Wine & Other Life

Love for wine, food & general other nonsense that comes with existence. Londoner. Work in a wine bar/cheese shop. Want someone to invent a fish that you can cuddle..

[mjlvi]

I met someone today who claims never to have read a book in their life. Surely that is EXACTLY THE SAME as being able to walk and only crawling everywhere? You miss out on ALL the brilliant things at eye level because you're shuffling around on the floor

[mjlvi]

Ode to Train Wine

O train wine In your tiny bottles, Resplendent. The promise of  ‘fruity light refreshment’ Lifts my spirits, Eases my addled mind. You block out the children, The dogs, And the crying - Your plastic vessel triumphant, On the sea of despair.

O trains You bastards. You utter, utter bastards. But triangular sandwiches, Of ham and of cheese, A packet of skips, and Perhaps some fruit pastilles, Block out the childish screams.

My focus destroyed and My boyfriend asleep Where else can I go, But the solace of grapes? Wine cannot judge you (Only the passengers) But really, Who cares?

Their spawn are rebelling Their crisps all awry Scouse accents are soaring Over this, The polluted train air.

But O! Train wine. My saviour, My solace, My friend - The drawback is though Train toilets - Horrendous.

[mjlvi]

Crabbing! with wine and cigarettes.. made a new crab friend

[mjlvi]

'Ode to the pre-Facebook time' or 'Social Networking of the Past'

So I was listening to my iPod on shuffle and some Something Corporate came up. Cue MASSIVE flashback to the time that it was my profile song on my MySpace page. My walk home from work turned into a slow stroll marred half by embarrassment, half by vague nostalgia, for the social networking sites of time gone by - in which I want to even further reminisce about in this here post.

MySpace

**Ohmygod, the boy I like put me in his top 8. Some people are posting comments about me. Listen to that AMAZING profile song, do the Quizilla.com quiz about your personality and HTML IT, and oh wow, have you SEEN their poetically written "about me" section and the truly awesome way she has HTML-ed the fuck out of her profile??!**

YES, MySpace. As far as I know is now only any good for streaming music when nowhere else has it. It's a shame, between the ages of 13 and 18(ish?!) it was a site I could spend AGES on. The only knowledge of it now is email notifications of American skinheads sending me friend requests and romantic "hey r u horny bbz" messages. It was a site of over-sharing in your 'about me' section, the fact that side fringes and a jaunty photo angle made ANYONE look good (particularly if you took them in the bathroom), extra points for a photo with a camera flash, everyone had, at some point, 'boats and birds', 'how to save a life', or anything by the Rocket Summer as a profile song.

Bebo

So basically I hate this site, and I always have. I always remember it being about two years too young for me and full of miniature prostitutes. It's also an absolute bastard to delete your profile you made when you were 14, which is particularly unfortunate when you've got an unusual name. No poetic reminiscence for this site. Fuck bebo.

VampireFreaks.com

LOL goths - I never had a page but this site is the Cyberdog of the internet.  (*My hair is made of neon plastic and my 'favourite bands' list is not actually bands, but words I have picked out a dictionary that sound METAL*) Points for angry photos, most facial piercings, and how many unusual religions you believe in.

Faceparty.com

I don't know if this is still around? You could pay money for icons. You could google people near you and see if you want to have sex with them.  Generally full of LADS who like RnB, their favourite film is 2Fast2Furious and bookz r 4 saddos. Jordan iz mint. etc etc.

Habbo Hotel

I spent hours of school holidays on this website in my early teenage years. Premise is that you can make a little person and wander about chatting to other little people, occasionally playing glitchy chess or battleships. It's a chatroom, but less threatening because it's a cartoon.. There are goths, who wander about with names like "Symposium." and Type Like This With OTT Punctuation. Your swearing is turned into the word "bobba" unless you use creative spelling. There were glitches and occasions when you could walk through walls. You had to pay REAL MONEY to get some chairs and shit, which, at 13, means you CAN'T have certain chairs, because you don't have a debit card. Sad times. The last I heard of it was on channel 4 news about paedophiles and cybersex. Ah well.

MakeoutClub

Ultimate "emo"/scene/"misunderstood" semi-dating website.. be sure to post Taking Back Sunday lyrics in your personal description and name a thousand bands you like who you've never listened to but a girl with a cool fringe likes. You also have a fringe. You are probably American.

livejournal

Oversharing of the highest order, teenage angst, whole blogs dedicated to quotes from 'the perks of being a wallflower' (which, when you read it along with J.D Salinger novels at the age of 15, is oh so profound) and yet more bands from the american midwest you've listened to on myspace. It's easy to be embroiled and become obsessed with people you will never, ever meet, and who live 2,000 miles away. Also a million and one pro-anorexia pages which, if I were to look now, would probably break my heart.

