An Occasional Tipple: Beat the blues with beautiful wine
Ah me! Alas! Pain, pain ever, for ever! My lovely home, Rose Cottage, feels somewhat down at heel this evening, filled as it is with the stench of existential dread.
It’s a sensation we all know and, alas, get to experience with alarming regularity. I write to you at the end of my ‘weekday weekend’, (my days off being Monday and Tuesday this week) - spent in Holywood having an amazing time which sadly is now consigned to memory. Back to work in the morning. Usually, a delicate emotional state such as this calls for a stiff drink but given that the alarm clock has just now been set for 6 am, that seems like a particularly bad idea.
Not that any of this should concern you. For although I’m writing to you on an emotionally bleak Tuesday evening, you’ll be reading this on what one hopes will be a warm and sunny Saturday morning. Full of promise. You’ll probably be wondering at this point whether I’m ever actually going to go back to work and perhaps get on with recommending some pleasant and palatable vino which you might enjoy at a reasonable price this weekend. And the answer is that yes, dear tipplers, yes, I will do so even if my heart isn’t truly in it. For I am nothing, if not a professional. Here goes.
Today’s WINE OF THE WEEK is the exceptionally fresh, fragrant, zippy and zesty 2024 M&S Classics Pinot Grigio (£8). A luscious palate full of round, gently spiced fruit flavours with bright citrussy backnotes combines with grassy aromatics and hints of mineral in this racy, refreshing Italian drop.
The magnificent chicken Waldorf Salad prepared by my darling wife, the enigmatic Madame G., proved the perfect match.
Of course, my working week isn’t all so hard. The highlight of last week’s working week was a trip to The Foundry on Belfast’s Hill Street (Cathedral Quarter) to eat delicious nibbles washed down with delightful glasses of either Freixenet Prosecco or Freixenet Rose, not to mention five exclusive Freixenet-based cocktails, expertly created by the Foundry staff and which will be available there throughout June and July.
Lovers of red, I haven’t forgotten you. Today’s final selection is the smoky, supple and nicely balanced 2023 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (£5.29, Lidl).
Dark cherry and plum flavours dominate an exuberantly juicy palate before a lingering finish with hints of dried fruit, spice and toasted hazelnuts. This Italian red will go wonderfully well grilled meats, burgers, steaks etc at your weekend barbecues.
That concludes my professional duties for today. I will therefore return to my initial complaint. Weekends and holidays offer us glimpses of the lives we’d love to lead before dumping us back into our actual lives, thereby compounding our misery.
And yet if we think back to life before the holiday/weekend, it wasn’t so bad, was it? Nothing that a blast of sunshine wouldn’t cure. And there’s the trick. Enjoy this weekend/hol and once it’s over, start planning the next one. For life only seems bleak when we’ve nothing much to look forward to. Like me, right now. Till next week, tipplers, sante!