Sharon Bowman

Splashes

Mark and I sat at the bar and sipped Rioja while picking from a huge pile of olives on a glazed terracotta platter in front of us. There would be a long night of sipping and quaffing ahead, but here we were reconnoitering and enjoying the solidity of heavy, tall bar chairs. I leaned back.

*

When Carrie and I walked into Ten Bells, it was dark and crowded, but the instant Jorge splashed a taste of sparkling pink Bornard poulsard into a low coupe, the room went bright.

*

The cork was crumbling, and even after twisting it off the corkscrew, left bits in the worm, but Joe had managed once again to best the elements that were rife with treachery for any lover of older wines. He reached for a round glass decanter and poured the ocher liquid seamlessly from the raised bottle.

*

Nathan swaggered over with a magnum of some 1982 Brovia and in a hesitating half-step, seemed to wonder if it were really worth it to continue punishing me over an inability to taste German riesling – not to mention the fact that I had bogarted the 2003 Radikon Jakot. Would he relent and tilt some Brovia into my empty glass?

*

The phone rang on a Tuesday morning. „Hi, it’s Michaël. Do you want to go visit Selosse in Avize next week?”

*

„This is really good,” George said, looking deep into his glass of 2000 Marquis d’Angerville Volnay. „It’s like an Oregon pinot noir, only so much more elegant.”

*

The room was turning around in the dark. Dark tendrils of Chambertin ran through my mind in swirls and whorls. There was the bed; it looked low, soft and flat. Voices next door may have been wondering where I was, but the bed was speaking in a silent rush of softness. I could sneak beneath the covers and dream of smooth, dark-cherry opulence.

http://sharonwine.blogspot.com/

* Sharon Bowman,
pisarka, znawczyni wina.