Wine, Women, and a Coney Dog

When my parents were first married, according to my mother who loved to tell this story, my dad gave her a list of things he could not possibly eat.  The list included spaghetti, chili, anything spicy, and anything containing tomato sauce amongst other things.  The truth was that he was just used to blander fare.  His mother was of German or Polish ancestry, (depending on which relative you believe), and his father came from Ireland.  It was a meat and potatoes kind of household.  My mother abided by his rules for some time.  One morning, she decided to surprise him at the coffee shop he went to with his workmates daily.  It was she that was surprised when she saw his breakfast of two coney dogs, dripping with chili like you can only find in Detroit. From that day on, she vowed she would cook anything she wanted, and she did. She made chili, canned her own tomatoes for use in casseroles, and even canned her own spaghetti sauce.  My dad had thought that he would not like those things, but that was only because either he had never eaten them, or had them once and did not like them.  He loved my mom's chili, he loved Italian food, and in later years, even enjoyed tacos. 

 I rarely drink alcohol.  It is not that I am prude and I most certainly do not have any moral issues with it.  I just never really enjoyed the taste.  I will have a drink or two to be social, but truth be told, I would rather be drinking iced tea or lemonade. I usually choose drinks in which the taste of alcohol is not overly strong, like vodka and cranberry juice, a bloody Mary, or a mojito. If the drink of the night is wine, then I will choose a sweet white.  I just always assumed that it would be more palatable to me without ever investigating other possibilities.

A few weeks ago, I went to visit my sister in our home state of Michigan.  On my first day there, she listed off some places we could go.  One of the suggestions was visiting local farm stands and orchards.  That sounded like fun to me as there really are no farm stands or orchards near me in Texas and I love fresh produce where tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes and apples are crisp and flavorful instead of mealy and bland.  Little did I know at the time that farm stands and orchards is apparently a euphemism for wineries.  Yes, one of the wineries did have an orchard with peaches, but I think that was more of the exception rather than the rule. 

We visited four wineries that afternoon and most offered five tastings for five dollars.  One of the wineries also makes spirits, so their prices were slightly higher at $8 for 5 tastings.  Many either allowed patrons to keep their glass or they gave discounts on bottle purchases if you bought the tasting.  Even though we went on a weekday, there were several other people at each winery we went to. Visiting the wineries is obviously a popular tourist attraction as there is a bus company dedicated to it as well as a limo company that specializes in winery tours.   The clientele was overwhelming female.  There were a few male/female couples, but mostly it was groups of women.  One woman actually had a baby in a sling, which reminded me of that scene from Sweet Home Alabama where Reese Witherspoon greets a former classmate by saying, "You have a baby." (pause) "In a bar."

I learned many things at the wineries, one of the most interesting was that I actually prefer semi-dry wines, and I enjoy reds the best, but if I were going to go with a wine to sip throughout an evening, I would go with a white.  I could tell you more about what I learned, but I would probably sound pretentious and quite honestly, I know quite a few people who actually know a lot about wine and I would probably come off as foolish with limited knowledge gleaned from a slightly tipsy afternoon of tasting 12+ wines and one rum.  The one thing I will share is likely general knowledge but was new to me, and that was the expression of "legs".  I have seen oenophiles swirl their wine in a glass and talk about legs, but I had no idea what that meant.  When you swirl the wine and then stop, if the wine has sugar, it will make a vertical line or two down the inside of the glass as the wine swirl drips down to the liquid below.  These lines are called legs.  Dry wines do not typically make legs. 

Just like my dad thought he would not like my mom's spaghetti or chili, I did not think I would ever really like wine.  He was wrong and I was too. I had a great afternoon.  I tasted some wines I really liked, a few I most definitely did not, and I learned that my sweet tooth does not apply to wine.  If I had not tried something new and gotten out of my comfort zone, I would have never thought differently than I did before.  I think that lesson could apply to a lot of different aspects of life and I'm looking forward to exploring that more in the future. 

Always be learning!

 (The pictures above are my own.  The coney dog was actually my dinner during my layover at Detroit Metro.  It came from National Coney Island, which had fabulous dogs that snap when you bite into them and a killer Greek Salad. The vineyard is a pic from Round Barn which was the winery that also has a distillery.)