Sep 11 2008
The Diet
This is the 7th installment find the 1st one here
It seems like my wife and I were (are) always on a diet of some sort. Fighting weight is a fulltime job for us. I hark back to one of the first articles that we read; put out by the diet folks we were following, that alluded to the fact that “red wine” was possibly really good for you! What a revelation. But I don’t like red wine, like that communion stuff from my youth!
After much consideration, we decided to stop and shop in a large Iowa town that had a “Cub Foods” huge discount grocery store that really had a quite a big selection of wines. With a very serious goal in mind we went into the walk-in cooler where all the wines were kept and started to read the labels. We studied what few details were listed on the back labels of the bottles since you could not taste them in advance of a purchase, and worked on selecting 2 bottles of burgundy. We promised each other that we would have a glass each evening with dinner (supper if you’re from Iowa). All we knew is that is was “red”. We drove home the 100 miles and put into the refrigerator to get it “cold” to drink the next evening.
The diet that we were on was the typical regimented food list that seemed to follow my take on dieting, “If it looks good, tastes good or smells good, don’t eat it!” I was really looking forward to trying the glass of red wine that night. I uncorked the bottle (fancy stuff – no screw cap) and poured out 2 glasses for us. We sipped it cautiously. I have no idea now where it was from, what vineyard produced it or where on the planet it actually came from. It was O.K. We tried to be objective and accepting of this new taste but try as we may, we were not impressed. We struggled through the second bottle as it was a different brand, but came away with the same reaction. It was O.K but not what we’d call “good”.
Unfortunately, that was the last bottle of red wine that either of us drank for the next 10 years. I resolved myself to the fact that I did not like red wine and it must be an acquired taste. I really didn’t want to acquire it.
Jim Albinger (Andrew’s dad) grew up in smalltown northwest Iowa in the 1950’s. He has been writing down his experiences looking back at all that has shaped his current wine tasting hobby. Expect to see more of Jim’s writings here at offthecork.com.
The next installment of this story can be found here.
