Stay Positive: Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel

As a wine drinker (I'm not a connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination.), I like dry wines, especially reds. 

Cabernets, Zinfandels, Pinot Noirs, and other red wines are the varieties I gravitate to. However, I do like a good buttery Chardonnay. 

Probably one of my favorite budget (I'm frugal) red wines has to be Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel. I think the most I've ever paid for a bottle of wine is $15. At my local grocery stores, this bottle is usually $9.99. So it's in my budgetary wheelhouse. 

The winery's website provides the official tasting notes of "aromas of cranberries and raspberries, leading to notes of red fruit, marionberry pie, and baking spices." 

I tend to agree with those notes, especially the "notes of red fruit." The bottle I drank before the one I'm sipping on now was very fruity--lots of plum-like flavor. 

Like I said with my Wild Turkey 101 post, if Bogle wants to sponsor this blog, I'll take payment in booze. 

Musing of the Moment: Isocrates on the Youth in Ancient Greece

I'm running an independent study with an undergraduate who wants to study classical rhetoric. 

As I was reading Antidosis by Isocrates, I came across this passage of his take on the problems among the youth in Ancient Greece. 

"It is from these pursuits that you have for a long time now been driving out youth, because you accept the words of those who denounce this kind of education. Yes, and you have brought it about that the most promising of our young men are wasting their youth in drinking bouts, in parties, in soft living and childish folly, to the neglect of all efforts to improve themselves; while those of grosser nature are engaged from morning until night in extremes of dissipation which in former days an honest slave would have despised. You see some of them chilling their wine at the 'Nine-fountains'; others, drinking in taverns; others, tossing dice in gambling dens; and many, hanging about the training schools of the flute girls."

I'm thinking "same as it ever was, bruh."

They're youth.

Today I think you could replace the drinking with smoking weed.

I am intrigued by the prospect of "flute girls" though. Most people associate flute girls with prostitution, but according someone who knows Ancient Greece better than me, they are not necessarily prostitutes.

Check out "Flute Girls" on Mindship.

Random Notes from a Crank

In a recent visit to my local CVS, I scanned the clearance liquor/wine rack. To my surprise, I found bottles of Manischewitz Blackberry wine for $2.77. It's a sweet, kosher wine that I sold at my dad's liquor store way back when. In fact, if I remember right, a Lutheran church bought cases of the Concord grape variety for communion wine. 

I'm a sucker for clearance booze racks, which reminds me of Colonial Party Mart. 

Colonial Party Mart was a liquor store back in my undergraduate college town of Kirksville, Missouri. They went out of business sometime in my junior or senior year. They were selling booze cheap as hell, probably at cost, and boozehounds  descended upon that establishment and got lots of good stuff at great prices. Unfortunately, when my friends and I got there, all that was left was mixing liquor and off brand stuff. I do think we bought some Ouzo though. I can't remember if it was the cheap stuff or one of the good Greek brands.

!Opa!

Figuring out how to spell that exclamation above led me to this interesting article: "What Does the Word Opa Mean Exactly?"

And that expression reminds me of the Norwegian expression of "Uffda." My mom had a plaque of that expression hanging on our back door. I need to use that expression more often. 

Stay Positive: Wine without Arsenic

There's a disturbing article out about a lawsuit about a great many California wines that have high arsenic levels. Check out "List of Wines Cited in Lawsuit as Having High Arsenic Levels." 

Thankfully the only brand of those wines I've had are dark wines put out by Menage A Trois  and Corbett Canyon. 

Wild Irish Rose is no surprise. That crap is horrible. I used to sell that stuff all the time to winos when I worked at my dad's liquor store. The list also reminded me of one night my fraternity brothers had a "Cisco Night" that turned out horribly for them. 

The Urban Dictionary definition of Cisco is worth a read. Here are two of my favorite lines: 

• "It is in the family with the common street wine Wild Irish Rose - except WIR would be a newborn baby and Cisco is the abusive step-father with boundary issues. "
• "The hangover that can result from Cisco is the equivalent of sticking your head up the ass of a Kentucky Derby horse in full sprint and being ejected into a brick wall all while undergoing Chemotherapy treatments that could kill an elephant."

And bumwine.com has some fine description about that "liquid crack":

• "Often, people on a Cisco binge end up curled into a fetal ball, shuddering and muttering paranoid rants.  Nudity and violence may well be involved too."  
• "Our research shows that Cisco is actually the second best tasting of the five great bum wines, especially if you're having one of those hankerings for cheap Vodka, Jello and Robitussin."  
• "A test subject reports, 'Strawberry Cisco has a bouquet similar to that of Frankenberry cereal fermented in wine cooler with added sprinkle of brandy for presentation.'"

So here's to enjoying wine without arsenic. Let's stay positive folks.