May 16, 2012

 

The birthday of Queen Victoria, a.k.a. Widow of Windsor, The Grandmother of Europe and Drina, leads an annual Canadian pilgrimage to purchase flats of beer by the two-four. Truth be told, the Queen held an enthusiasm for wine from Hochheim (Rhinegau, Germany) and Hungary’s Emperor Franz Josef had a tradition of sending her Tokaji Aszú , as a gift, every year on her birthday, one bottle for every month she had lived. She also reportedly had previously used Marijuana, Opium, Coca (raw cocaine) and chloroform. Wow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So why don’t we go wine over beer for the long weekend? Well, partly because our friends at the Ontario Craft Brewers are doing such a bang up job. Also because a Canadian boy’s future begins on Monday, (Tuesday on a long weekend) and his weekend starts on Friday. Still, my job is to steer you down the road of vinous possibility. I would stop short of recommending Drina’s namesake cocktail, the Queen Victoria’s Tipple, a simple mix of  ½ a tumbler of red wine plus an amount of Scotch “…stopping a good deal short of the top of the tumbler.” Hang on to your chalance, beat off the beer dictators with a cudgel and proclaim, “I have no attitude without a glass of wine.”

 

Michel Delhommeau Cuvée Harmonie Muscadet De Sèvre-Et-Maine 2010 (164624, $12.95) scatters nether and beyond the stereotypical need for oysters pairing. Light as the sky, “a free man in Paris…unfettered and alive.” Like I said before, it offers up more complexity, flesh and sea bone than its brethren. Courts shrimp, sparks smoked chicken and even ventures into baby back rib territory. On the card at Barque.  88

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Los Haroldos Reserva De Familia Malbec 2008 (269068, $14.95) heralds BBQ season officially open. This despite its closed aromatics and taste obscura. Biddable aspersions make good the silver-tongued, concrete poem. Silence will lead to golden connections with grilled meats.  At Barque.  87

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good to go!