A Wine Column by Wendy MacLeod

1999 Chateau Fleurs d’Algernon

A restrained, well-behaved Bandol, with notes of naughtiness. The first sip is all white gloves and sensible pumps, but by the end of the glass, there’s a whisper of fishnet. It has the surprise of an Italian man’s hand squeezing one’s buttocks on the bus. Its restraint succumbs to the flesh like a spinster in Rome.

1999 Domaine Tempestue Cuvee Speciale

Ding-dong, les chanterelles. A wine with a woodsy, truffley flavor, like the smell of Hansel and Gretel’s magical forest before they reach the house of sweets, but with a slightly ashy undertone of witch in the oven. There is something expectant about the funkiness, as if the wine foresees a few years on the couch for Hansel and Gretel exploring trust issues.

Cote de Rochelle Rochelle Reserve

A hefty wine that’s light on its feet, like a fat man dancing. It’s robust, yet sylph-like, like Isadora Duncan and the racecar. Like Martha Graham after a big Thanksgiving feast. Like Baryshinikov carrying a safe. It’s large, yet small, it’s big, yet tiny, it’s humonguous and itty-bitty like the picture book in your daughter’s pre-school that shows an airplane on one page and a mouse on the other.

Amelie Reserve Selection Blanc de Blanc de Blancs

A hot tub for the taste buds, but without L.A, chlorine and the need to get naked! The bubbles fly up your nose like Santa up the chimney. They pop like balloons on a stripper’s chest. The Edie Sedgwick of Chablis, it’s a guaranteed good-time girl, the life of any party, the kind of wine that stands next to someone else’s husband on New Year’s Eve in order to kiss new lips at midnight.

1995 Chateau Marmont

An amusing, figgy wine, but not ha-ha funny, not SpongeBob funny. More like Harold Lloyd on the clock funny, or Chaplin eating a shoe funny. The kind of funny your children are not likely to get, the kind of funny that makes them sarcastic, like “Oh yeah Mom, that’s hilarious. Where’s the color? What’s wrong with the sound?”
It’s classic funny, grown-up funny, sophisticated funny, the kind of wine that doesn’t make you laugh out loud, but rather smile mysteriously, as if you’re remembering something funny that happened to you long ago and far away when the people you knew were funnier.

1999 Ridge California Lytton Strachey Hope Springs Eternal

A well-balanced red wine, it’s the kind of wine that no longer hates her sister for being prettier than her, and has forgiven her mother for the Hostess cupcakes put in her lunch every day for 12 years, which created God knows how many new fat cells. It’s the kind of red wine that you can proudly hand to your host at a dinner party, knowing that he won’t whisper something about it being neurotic to his partner in the kitchen. Maybe it’s a wine that spent some time wishing it were white or even champagne, but now it embraces its own redness, preferring to call itself scarlet.

2001 Vina Torro Fandango

A spicy Spanish wine that gets tired of cultural presumptions. Whereas others see it as a Catherine Zeta-Jones, or a Salma Hayek, it prefers to think of itself as a Gwyneth, because Spanish or no, they share a Protestant, country house, private school hauteur. And anyway Spain was lousy with Anglo-Saxons way back when. Probably. It read it somewhere. Go ahead and serve it with paella if you have to, but don’t forget that it goes down just as easy with pot roast, a nice baked chicken, or even a thrifty cup of tomato soup.

1997 Cos d’Estime Issue

A medium-bodied red wine, sort of a mesomorph, more bulimic than anorexic, more debate club than pep squad. The SAT’s aren’t off the map, but it has noteworthy extra-curricular activities, and an impressive concern for the environment. It’s got Ivy potential but settles for the scholarship in the Midwest. It’s got an unusual nose, but not the kind that demands plastic surgery, more of a Sarah Jessica Parker. It’s the second girl you ask to the prom but you’ll be surprised by how good a time you’ll have with it.

2001 Bonny Bell Vineyard Cardinal Sin Beastly Old Vines

A full-bodied wine, but not in a synthetic Britney Spears kind of way, more like Raquel in her heyday. It’s full-bodied, without being blowsy; rather it has a muscular finish like Martina, who still plays on the doubles-circuit and looks great by the way. Why do gay and lesbian people age better than straight people? Is it too late to take up tennis? Am I aging as well as my sister? If not, is it my mother’s fault? Was it the cupcakes? Is anatomy truly destiny? Is this the wine talking? Am I decanting or ranting? Who gives a damn? Next bottle please.