weeks and the only weekend everyone was available was this weekend — the party would be half “how to taste wine” and half blind tasting & eating, everyone contributing a bottle to the flight. My mom came over from PA to cook an epic beef bourguignon and I had saved the precious 1993 Teldeschi Zinfandel hand-carried from CA to pour as an aged sample. I even typed up handouts! The ironic part: I have been sick as a dog with a sinus infection and though I was well enough to host last night, I COULDN’T TASTE OR SMELL A DAMN THING! Folks brought over some truly remarkable and unique wines from all over the world that I heard good things about from the group, but when I put my nose in each glass or took a sip the most honest thing I could come up with was, “Mmm, smells like . . . a glass!” and “Tastes . . . wet.” Terrible. I couldn’t even taste the beef bourguignon. Heard it was splendid. /mope. I can’t even find the list I made of what everyone brought. One wine made it through the fog — it was badly corked — though I used it as an educational opportunity before washing out all the glasses and moving on. Either way, the group had a great time, tried new things, learned new things, and next time we all go on a wine tasting excursion we’ll be all the more informed about what we like and don’t like and why.

But dammit! What crappy timing for a head cold.