Further notes on that Carmenère...

(Day 1: Winter Solstice, December 21st)
Weird scenes inside the gold mine: I get back from dinner at NoPa & the TV is on, the window wide open in my room at the Metro Hotel. WTF? I don't remember leaving everything like this. When I boot up, Firefox is primed to install an upgrade & I miss the opportunity to search around for traces of unauthorised use or tampering with my laptop. Am I getting paranoid? Maybe it's the after dinner absinthe effect.

When I check email, I find a heartfelt note from meine neffe, Jens-Holger David, so at nine this drizzly evening in San Francisco, I'm his wake-up call in Wolfenbuettel (birthplace of Jaegermeister!), 0600 Central Europe Time in Niedersachsen-- that's Lower Saxony for the sprache-impaired.
He's supposed to be the bad guy in his marriage's breakup, & of course he's too sleepy to give me his side of the story under the circumstances. We're both sorry I wasn't in Puerto Rico last month when he visited.

(Day 2...)
Restlessly reclusive in my city hotel room-- why can't I get into my rental & drive off? Tired. I guess.

Day 3: I blew it. City Rent-a-Car has their whole fleet booked over Christmas & I couldn't extend my current rental beyond tomorrow. Booked for Friday. Forget Big Sur, or San Juan Bautista: I'll be spending Christmas in my Metro hotel room, for better or worse.

In spite of everything going on these days that leads me to question the ultimate relevance of personal wine evaluations except as mercenary marketing tool, I feel compelled to add some further notes to my dismissively skimpy write-up on the Ventura Carmenère for Wine Blogging Wednesday #52:
'...deep ruby (-- is that 'garnet', though?) color with violet rim, fairly simple but pleasant cherry-cassis in nose & palate...'

First of all, I opened the bottle with dinner at the Metro Kathmandu, where the Indian-Nepalese food was a difficult pairing task...I will have to rummage about to figure what I actually ate that evening. In any case, there seemed to be a fleeting bittersweet, tannic edge developing in the aftertaste just before the wine seemed to 'flatten' about two hours after opening. After recent & varied experiences of 'rebound' in the sensorium of organic wines, however, I figured it might be worth saving the remaining half-bottle.

Sure enough, two days later, Kathmandu manager Roshan agreed with me the wine was surprisingly improved: the body was still medium-light at best, washing a little thinly in the midpalate & coming up short in aftertaste. But there was now soft, well-integrated spice in the nose, with some follow through on the tongue. A dusting of nutmeg on the cherries & blackcurrants, as it were, adding subtle complexity & charm to what had at first seemed a gratingly simple, workmanlike quaffer.

It's Christmas Eve. I don't know where I'm eating or what I'm drinking tonight, but at least I have a warm & cozy manger & some silver in my pocket to afford me alternatives. In this Holiday time, please remember those less fortunate, those who cannot, for whichever reason, participate in or exercise the gift, the awareness & freedom of choice. However possible, share your abundance.
Cheers, Peace, & to all a good night!