You’re About to Get L’Ecoled
Summon Kurt Vonnegut! Book Oingo Boingo! Like Rodney Dangerfield, we’re going back to school.
Welcome all, this is Wine Appreciation 214, Survey of L’Ecole No. 41. Please check your schedules to make sure you’re in the right place. Dr. Byrne’s Adorable Furry Critters in American Literature class is across the hall. Everyone supposed to be here? Good.
We don’t have a lot of business to take care of today. This yellow sheet that I’m passing out, this is the syllabus. Please take a look at it and make a note of the class supplies listed at the top. You won’t need any books for this class, but you will be required to buy one bottle each of the following wines: The 2006 Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2006 Columbia Valley Merlot, and the 2006 Columbia Valley Syrah. It’s not mandatory, but a lot of students have found it helpful to buy more than one bottle each, of course I leave that to you. I strongly urge you, though, not to buy these materials used from someone who took this class last year.
If you’ll take a look, please, we’ll go over the first three weeks of the semester. Sessions one and two: The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a blend of several premium vineyards with the kind of funny names you’ll find easy to mock back in the frat house (Klipsun, Weinbau, Pepper Bridge and Candy Mountain, to name a few). You’ll really enjoy this week, though. Class next Tuesday consists of all of us letting our tongue get a load of what the Columbia Valley’s typical long, cool, rainless harvest season does for fruit quality. Dark fruit! Cassis! Leather aromas! Bittersweet chocolate! An earthy, spicy finish!
During the second week, we’ll toss back a slug of the 2006 Columbia Valley Merlot. Actually, we won’t toss back slugs of it. That’s not a very oenophiliac way to drink. Instead, we’ll savor a sip of it or something. That’s why you’re at this school in the first place, right? To get some sophistication? A couple swigs of our Week Two selection might do it. This burly Merly is rich like Oprah, spicy like Melanie Chisholm, and basically one of the nicest things a person can expect to happen anywhere near his lips, unless a person is a good deal more attractive than it appears this year’s incoming freshman class is, anyway. Maybe it’s just you people’s fashion sense, I dunno.
Finally, in the third week, we’ll, sample some of the ought-six Columbia Valley Syrah, washing our mouths in a gushing torrent of flavor, wrapped in a briar-fruit core, and following through to a satisfying finish of fine, chalky tannins. This wine would make Kool-Aid Man’s older, more sophisticated brother—a giant decanter—say “goodness, yeah.” You’re going to like it, unless something’s wrong with you.
That’s all for today—I suggest you use the remaining class time to purchase your supplies. So you know, class will typically last for the duration of the scheduled meeting time. One last note: You’ll see I have office hours listed on Mondays, but F.Y.I. I won’t be in there today.
Or—rather, I will be in there, but I’m taking a three-pack sampler of L’Ecole with me, and intend to drain them all. So don’t come around knocking on my door with your horrible, banal questions today, got it, punks?
You’re dismissed.
2006 Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon:
- Released: December 2008
- Variety: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
- Harvested beginning in late-September and extending into late-October for the cooler sites,
- 25.5% Brix
- 3.44 pH
- 0.58 grams/100 ml acidity
2006 Columbia Valley Merlot:
- Released: December 2008
- Variety: 80% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc,6% Petit Verdot, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon
- Bottled 5,609 cases on February 18-21, 2008
- pH 3.59
- Acid 0.61 grams/100ml
- 14.3% alcohol by volume
- <0.2% residual sugar
2006 Columbia Valley Syrah :
- Columbia Valley Appellation
- Released: November 2008
- Variety: 95% Syrah, 5% Grenache
- Bottled 2,683 cases February 26, 2008
- 3.79 pH
- acid 0.58 g/100ml
- 14.8% alcohol by volume
- <0.2% residual sugar
Rules and restrictions:
- Wine sold by winery (or a retailer in your state where necessary)
- You must be 21 or older to order
- Whoever receives the package must be 21 or older
- If you're drunk when the package shows up, you will not be allowed to receive it
- Wine cannot be delivered to a P.O. Box
- We highly recommend you use a business address as your shipping address
Thanks to stick-in-the-mud buzzkilling state legislators, wine may only be delivered to the following states:
- California
- Colorado
- District Of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Texas
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wyoming
If your state's not on the list, you're out of luck... for now. Keep up with the ever-changing laws over at ShipCompliantBlog.com, and/or sound the alarms with your state assembly person through FreeTheGrapes.org. Meanwhile, all Federal, state and local laws are complied with in providing this wine.
