(Note: this is the explosive and eagerly anticipated followup to my expose on the possibility of learning about barrel making, which can be found here)
I LEARNED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT BARREL MAKING AND IT WAS INTERESTING.
Huge.
Huge.
HUGE HUGE HUGE NEWS AIR HOOOOOORN
Here's some fun pics to celebrate:
When I found out that if we had time at the end of class after our guest speaker and wine tasting we would be learning about barrel making I was like *AIR HORN* *AIR HORN* *A-A-A-AIR HOOOOORN*
When we didn't have time, I was like, oh no, what am I going to talk about at parties now? And then I was like, thankfully not barrel making.
Ironic interests can be dangerous. The more we seek out hobbies because of how they make us look rather than how they make us feel, the more we cheapen our actual passions. When I heard we were learning about barrel making, the excitement I felt wasn't curiosity. It was a cheap, surface-level excitement. I was composing tweets and anecdotes and two truths and a lie in my head and it was gross. And as soon as I realized this, I snapped back to attention and listened to the fascinating Chad Melville talk about wine.
It goes the other way, too, and is just as dangerous. The more we downplay and shit-talk our true interests, the less we can fully enjoy them. Our pleasure is diluted by self-consciousness. This happens a lot with me and my puzzle, because I love doing it so much and I know that is so lame. But I'd feel a lot less lame about it if I just owned my passion for my four thousand piece masterpiece, my meditation, my truth. This happens to a lot of people with wine. They're ashamed of their interest because they don't know everything about it or they can't afford expensive bottles or it's now considered pretentious to have it as an interest. But wine is for everyone. Enjoy it how you will.
So here's to genuine interests. And to barrel making, I say this with the utmost sincerity: I hope I never fully understand you.
Sometimes wine makes you want to stay in and curl up with Netflix and try to forget about the human condition.
Other times it makes you buy Kelis' pants.
Ok, so I'm not trying to brag, but I literally did buy Kelis' pants. If you don't believe me, ask Kelis. The same way she asked me to get her another glass of wine when I bargained with her for the pants by saying I was too poor to be here, I was only there because my friend is a waitress at Bar Marmont and oh yeah, KELIS WAS HAVING A FULL-ON YARD SALE AT BAR MARMONT. And I bought her pants. These are they:
I can't decide if I might like them to be shorts instead. Thoughts are welcome.
Anyway, I was thrilled with the La Granja 360 2011 Tempranillo (the one with the pig on the label in the Spanish section at Trader Joe's). I mean THRILLED. Normally, that in and of itself would have constituted a proper night. Never mind that with its fruit and earth, juicy red rapsberry, cherry and strawberry grounded in tremendous forest floor and peet moss and greenery, this stuff was made to pair with comfort food and takeout (moo-shu pork is its soulmate; a complex mac and cheese its dirty little secret on the side. Either way, a match made in heaven).
So yes, I would have been good with just this, a cheap, wonderful wine.
But you know what else is super fucking good? BUYING KELIS' PANTS. God I wish I didn't have so much self respect and would demand celebs take pictures of me with them and their pants. I really should have documented the transaction. I hate my self (respect).
The point is, leaving the house is sometimes also good. It's important to appreciate life's simple pleasures, to embrace solitude instead of whining about loneliness. But it's also important to interact with the world. I know this is obvious to most people, but for me, it's so much easier to stay home in sweats with my great, cheap wine than it is to put on a bra and be a real person.
Being a real person is hard. You have to listen to the opinions of others and be judged unfavorably by dudes at bars and calculate tips with your phone-brain and it's just a lot of effort. Conversations about other people's lives make you think about your own. Being face to face with men (it still counts if you stare awkwardly at the guy's shoes or a spot on the wall to the left of his head because of confidence issues) reminds you that you are not getting any younger or hotter or sex. Much better to stay in, put on "Dancing on My Own" and text your bestie until you fall asleep or her boyfriend is all, "stop texting, Julia. Ali is never going to not have an over-dramatically urgent joke to tell you about her new theories on her recent weight gain (parasites). She is destroying our relationship. JK our relationship is amazing and a beacon of hope for all single people everywhere."*
Most of the time I go out, I wish I hadn't. I get my hopes up that tonight will be the night where everybody dances and the only drunk snack I have at the end of the night is a diet coconut water and also that that exists now and I'll meet a great guy and bond with a million friends with whom I've lost touch and my shoes will feel great all night. And those hopes are dashed so hard. So, so hard.
But last night, I bought Kelis' pants. And while moo-shu might be the soulmate of this wine, these pants are the soulmate of my legs.
So it's probably all worth it. It's probably worth it to keep hoping about everything, just in case.
Try La Granja Tempranillo. And occasionally, try leaving the house. It's not always the worst.
