ConQuest 44 Wines

Here we are in lovely Kansas City, MO, high in a hotel room right across the street from the Kauffman Stadium (and Arrowhead) enjoying the 44th instance of ConQuesT: the science fiction and fantasy convention put on by the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society.

I'm on vacation with the Scotch Man on his birthday weekend. Every Memorial Day weekend brings another year of ConQuest, and since we're both aspiring writers and enjoy sci fi and fantasy, it's a perfect convention for us.

Unfortunately, we didn't come very prepared. Before we even left the hometown of Lawrence, KS, I realized we had forgotten two very important things: food and drink. When we first arrived at the hotel, we paid way too much at the hotel cafe for coffee and snacks. Later that evening, we ventured into the nearby city to stock up on snacks and alcohol for the rest of the weekend.

We drove by three cemeteries as the sun sank lower in the sky, and a nearly full moon began to rise. With the feeling that time was running out (we had just been to a panel about werewolves, vampires, and zombies, so that was still very fresh in my mind) we stopped by Save-a-Lot grocery. We put together a collection of chips, nuts, and other equally unhealthy munchies, and then made our way to the liquor section.

We decided to risk another trip into the oncoming darkness to find a liquor store than to settle for a $4 bottle of refrigerated red wine.

Between the liquor store and the grocery, I have never felt so white in my life. I think the only other white person we saw was a serious biker gang guy. I began to have more realistic fears than supernatural attacks.

Look! Blurry, but I really met him!

We managed to find two bottles of wine, though, one for each night, and a cork screw. We drank the Beringer Friday night when we got back to the hotel - it was young and grape-y and easy to chug - and Saturday night we busted into the Carmenere (almost literally: the cork screw we bought for $3 was poorly made and the cork VERY stuck. It took a sheer force of will and no small amount of cursing and grunting to pry it out so we could drink).

I don't feel like it's fair to judge the Carmenere, which I've never tried before, based on this experience with it, so instead I'll just say we'll drank it and enjoyed the buzz.

It's been an exciting weekend with too much rich food, bad coffee, long panels, two trips up fourteen flights of stairs after tiring of the sickening elevator rides, and brushing elbows with other writers and editors - including Patrick Rothfuss! - and we still have one day left to go. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, aside from Scotch Man's birthday.

My vacation is almost over, but I'm looking forward to going home, sleeping in my own bed, showering in my shower, and going on a diet.

But don't worry. My diet will still include red wine.

Rickshaw - 2011 Pinot Noir

This was one of Cork and Barrel's Wine of the Week picks. They do tastings from 4-6pm every Wednesday of their wine of the week, so the weeks I'm interested, I make sure to go down on Wednesdays after work.

I was hooked on this wine before I even tried it. The weekly email they sent out claimed it was one of the few true, 100% pinot noirs out there, without any other grape add-in (they say Shiraz is a popular one to blend it with). This made me curious, because I seem to enjoy the lightness of the pinot noirs. The woman doing the tasting said it was a a good summer wine because it was almost as light as a rose.

I'm not that fond of anything that light on the red spectrum, but I tried it, and she was right. Most people switch to white wine in the summer, but this one you could just as easily drink alongside your light whites. Sweet, tangy, and light are words I'd use to describe this. A very good flavor, not just of grapes like a lot of young wines, but of substance. I am curious how this one would age, but it was too delicious to save.

So I ate it with dinner the night we had BBQ outside. The first truly summer-feeling evening we've had. Spring came really late this year.

But as sweet as this wine was, the evening was bittersweet. We are losing the Jedi, the Scotch Man's son, at the end of this week. He will leave to be with his mother for the summer, and then come back to us for two weeks, but then go back to be with her for the fall. We'll get him again in the spring.

The Scotch Man and I are heartbroken and doing what we can to enjoy the few evenings we have left with him. By the time this post goes live, he'll be gone.

And we'll be working hard to fill my new wine rack, and empty it again. Hopefully that will mean more posts. Although they may be melancholy ones.

So probably see you soon, friends. In the meantime, enjoy your wine.

Mollydooker - The Boxer: 2011 Shiraz

Hello, fellow wine lovers! I'm back! For a few posts anyway.

I bought a fancy (used) wine rack off of Craigslist a few weeks ago (for the record, Craigslist is a pain in the ass, but at least I have a wine rack to store my wine and my glasses on now), so my interest in wine has been rekindled. Not that I ever stopped loving wine, but with the brutal, cold, endless winter months, I've suffered with one illness after another and an endless array of cold medicine, antibiotics, and steroids for the last four months. So finally, the weather is turning  and I'm feeling a little better, so we broke open some wine.

The very first bottle we opened from our last wine run was the Mollydooker. When we bought this bottle, the guy at the liquor store warned us that we had to go to the Mollydooker website and learn how to do the Mollydooker Shake before we drank it. For that reason, we had put off drinking it the last time I was feeling better. We thought it was going to be an actual dance, not a way to aerate the wine. Oh, spoilers and all of that.

Anyways, we dutifully watched the video, did the Shake, and drank our wine while watching Doctor Who. I wasn't overly fond of this particular bottle, though. I think it's less the Mollydooker brand and more the Shiraz variety that I didn't like here. It was too dry and biting. I've had Mollydooker before - compliments of my sister's boyfriend, who happens to be a wine rep (and that's another, old story I always meant to tell here and may someday try to recreate) - and enjoyed it, so I think I might have to temporary give up on Shiraz for now.

And focus on my new favorite, the Pinot Noir. Stay tuned this Sunday for another post, in which I talk about a fabulous pinot noir I drank and very much enjoyed.

Thanks for reading! See you soon.