Nederberg (S.Africa)
Pinotage. Year unknown. Cost....well that is up for discussion.
Cheap wine lady found herself at Fang Fang (harkens back to sesame's count, no? van, too, twri, vour...) a Chinese restaurant in Kampala with a New and Interesting Acquaintance.
NIA and cwl, enjoy some light conversation about immigration and extended family. Indians in Fiji and BG, and the British Colonial Medical Service. All good.
NIA and cwl, ask for a glass each. Red please, thank you please. If it is not too much trouble, cwl asks the waiter, can we have the wine from a new bottle, one that has not been sitting in the sun for the last three days working on its sugars. Please, sir? Yes, mam, fresh bottle.
Out it comes. cwl takes a sip. Asks, why does this taste like every wine by the glass in this town, when it is not every wine by the glass. Not happy. cwl will drink this slimey, snot-rot anyway, because she overdid the moonberg lager over the last few days (long story) and she wants a drink (a sad indictment of cwl's stooping, etc, but hey, cwl is what she is).
NIA takes a sip. I cannot do it, she says. I cannot drink it. Waiter, please take this back, it tastes bad. Not sure, he looks at cwl. cwl does the open handed, palm up, grimace gesture for "what can i say?" NIA cannot drink it. That is ok. She orders a bell.
Everything is ok.
OK, it is, until we get the bill.
Apparently at Fang Fang, if you order a glass of wine from a new bottle, you are expected to pay for the whole bottle. The bottle does not come to the table. You are not offered another glass from that bottle, and they no doubt serve others from that bottle. And even if your NIA does not drink her glass, you have to pay of the whole bottle. And if you don't want to pay for the whole bottle, 4-5 young chinese staff members come to tell you that you don't understand, you have to pay, if you don't pay then the staff must pay and the staff have no money but you have lots of money because you are the big boss. Admittedly cwl thought of boss hog when she was referred to as big boss, and she could not conceal her smile at the thought of the the white three-piece.
All that to say, the wine was crap. Even if from a fresh, just picked, bottle. They should probably not leave the wine sitting, uncovered, on the tarmac at Entebbe for 6 weeks.
16 June 2010
10 June 2010
I got a fish in my dish
Hotel Restaurant x 2
Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Zonneblom, South Africa
Cheap wine lady and a friend decide to have dinner. "A steak!" she cries. For wine, madam, take your pick from our list, and when, only when you have made your selection, I will tell you that the one that you want is not available ("last bottle just sold"), your second choice elicited the same response (last bottle also just sold), your third and fourth the same, until, I tell you that is only two to choose from: a Sth African Cab Sav (really?) or a South African Merlot (UGH). Cheap wine lady was backed into a corner, and ordered the former.
Last 2 one eighth of a glass:
Friend: Do you know the name of it?
cheap wine lady: Name of what? Pray tell, name of what?
F: The wine, silly, the wine
cwl: The wine?
F: Yes, the wine, do you know it's name?
cwl: Looks like a Sally to me, like the one with the dog named spot
F: I taste oak, you can write that.
cwl: (Stands up and gestures a la 19th century melodramatiste) cheap wine lady does not write! Nay! She drinks, she feels, she scribbles and scratches, she daubles and dashes, and then words spew forth like the bubbles, bubbles I say!, bubbles in your bath water, darling, the bubbles!
F: (returning from a brief sojourn in the bathroom) who exactly are you speaking to?
Little wood and leather on the nose.
No fruit, as was described by lying waitress, to taste, which is fine by cheap wine lady; but altogether this wine is forgettable. And cheap wine lady forgot it.
Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Zonneblom, South Africa
Cheap wine lady and a friend decide to have dinner. "A steak!" she cries. For wine, madam, take your pick from our list, and when, only when you have made your selection, I will tell you that the one that you want is not available ("last bottle just sold"), your second choice elicited the same response (last bottle also just sold), your third and fourth the same, until, I tell you that is only two to choose from: a Sth African Cab Sav (really?) or a South African Merlot (UGH). Cheap wine lady was backed into a corner, and ordered the former.
