Cheap wine lady makes no excuses for not updating. She drinks wine. Sometimes she writes. Sometimes she savors the moment w shares it with no one but her inner child.

[Sauvignon Blanc. Free from hotel. Cannot recall brand]
This wine was so cheap, it was free.

Cheap wine lady is a return customer to a certain hotel in Kampala. Kindly, very kindly, said hotel offers return customers a free bottle (yes, bottle!) of wine. Cheap wine lady has two such bottles offered (since she left and came back in the span of 10 days). What a gift! She worries about the unspoken invitation to chat that a lady with a bottle to herself may extend to the many overweight, middle-aged South African men that frequent the hotel, but goes ahead with the Sauvignon Blanc because it is warm out, because she is ordering chicken, because she assumed it would be South African and their SB exports are ok (unlike their male exports) and because she damn well can do what she wants, thank you very much.

It should also be known that cheap wine lady has not had a drink in around 10 days. TEN DAYS. You read right. Let's just say she was eagerly awaiting the first pour.

Well. Well. Well. If cheap wine lady had an emoticon for disappointment it would be placed here <>. This wine was like hooking up with a 20 year old because he was cute and half way through remembering why you preferred older men; sloppy (why on earth is this SB as syrupy as Ugandan honey?), inexperienced and no staying power (if you want it to work for me, darling, allow your flavors to rest on my tongue a little longer), no dynamism or creativity (the wine is so thin you could tear it with your pinky, buck up, you don't have to throw me around but you could at least not buckle under my weight). Unlike a 20 year old, this wine was sweet, sweet, sweet, a wannabe bloody Riesling.

Cheap wine lady leaves 3/4 of the bottle and returns to her room, sadly wiping a tear from her eye. Yes, even cheap wine lady has feelings.

So there you have it. Despite Ms. Jackson's proclamation to the contrary, the best things in life are not free. OK Janet?

Was it cheap wine ? In Bishkek

There is so much that you cannot know about a town. So much you can never know. Like, I never knew that Bishkek had a Turkish restaurant (with private rooms, oh la la!), I never knew that there is a difference between Kyrgyz and Kyrgyz (you cannot see that I pronounced them differently) and that there is a difference between northern Kyrgyz and southern Kyrgyz and that there are 80 Kyrgyz tribes and 1200 Kyrgyz clans. I don't know a lot. So I drank the
Moldovan Merlot,
Cheateau {fake french name},
price unknown, on the table, as he spoke, the translator translated, and I listened.

There used to be rhinoceros' in Kyrgyz. The wine starts out tart, crisp but tart. But I know it will get better. He does not drink. The translator pours us more.

We had merino sheep here for a while from Australia, but the old soviet farms did not know how to take care of them and sold them before their true value for wool could be known. Wine is thin. I want to click the top of my mouth with my tongue.

There is a great Russian poet who as a theory about culture: All cultures develop over time, they reach a climax. and then they decline. We are in decline. We are disappearing because we have nothing to hold us together. Our cultures is disappearing. Our culture is dying, but every culture does after some time. I eat lavash and yoghurt dip. Wine sips get longer. The outline of his eyes smile, but they are sad. The wine gets becomes fuller.

70 years of a strong soviet government did not kill our traditions, but 17 years of market economy has wiped us out. He does not eat as he talks more. The wine is where I want it to be. Honey and plums, honey and plums, am I still the only one drinking the honey and plums? There are shrooms there too, but they do not clash. I like that.

The sad eyes of a southern Kyrgyz man, who was a reformer and is now sidelined, downtrodden, by a different kind of reform, laugh as he recounts speaking only Kyrgyz in an all Russian soviet military. And the last drops are poured into my glass. Fading thoughts of honey and plums.

Blue Bayou

Drodstyhof, Red. Priceless.
Delivered and drunk from a snowgum plastic traveler by drinking buddy (DB). Can life get any better than this?

Smells and take like toffee and cola. That might be the remainder of the coca cola I had this afternoon. MMMmmm warm coke and cheap wine, a cocktail? DB is sitting on the bed beside me, she can taste toffee now too. But DB’s nose is itchy and she has a parasite. DB's parasite is a wine connoisseur. So cheap wine lady had a little chat with it.

Me: Noseless, don't you think?

Parasite: Are you kidding man? Get a whiff of those dried plums!

Me: You mean prunes?

Parasite: I dunno, but it is there and it is strong and ripe and would almost be delicious if had some more body. I like my wine like I like my women. Gimme some ripe and curvy, voluptuous fullness! Get the girl to drink some more, I be thirsty. By the way, tell her stop with the meds already, it hurts my feelings.

