KATRINALAND. If everything had worked out like I expected, I'd have written this post two and a half months ago.
     In my office, we have the hurricane drill down: You take shelter at work, you bring a few bottles of wine, and you go home the next day (or sooner if the coast is clear). In this case, we started pouring around 5 p.m., with a Corton Clos du Roi, a Burgundy that Terri had brought back from France. (Not sure about the vintage.) Jon at Cork & Bottle had suggested that she save it for a nice dinner. Instead we ate it with ham and cheese sandwiches. My tasting notes started off lousy and trailed off quickly; the only thing noteworthy in them is this statement: "It smells like plastic cup, but that's because I'm drinking it out of a plastic cup."
     Next was the 2003 Acacia Field Blend Carneros Pinot Noir, a round, fruity wine that nonetheless has a nice, bracing asphalt-and-pepper undertone to it. At that point we thought we might be stuck in the building for a couple of days, so we figured we'd conserve the top-shelf stuff. The next few wines -- White Oak Syrah, Arroyo del Sol Pinot Noir, Pillar Box Red --were big, fruity and uncomplicated. The last one, the Cortello Vinho Tinto Red Wine, had an unpleasant bite to it. At some point that evening, Gary, Natalie and I went out to get more bottles from my wine fridge. Eventually, we went to sleep, as the wind picked up outside.
     What happened next has been amply documented elsewhere.
     
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     After writing for weeks on end about what felt like the apocalypse, it's hard to go back to kvetching in print (or rather, pixels) about subpar pinot noirs. For a while I was only drinking whiskey. And I stopped drinking for a little while, for reasons having nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina. A few of us talked about holding wine club in exile in Baton Rouge, but we never pulled it together.
     Now I'm back at home in Mid-City; we live on that little strip of natural ridge that didn't flood too badly or for very long. Fortunately, the neighborhood wine store was just about the first business to reopen. Still, most of the surrounding areas are empty, so it feels like living on the frontier. And our wine group is scattered. Gary's in Houston for the time being, as is occasional wine club participant Laura. Mark is in Galveston. Pam and Shaun are leaving for Nashville. Delia has already moved to Indianapolis.
     But we're doing our first post-Katrina tasting next week. You gotta do something to fill the time.
 :: posted by Dante at 7:57 PM
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