MSN Messenger

Not actually a social networking site. But the group conversations you were accidentally added into late on a schoolnight which caused your dial-up to crash, seeing ridiculous song lyrics and someone's display name, stealing amazing emoticons from friends, ridiculously bad abbreviations, how who you were defined by your font and the relationships you could have with friends-of-friends-of-friends over the web... I talked to someone for at least five years who lived roughly 20mins away and yet I only saw him three times. RIP MSN.

[simplypoems]

Nonsense

Haikus are simple But they don’t always make sense Refrigerator

[mjlvi]

Just a small amount of the wine I've tasted this week, so my immense laziness today us justified, in my opinion!! This was at work, we need to replace some of our wines from the list of 80-100, and bring in some more summery ones. Most of the list is fat French and Italian reds, and when the weather EVENTUALLY improves we need some zesty whites. Tasted a gorgeous Vinho Verde, a Portuguese wine which is low in ABV at about 10-11.5%, and has a lively sparkling texture on your tongue - not enough to actually feel toooo fizzy, but enough to remind you how fresh and zesty the wine is, a perfect summer quaff. Other good ones were a crisp Gavi de Gavi, the fresh Italian grape with a pale lemony green colour which just screams 'holidays'! There were more lovelies, but it was hard to remember some - looking at my notes the morning after it is a fairly quick slip from serious notes to ':-) :-) LOL GRAPES :-) :-)'

[yeah-so-obvious]

[mjlvi]

THE GLASS NEVER FILLS UP :(

[taktophoto]

[abandonedography]

Then and Now Photos of Abandoned Detroit School

Lewis Cass Technical High School before and after fire.

[everything-connected-blog]

Whut.

[mjlvi]

Want this....

[sassy-but-classy]

[mjlvi]

Cheesed off? Don't wine about it! Pt.1

I am on my way to an interview in a cheese and wine shop in the Square Mile. I thought it would be apt to write briefly about cheese and some pairing, being as I love both, and they rarely go without each other. To get me thinking winey and cheesy thoughts and get me into the right mindset for my interview, I have been reading my Wine Larousse, (a.k.a the wine bible) and subsequently asking my boyfriend to test me, at random, on my boozey knowledge. Cue him sitting bolt upright, in the middle of yet another Top Gear repeat on Dave, and exclaiming ‘CHARDONNAY!!’ I was also woken this morning by a mumbly ‘mmmph.. Sauternes..?’ The pedants among you would question what SORT of Chardonnay, what region? Even what year of sauterne!! I did, and was met with rolling eyes… Anyway. When I was a student living in a mess of a house in Acton, we had a fair few ‘cheese and wine’ nights. I usually managed to get catastrophically drunk on port and cheap red, being as I wasn’t very good at eating when I was at university. We usually had, as I’ve just mentioned, a couple of cheap ports and whatever French red Morrison’s were doing on the cheap (see prev post), a scaldingly mature cheddar, a crumbly goats cheese, a mild blue, and a mild squidgy brie-style thing. So firstly I think I should cover those styles of wines. The fat, juicy, rich and warm reds, wines that make you go 'PHWOARRR!!' and if they were a person would be an incredibly attractive, huge, cuddly rugby player. I digress... grapes such as Cabernet, Malbec, Syrah, Amarone, even Port - need a hefty cheese to stand up to such a deep and sexy wine. I think a sharp cheddar, a richly salty Lincolnshire Poacher, a nutty and complex Comte. Something with depth, generally hard but semi soft can work too - the mature Irish Adrahan, with its salted rind and rather excessive smell, is certainly a gungy cheese which needs a big fat wine. Also, parmeggiano reggiano (yea, parmesan, I just like the long name!!) - some might think that this is merely 'something wot you put on pasta', but NO! Heathens. It is a wonderful match to a juicy Barolo or Amarone. It is a truth universally acknowledged that wines and cheeses (or indeed any foods) from the same region tend to match up quite nicely. As I have mentioned, Cabernet and Comte, and Barolo and Parmesan are great together. This rule also carries through food in a way according more to seasonality and what the species may eat, such as pheasant and juniper, or squab pigeon, corn and grains. There is a perverse sort of feeling surrounding eating an animal with what should be it's dinner, but if the dish is delicious enough then musings and conversation will surely cease. Pt.2 to follow, when I am not on a train, and I have more room for my words... TBC

[mjlvi]