Last 2 one eighth of a glass:
Friend: Do you know the name of it?
cheap wine lady: Name of what? Pray tell, name of what?
F: The wine, silly, the wine
cwl: The wine?
F: Yes, the wine, do you know it's name?
cwl: Looks like a Sally to me, like the one with the dog named spot
F: I taste oak, you can write that.
cwl: (Stands up and gestures a la 19th century melodramatiste) cheap wine lady does not write! Nay! She drinks, she feels, she scribbles and scratches, she daubles and dashes, and then words spew forth like the bubbles, bubbles I say!, bubbles in your bath water, darling, the bubbles!
F: (returning from a brief sojourn in the bathroom) who exactly are you speaking to?
Little wood and leather on the nose.
No fruit, as was described by lying waitress, to taste, which is fine by cheap wine lady; but altogether this wine is forgettable. And cheap wine lady forgot it.
2 June 2010
Gorgeous garnet fading
If cheap wine lady to is to be humbled by anything (and let's be frank, she ain't the holiest or the humblest) it is by some delightful wine writing by one Mr. P. Carey, her favorite story teller, in Olivier and Parrot in America.
Duponceau and I chatted or chattered. I bemoaned the palates of the Philadelphians who had call his Medoc cold and sour. Miraculously, it was free of sediment, and rushed into my glass at that perfect stage of life. In a year it would be a dowager with a faded old corsage, but as it entered my mouth it was vigorous and manly, completely composed, its orchestra all present and correct. Oh heavens, that such small things make a man so happy. I revealed to my host my plan to interview each of the forty-two prisoners in the Quaker prison. He told me it was well known that the cost of the famous outer wall was $200,000, a little under a third of the entire cost of the prison.
We finished the bottle and decanted another.
Duponceau and I chatted or chattered. I bemoaned the palates of the Philadelphians who had call his Medoc cold and sour. Miraculously, it was free of sediment, and rushed into my glass at that perfect stage of life. In a year it would be a dowager with a faded old corsage, but as it entered my mouth it was vigorous and manly, completely composed, its orchestra all present and correct. Oh heavens, that such small things make a man so happy. I revealed to my host my plan to interview each of the forty-two prisoners in the Quaker prison. He told me it was well known that the cost of the famous outer wall was $200,000, a little under a third of the entire cost of the prison.
We finished the bottle and decanted another.
1 June 2010
Lick the whisk!
Horse Mountain Pinotage, 2009
55000UGX at Cayenne Restaurant
First sip is like a breath of whipped cream landing in your mouth. Soft and chewy. It fills your mouth in the most unobstructive way. Earthy yet light enough to eat with tilapia cakes; substantial enough to carry the evening (and carry it did, all two bottles of it, it also carried an in appropriate number of high fives, a lengthy discussion of the problems inherent in a term like "human trafficking", a not-too-bad greek salad, invitations to Seattle for at least half of the city of Kampala, mzungu dance demos, chickens, dancing chickens, and, as I was later informed some drunken skyping to all and sundry). If every photo of me was taken by this bottle, my purple- stained grin would be as wide Jinja road is long. And that road goes all the way to Jinja!
Cheap wine lady apologizes to Kampala for the last post's outburst.
This stuff was delicious. It was not all that cheap, but worth drinking.
55000UGX at Cayenne Restaurant
First sip is like a breath of whipped cream landing in your mouth. Soft and chewy. It fills your mouth in the most unobstructive way. Earthy yet light enough to eat with tilapia cakes; substantial enough to carry the evening (and carry it did, all two bottles of it, it also carried an in appropriate number of high fives, a lengthy discussion of the problems inherent in a term like "human trafficking", a not-too-bad greek salad, invitations to Seattle for at least half of the city of Kampala, mzungu dance demos, chickens, dancing chickens, and, as I was later informed some drunken skyping to all and sundry). If every photo of me was taken by this bottle, my purple- stained grin would be as wide Jinja road is long. And that road goes all the way to Jinja!
Cheap wine lady apologizes to Kampala for the last post's outburst.
This stuff was delicious. It was not all that cheap, but worth drinking.
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