Here’s Blood in Your Eye

I received an email from a friend that lives (however temporarily) in China last night. He confessed that he is currently enjoying an over oaked Chardonnay binge. I say – enjoy it while it lasts! Why do I say that? Because as stated in a previous post: been there, done that. It was a long, shallow love affair. It left me satisfied for a while, or so I thought. I had no clue. That’s right. I said it. The Wine Muse was clueless!

I have awakened. Like the young, vividly blue-eyed man in Dune who suffered many visions and dragged the storyline out so the movie had to be on two DVDs, the awakener has awakened. Rent the movie if you don’t understand what I’m talking about then come back and we’ll talk.

Anywho, let me just say that I understand your fascination with over oaked Chards, my tall friend in a land of height-challenged peoples. I drank Chards like they were going out of style. I drank Chards like the world was ending next week. I drank Chards like I didn’t know red wine existed. I even drank Chards like I had never seen “An Interview with a Vampire.” Then one fateful night in a swanky lodge in Woodinville, WA, the man that I was dating at the time brought something very special and different to my attention.

There I was with this wonderful, sexy, and very smart man in wine country. The Napa of the Northwest. We were getting ready to enjoy a glass of wine before dinner. I was about to perform my usual, albeit tired, ritual and drink yet another over oaked Chardonnay. As I was about to raise the glass to my lips, inhale the over-powering scent of oak, never really smelling the grape that was underneath the disguise of too much time spent in new French oak and drink the over-powering taste of oak, or vanilla, or coconut, or whatever was the “hook” in that particular Chardonnay, this amazing man said to me, “Here. Look. This is a Zinfandel. Look at this. It looks like blood.”

I looked at the glass filled with Zinfandel. I smelled it. It smelled delicious and powerful. He was right. It did look like blood. It was downright sexy. And the wine tasted wonderful, and the tears (also known as legs) on the glass were thick and juicy, and finally — it looked like sex in that glass. How did I not notice this before?

That man. His observation. That fateful night and that glass of Zinfandel. That moment in time — it changed my life forever. Ever since that fateful evening, gazing into that man’s eyes, gaping down at the wine in that glass that looked very much like blood, provided an incredible epiphany and life has not been the same. It’s been oh so much better.

I raise my glass of inspiration tonight – filled with a delicious, rich, earthy, smoky Syrah produced by the Gordon Brothers Cellars from the Napa of the Northwest — to the man that changed my life forever. Salud!

The Stats:

What: Dry red – Syrah
Producer: Gordon Brother Cellars
Vintage: 2005
Varietal: Syrah 100%
Alcohol by volume: 13.7%
Location: Columbia Valley, WA
Cost: $20.00