Wine for Crazy Neighbors

Now that we're back from the holidays, and steaming ahead into the new year, Steve and I have returned to the task of trying to find a home to live in.

Being in our current building provides a constant reminder of the importance of good soundproofing, as well as the pitfalls of living in a building with multiple neighbors.

No matter how nice the neighbors may seem, in apartment buildings like this, there is always the feeling of being just a little too close for comfort, a sense of crazy lurking just behind those closed doors.

In a previous building, there was the constant smell of marijuana wafting through the halls and open windows, and I always found myself wondering who it was who was smoking pot ALL THE TIME?

And I'm sure everybody out there who has ever lived in an apartment building knows all about "The Cooking Smells", the ones that emanate from one particular apartment but somehow stink up the whole building. These cooking smells never seem to come from the apartment that is making apple pies all day. No, the cooking smells always seem to come from the apartment whose occupants eat only fried fish and cabbage with egg-fart sauce.

In this building, we are currently in the middle apartment, which means we get the noises from both upstairs and down.

The sounds from upstairs begin at dinnertime and sometimes continue until midnight, with such a cacophony of banging, dragging and rolling that it boggles the mind. Steve and I just look at each other and wonder what the hell is going on up there?

Is she rearranging the furniture every single night? Is she repeatedly jumping down from a very high ladder? Is she practicing for Riverdance? Is she bowling??!! What on earth would cause one woman to make that kind of a racket?

The downstairs neighbor is even more exciting. He plays what I assume must be movies which consist only of massive explosions which shake and rattle our whole apartment to the extent that the first time it happened I actually thought we were having an earthquake.

He also seems to be a rabid Bruce Springsteen fan, and plays The Boss for several hours a day, often the same song over and over. This guy is a lawyer who lives alone, and when the Springsteen concerts start, it is hard not to imagine him like Johnny Depp in Blow, snorting a gigantic line of cocaine off of his lawbooks and then passing out on the floor while the same Bruce song plays over and over again.

One night, the music was so loud that Steve and I could barely hear the movie we were trying to watch. I summoned my courage and went downstairs to ask him to turn the volume down. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again. Still nothing. Several more knocks, and still he didn't come to the door.

I couldn't help myself; all I could imagine was that he couldn't hear me because he was downstairs in his secret dungeon lair where he was sewing himself a woman-skin-suit and telling his latest captive plump-girl to "put the lotion in the basket".

Either that, or he was wearing his mother's clothes and dancing with her shriveled head while the rest of her body lies decomposing in his bathtub. Come on now, tell me you wouldn't be thinking the same thing...

My wine for crazy neighbors is an Armida Winery 2007 "Il Campo" Estate Field Blend Dry Creek Valley. This Healdsburg-based winery produced this blend from estate-grown Zinfandel (75%) and Petite Sirah (25%).

I recently shared a bottle of this wine with Steve, my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, and it was a big hit with everyone. It's rich and fruity with a lot of dark blackberry and currant flavors as well as raisin, spice and a perceived sweetness which adds to the plump fruitiness of the wine. We actually drank it at a Brazilian restaurant which specializes in all different skewers of grilled meats,and it went surprisingly well.

Not as well as it would go with Bruce Springsteen and a woman-skin-suit, of course, but one can't always have the perfect pairing.