word of soz

WINETASTING

I went to a class on winetasting the other night.. Sooo French right!? It was very informative, and we were taught how to hold the wineglass, observe the wine before you drink it, smell it before you drink it, and then finally drink it (but not really drink it). Here are some of the things I learned.. Don’t be amused if you already knew them, I am absolutely no classy wine connoisseur..

• When you swirl it in your glass, you are looking at how fat the residue is on the sides and how long the legs take to drip down/how many layers of legs there are. The more residue, the better (the residue is glycerin, and that means there was a lot of sugar in the wine to begin which, which is good!)
• When you swirl it before you smell it, it’s to let oxygen into the wine to release all the different scents. You’ll notice that your whiff before you swirl and your whiff after you swirl are wildly different. Before - one overpowering smell. After - you can distinguish at least a few different fruits or spices. 
• When you taste it, you don’t actually swallow it! First you take it into your mouth and swish it all around to let it tingle your different taste buds. This is how you can tell how ‘dry’ the wine is - if it gives your cheeks that lil sucking feeling. Then you hold your head level, open your mouth slightly, and breathe in through your mouth, out through your nose. This allows you to taste ALL the different flavors in the wine. It’s truly astonishing. And then you spit the wine out so you don’t get drunk before you try all the other types of wine. Apparently nothing more can be distinguished from the wine by swallowing it, because your throat has no such sensors. Interesting. 

Anyways so the next night I was opening a bottle of wine and I got so fucking excited to use my new skills. Unfortunately, my wine smelled and tasted like pure alcohol; there was no subtle honey, blueberry, or lychee scent or flavor like I had so enjoyed the previous night.. I guess that has something to do with the fact that I always get the 1 euro bottle. My winetasting teacher said never to buy under 4 euro or else it’s shit. Oh well. 

the g20 experience

I was grocery shopping at G20 with one of those baskets that you roll around like a rolly suitcase. I picked out a loaf of bread and held my arm straight out to the side, about to put it into my basket after I verified that this was the cheapest loaf. The plastic wrapping slipped out of my hands and it fell with a plop from a distance of about 5 feet into my basket. Something told me to look to my right. There stood a rotund middle-aged man, staring at me. We made eye contact for a few seconds uncertainly. Then he giggled. Then I giggled. Then he chuckled. Then I chuckled. And then we both started laughing uncontrollably. I then had to walk past him, still laughing, towards the wine section, and he continued to laugh uncontrollably and say incomprehensible things in French and imitate my sudden arm movement and subsequent loaf plop. As I went around the corner, we were both still laughing. Then I picked out three bottles of 99 cent wine, forgetting that whereas in America I can get a bunch of groceries and then walk them to my car, here in Paris, I have to walk all the way back to my apartment and up all those stairs with my groceries. I think I lost five pounds.