Wine for France Test

Woohoo, have finished with France! Finally! We celebrated the end of the French nightmare with a lunch of Steak au Poivre cooked by someone at the Culinary School, and (of course) wine!

The test went pretty well, I think. I guessed the red wine correctly, and got very close on the white; I concluded that it was a Loire wine and thought it was Chenin Blanc but it turned out to be Sauvignon Blanc. But the two wines are produced in neighboring Loire regions, so I was in the right ballpark. Tomorrow we start New World, which includes the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South America. At least with these areas, the varietal is printed on the label, so that takes some of the work out of it.

I have witnessed another terrific driver: today, while stopped at a light, the guy in the car next to me started trimming his nose hairs with scissors. Do people not remember that they're not, in fact, invisible in their cars? Those windows are see-through you know. We can still see you. Most people just don't care, though, do they? Years of riding the NY subway and seeing more than one person cutting his toenails on it should have taught me that.

Random fun fact that I learned: Champagne corks are in fact the same cylindrical shape when they are placed into the bottle as every other wine-bottle cork. It is the pressure that builds as the Champagne ages in the bottle that forces the cork partway out and causes that mushroom shape. I did not know that! Try that fun-fact out at your next party or business meeting-you'll be a hit!! A big, fat, wine-geeky hit.

No wine today; I've had enough to drink.