Front Ways

mrs househusbandnot has been doing a wine tasting course with a friend of hers. Her friend was away this week, so mrs househusbandnot invited me along because they were supposed to be doing Zinfandel last night - a favourite or should I say favorite of mine. (Don't judge mrs househusbandnot for doing the course btw. She's cool. You'd like her. [I had a deep and profound love attack for her last night, watching her listening so intently to the course leader and taking studious notes about soil management in Burgundy etc., and shamelessly stealing my descriptions of the wines as her own.]

Anyway, the deal is/was that you sit with 30 or so other people with 12 half glasses of wine and a plate of cheeses and crackers and nuts in front of you. We were late so we were the class swots in the front row, and the course leader, who was a really nice woman, started off by saying that Zinfadel is not that popular and that we would just be doing Gamay, Pinot Noir and Syrah in this session. This was a blow, but I was otherwise preoccupied trying to hide the fact I was having a sweat attack because I was concentrating so hard on trying to be normal and not shame mrs househusbandnot out in the real world in a room full of strangers.

The course leader was obviously fighting hard to justify her existence in what I assume is a very male profession, and she was excellent talking us through the wines and telling us about soil erosion and answering the dumb and not so dumb questions from us as we ploughed through the various glasses in front of us.

Having recovered from my heat attack, and buoyed up by blind recognising a Morgon*,I took a sneak behind me to check out the rest of the class who were sounding like a gang of squirrels chomping on their crackers and nuts. I was surprised quite how unfuckable all of them were. The men were all about 35-45 and looked like ugly European Clark Kents. The women were aged between 25 and maybe 40, mostly off blondes and uniformly uptight - or they looked that way anyway. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was surprised how unvivacious they all were, a lot more Bacharat than Bacchus. (There was also a gay guy, but he had asked about the scale of a map that was on the introductory presentation so I am assuming he hasn't had sex for a while either.)

Three quarters of the way through our wines I realised that the course leader was getting drunk even though she was assiduously doing that thing with the spitoon. She got way mixed up on a story about her working with a chocolatier on what chocolates go with wines and who had chosen the wine and who had chosen the chocolate, and described one Syrah as tasting like Bethlehem's inky sky. (There was also something in her presentation about Pinot Noir tasting like leather. A little drunk ourselves, we all nodded sagely at this description like regulars at the Slave Meets Master Night at the Leather Anvil Club.)

We concluded with some more blind tasting, which I am happy to report I also got right.** And we were turfed out into the (inky?) London night, warmed up by our wine and our new knowledge about "fun and fruity" Gamay, "opera diva" Pinot Noir, "hedonistic" Syrah, and no show Zinfandel. We went out for supper and I asked the front of house at the restaurant for a bottle for two in the non smoking section. Excellent evening.

Back in the real world, and 20 years after everyone else, I am working on setting up a website. More on that once it is up and running. (It is going to be about the real world btw - not just me bolloxing on about my life as househusbandnot.)

* This really annoyed mrs househusbandnot because she knows I am going to go on about it for approx one year.

** This really really annoyed mrs househusbandnot because she knows I am going to go on about it for approx one further year.