The anti-wine-snob guide to purchasing cheap wine that you can actually drink

In these recession-tastic times (is it still the recession? Does anyone know?) I have often found that I don’t desperately want to spend in excess of a ten pound note on a bottle of wine that I will drink while I sit watching mindless TV. I have some mental notes that I always abide by when I go into my local corner shops to purchase some distinctly average wine. Here is my idiot proof guide to buying cheap wine you can drink, even if you are as skint as myself. 1. Befriend a local wine shop. Or the staff inside it. I managed to work in one recently and as well as a shiny discount we did enough free tastings to make me feel warm and fuzzy. If you have a job already, befriend shopkeepers! Ask them advice, and ask for a discount. This usually works unless you are terrifying or they are wine-hoarding meanies. 2. Don’t buy wine with stupid names. In the same way as you may not order a pint of beer in a pub with a ridiculous name (see http://pumpclipparade.blogspot.com ) I just don’t like stupid names on wine. This rule also covers blossom hill and echo falls wines named ‘WHITE WINE’ and ‘RED WINE’. They just get points deducted for lack of imagination. It is a fine line. Note - this also works on expensive-r wine, I worked somewhere where the sauv blanc (NZ) was called ‘Frosty Pocket’ and there was a pinot noir called ‘Naked (something)’, cue maniacal laughter every time it was ordered. Which got old. 3. Don’t buy wine when you are too drunk… A pleasant level of tipsiness is acceptable but anything more and ‘humourous’ decisions re: booze will not be so funny the next morning when you are surrounded by empty buckfast bottles and feel like an elephant is dancing a dance of death on your head. 4. Serious wine point now - grapes from countries where that wouldn’t usually be found should perhaps be avoided. For example, I know Barefoot do a range of Californian wines, and decently priced as it is I can’t get my head round a Californian pinot grigio. 5. AVOID WINES WITH POINTLESS ADDITIVES. We had a wine from ALDI a few months ago which was 5.99 (bargain! Said I) when we were doing a spot of fishing. I remember boyfriend remarking to me ‘this feels gloopy in your mouth!’ I realised he was right. It WAS oddly gloopy. On closer inspection of the wine (an Argentine pinot - slightly wrong - see rule 4) it was revealed that the wine ‘contains egg’. Hmmm. Not that appetising afterwards. As well as egg were delicious sulphates, added to increase shelf life - although if greater than required amounts (there are very strict laws on exact additive amounts, particularly in France) are added you get terrible headaches. So hangovers are not actually due to alcohol! Hoorah. 6. Don’t go for comically large bottles. I have seen good men (and women) falling at the wayside after happily buying 2ltr mystery soave from Acton high St. 7. Trial and error, basically… Feel free to ignore all previous points. Happy drinking!

[mjlvi]

I'm doing research for my cheese and wine interview tomorrow (I.e. reading books on wine as normal and looking at cheese on the internet..) and as well as getting hungry I have found a cheese called BRA!!! www.cheese.com/bra hehehehe

[mjlvi]

In some ways

I quite like being 'grown up', because all I have eaten today is carrot cake and bacon sandwiches

[mjlvi]

at least 10 more options to choose from on this website... I don't even know what some of them are, or what I am anymore!!

[mjlvi]

Being as I’m supposed to be writing about wine (because really it’s all I know) may I just say that the colour of fortified wines is stunning. A white wine, say a cool glass of Chablis, with its paler than pale lemony gold and cool-on-your-fingertips condensation on the glass can remind you of sitting outside in the sun, as can the light rose pink of a fresh and dryly fruited Rose de Provence. In winter, nothing screams ‘warmth’ like the richly opaque and opulent deep red of a Cabernet, a syrah, even a ruby port. You look at sherries, not your generic off-the-supermarket-shelves ‘cream’ brands but the dark and treacley Pedro Ximenez, your rich golds of the Amontillado. Brings me back to my Madeira… of the sercial grape, mine is an aged version - a slightly over-adjectived ‘Old Reserve’ (though the best Madeiras are aged for at least 20 years, and are from only one harvest). The bottle is serious, with an almost WANTED poster style font spelling out the seriousness of the Portuguese elixir. It’s gold, transparent, it’s darker than honey but lighter than bronze. The rich, alcoholic nose giving way to toasty dried fruits, caramel, lightly floral undertones… it thickly coats your palate and however chilled you serve it it is guaranteed to warm you right down to the core. I know fortified wines aren’t everyone’s cup of tea (or should that be glass of wine?) but the image of a grandma’s sole drink at Christmas, or ‘Harvey’s Bristol Cream’ on offer for 8.50 in Tesco does nothing for them! I’ve enjoyed recently reading about sherries, in particular the food matches and different styles. My personal favourite is Manzanilla, made by the coast in Sanlucar de Barrameda, which lends to it a slightly maritime and saltiness. Just as craft beer and craft gins have come back in, I think it’s high time someone further championed sherry as something we don’t have only at Christmas, or in a hidden away or overpriced (or both) tapas bar in central London. Look them up, go fortified!

[mjlvi]

I've just had

a fair amount of madeira and some co-codamol tablets. wish I could say I was still cool and drug taking (as apparently they go together, says past version of me) but they were just the only painkillers I had left. I am enjoying it though. feels like my fingertips are dissolving round the edges