Me: I taste those plums! I taste boiled fruit and sugar. A little spice.

Parasite: That's nice.

Me: You?

Parasite: It tastes dark. If you can taste dark. This is a dark wine. Like the dark emotional state I enter when pondering my mortality. We are all going to die some day aren't we?

Me: With bad Kenyarn ice-cream it tastes like Rwandan ham that has turned.

Parasite: Fuck the ham,I am utterly and thoroughly depressed that this girl wants to kill me. Where is my beautiful house?

lime green envelope. at toast to moi!

Penasol: Tempranillo-Garnacha, Spain (no year)
Approx 5000RwF, Nakumat
[notes taken by those left behind]

Cheap wine lady is currently out of Kigali and was honoured to receive the following correspondence from a fellow cheap-wine(drinker)-in-Kigali:

Ms. X said we must take notes for you, so I grabbed the only piece of paper that was near me at the time (a lime green envelope containing a birthday card) and dutifully took notes…


Has a nose…a bit like dirty tennis shoes…reminds me of my son when he was 17.

It’s got a nose – it’s not great, could do with some work.

Lovely ruby colour…vin rouge.

Prickly on the nostrils.

Sharp, off, Vitamin B….healthy!

Acetic acid

Bitter chemicals

Ooh…I’m not sure about this.

I’ve had enough of the Aussie wine not to notice it is foul.

Light tannins, do I taste oak? If you can taste oak you’ve got a better imagination than I have. No, I don’t taste oak. Citrus, Peppers.

I need to take a wine course.

It’s got good length, not good depth.

I like to say things that are intelligent: it really opens up.

It’s like a shy Englishman; it opens up after a while.

I don’t actually reckon it’s too bad.

It gets better as time goes on.

There you go…reportage direct from Kigali.


Cheap wine lady: direct reportage indeed. And finely executed. I love big noses (more to suck on), have played tennis at least once, imbibed chemicals in my youth, and regularly take vitamin B (thanks Berocca) but shy Englishmen are such an incredible bore. I won't be losing sleep over this one.

that's why the lady is a tramp

Cheapwinelady knew she needed a break when all the cheap wine in Kigali developed a distinct primate aroma, i.e. "this wine smells like monkey, it tastes like monkey too!"

So she hopped off to Rome and indulged in some I-sense-a-pattern-here lovely white wine, enjoyed at Il Moro, a laid-back seafood restaurant on the coast, just outside Rome. But alas, her indulgence left her with little-to-no memory of the name of a deliciously clean and dry white wine. It was along the lines of "Veragnolo" but she cannot be sure. With pickled sarde, seppiette con fagioloni, pasta alla pescatore, and griglia mista, this wine was a dedicated champion of all things that make life worth living for. The Asti (yes, she forgot its name too) was sweet but not cloying and went very well with a (liquor soaked) cake.

Cheapwinelady is concerned that cheap wine in kigali may be too cheap.

She is also concerned that this post is thinly veiled bragging and/or longing for a life that involves more Rome-time. Peccato.

Elegant label

Cantine Astroni, Aglianico
Italia 2007
7000RwF Simba
[Mid-week dinner with mates. Last minute dash for wine]

Vinegar. I think it is so tsscchheetch it is actually burning all the way down my throat.

Yes, my first sip, I thought vinegary too, then I thought Jasmine.

As I swallow it feels like it scours my throat.

I am trying to find a positive thing to say. No plum. No berry. No spice. No chocolate. No jasmine. No cabbage. No love.

I have had a lot worse and drunk it.

Elegant Label. The label is good.

we could hold each other tight tonight

Cape White from South Africa.
7000 RwF Nakumat
[Ooops! Label long trashed, but worth reporting nonetheless]

A light fruity nose. Peachy, I can heartouchsmelltaste the peach.

This peach, he has a friend who is learning English.
Does he know how to say "I Love You"? "Get your kit off baby"? Of course, this is a fuzzy clingstone peach. Ti chiero, peaches.

Distinct smell of summer fruit, and a Rwandan-thunderstorm-perfect fresh and light taste. It is not syrupy, not sugary, it is refreshing. The moist clean smell of the heavy Kigali rains complement the clean rush of summer across my tongue. And because this is Rwanda, there is speck of a very polite pineapple. The wine surprisingly fills the whole mouth, but it doesn't stick around too long, because it knows you want to run naked in the rain and get another taste of summer.

This is white wine number #2 that I will buy again. Hello cheap wine in Kigali, we are diversifying! I think this means business!

Look for an update where I provide that useful winery information.