Highs & Lows

I'm exhausted. Well, extremely tired at the very least - aren't you supposed to check into rehab for "exhaustion"? I certainly don't want to do that... that celebrity excuse is pretty exhausting in itself. Anyway, this 3:30 a.m. crap has taken it's toll already - & we're not even doing it every day. My body & mind are both convinced that I have to get up that early, so I find myself awake - sometimes for hours - waiting for the alarm to go off. Let me tell you - that sucks. The lack of decent sleep has wreaked havoc on my ability to concentrate, my mood, my stress level & everything else.

I need a damn vacation. Fiercely.

After a hellishly busy day peppered with running into brick walls & interactions with people that seemed determined to make my life difficult, Doug & I were looking forward to enjoying some wine. You know, something new for us. But first, Doug wanted to finish digging a hole in the backyard, which meant I had to wait. I don't do that well after a day like today. Crap.

He finished in about 90 minutes & we grabbed a bottle that we'd been looking forward to trying. It was a gift from a friend, & we'd never had the varietal before, so we were intrigued. It was an Italian varietal called Arneis, which is a very old grape grown in Piemonte. It's not something that you're going to run into often because this grape is very difficult to cultivate & tends to have very low yields. Sometimes it's used in blending to lessen tannins in red wine, like Viogner is used in the Northern Rhone - I'm sure that the importer from my last post would've told me that this area, too, is in France. Eh, whatever. This particular bottle of Arneis, however, was from Sonoma (which is where, class?), & everything we'd read about the varietal sounded great. At the end of a shitty day, we had high hopes.

Those hopes were dashed into oblivion as soon as I took a sniff of the glass that Doug handed me. I looked at him with horror & he immediately stuck his nose in his glass. Uh oh, not good...but we needed to confirm our suspicions. Doug tried to challenge me to a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who would actually taste the wine, but I wasn't havin' it. With as much as we were looking forward to trying this wine, we were going to be sure, damn it.

Blech...the wine was corked! What a tragedy! Thankfully, this doesn't happen to us very often, but when it does, it's so, so sad. Especially when this blog is Claire Uncorked, not Claire Corked! But hey - lucky us, we just so happened to have more wine! So we dumped the bad stuff, grabbed some fresh glasses, drank some water to get rid of the leftover taste of the tainted wine, & pulled out a wine that had proven itself time & time again.

The 2007 Enotria Rosato, from the Graziano Family of Wines in Mendocino County, CA. That's right, I'm writing about rose' again, so get over it. Drink 'em while you can, that's my motto. Or one of them, anyway. We popped it open, took a sniff & knew that the day was finally going to end right.

Like the ill-fated Arneis, this wine is also made from an Italian varietal grown in California (a Cal-Ital). This was a Dolcetto rose', & I love Dolcetto. Sadly, I've often been a wee bit disappointed by rose' made from Italian varietals...but not this one. Cranberries, raspberries, & strawberries with fabulous acidity & a watermelon color make this one happy little wine. That made me & Doug very happy, not-so-little people. Finally!

Drinking wine from Enotria brings back happy memories. We shared a bottle of the Rosato with the Luces before Krystal & Jenn showed up at our house a few weeks ago for the first convening of "Operation Blogistan" (named by Lucy). A few hours later, we plowed through both the Dolcetto & Barbera, & found them both to be absolutely delightful. In the St. Louis area, you can find all of them at Lukas Liquor or anywhere that does business with Golden Barrel Distributing. You won't be sorry, I promise.

Speaking of that wonderful day - & to gloss over the rather rough day after - let me close by sharing some photos I took of some of the non-drinking crew.

That's Annabelle, one of the Luce Whippets, with Piper, our youngest. They've become best friends - Mr. Luce says that Annabelle is the moon to Piper's planet, & it's so true. Annabelle longs to be huge like Piper, while Piper just wishes she could be fast enough to keep up with her. Piper's also thrilled that another dog actually wants her around. The poor girl just annoys the shit out of the other 3 in our house, especially Mattie, so a playdate with Annabelle means that Piper will be fully appreciated by one of her peers.

All of that drinking & laughing by the people, coupled by the constant running & playing in my backyard, just wore all of the dogs out. The Luce Whippets, Annabelle & Charlotte, are just too cute curled up in their bed together, aren't they?

So cute, in fact, that Charles decided to see if it had the same effect for him...

You be the judge.