Oh, and in case you doubted it:
*Paraphrased from what I imagine to be conversations had by my favorite couple in the world.**
**Disney couples excluded because they are almost all imaginary.
Greg is back! Also, he is now famous. Like actually. This post is literally dripping with priceless, priceless fame. #fitchthehomeless
GREG KARBER’S 2ND-PERSON EXPERIENCES OF BEING TOO DRUNK ON RED WINE EPISODE 2: PASSOVER
You have been invited by a friend to your third Passover. (You are a Gentile.) You are very excited.
You are also running late, and have yet to find a bottle of kosher red wine. They do not sell it at the local convenience store, which is your go-to wine provider. So you travel up Silver Lake and find a place that sells twenty dollar bottles. This is four times your typical bottle budget, but you buy two so you don’t seem cheap.
Your friend drives you to the Passover party. To protect the innocent, let us call this friend “Caitlin.” Caitlin insists on showing up on time. She gives you a hard time for making her wait a few minutes in her car because she showed up too early to pick you up. She drives you to the party, on time, and you are the first to arrive by a good half hour.
This gives you an opportunity to get a head start on drinking.
You have forgotten that the Passover ceremony itself involves drinking at least four glasses of wine. You have also forgotten that the kosher-for-Passover food isn’t exactly the stuff you stuff yourself with (except for the charoses, which are always delicious).
And you have forgotten to eat a snack before you came.
To make matters worse, Caitlin is under the impression that she should refill anyone’s glasses should they get empty. This results in a severe miscalculation of alcohol consumption which leads to be a debate over whether the Easter Bunny is a religious character (he most definitely is). (editor's note: he most definitely is not. I will fight you on this one forever)
Fortunately, Caitlin drives you home.
Your roommate isn’t home, but your downstairs neighbor is. You are lonely, so you go downstairs and hang out while he watches The Office. Despite having seen this episode before, the jokes do not make sense. You excuse yourself with a sophisticated, “I’ll be right back." You stand and stumble out the front door.
You make it to the sidewalk, where you vomit red wine. Then you puke in some bushes. Then you climb the stairs to your apartment, vomit a third time in the toilet, and fall asleep on the floor.
You were never right back.
But as a First Born, you were happy just to wake up in the morning.
Come on, Karber. Look at you. You sure you're not even Jew-ish?
Cheap (4 dollars!), tasty (Primitivo is the same grape as Zinfandel, only Italian) and it has enough acid to pair well with my go-to meal: pasta (cheap and tasty!).
But that wasn't all this wine did for me. Oh, no. It had a pretty cork and an elegant orange label. It had a rich color and a versatile set of aromatics (spice, earth, a pinch of vanilla from the oak, some red and black cherry--what can't you pair this with? Donuts. Never pair wine with donuts). It wasn't too heavy for a balmy summer evening. It wasn't too light for the thick feelings I was having. IT WAS FOUR FUCKING DOLLARS.
And it got me thinking about other primitive needs. No, not sex. I'm a lady. We don't know what that is. I started thinking about food and drink and the way they nourish us beyond the physical.
Because I realized this wine would pair perfectly with my favorite thing in the world:
Bertucci's Brick Oven Pizza.
I understand that this is a chain restaurant. I get that there are probably more technically perfect pizzas out there. But I can't think of it without my mouth watering and I can't eat it without complete satisfaction. You know when you crave something and then you have it and it can't live up to the craving? That has never happened to me with Bertucci's brick oven pizza. It's only on the east coast, but I've seriously considered opening an LA franchise.
Here's a photo of me when my dad surprised me with a visit, after telling me Annapolis didn't have Bertucci's:
I was that happy with every single bite of my pizza.
The need here isn't the pizza, although I want some desperately now that I'm remembering how perfect in every single way it is. The need is the certainty, the nostalgia, the consistent loveliness, the way it never lets me down. The need of comfort food is primitive. It is the solace we find in tradition and memory and the familiar taste and texture of what we can count on to love.
Like cheap red wine that tastes fantastic.
Like a DIY manicure that looks f-ing amazing and is on my fingers currently. Ok, so that's a stretch. I just want to show off:
FYI the bits on my fingers are gone now, they washed off, it's all clean lines now so it is even better.
They exist! Obviously. This is a tonally uneven marriage between a sad person's Instagram and the diary of a lesser Kardashian.
Check out The Reverse Wine Snob. Fantastic reviews for all us aspiring oenophiles who don't have the cash to support fancy drinking habits. And he takes recommendations, which I feel like is the 21st century version of having a court taster for the king. Only this guy tries cheap wine before you do and makes sure it's good enough to impress people at dinner parties. Which is basically 30% of the point of wine, as illustrated below:
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