My mom drinks olive oil straight up

[cjsmith]

Lately I've been trying to get a feel for my mother's taste in red wines. Last Christmas I struck out big time with a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, proving that indeed, one woman's trash is another woman's treasure. Her opinion was somewhere in between "WHAT were you THINKING?" and "Please pour the rest of my glass down the drain." I quickly snagged it from her and drank it myself. Man that's good wine.

On the way back from Yosemite I tasted two wines that I thought might work. Not too big or tannic, but peppery and not all that fruity. It's a hard balance to strike. I snagged a bottle of each.

Did you know that shipping wine is prohibited for random folk like you and me in the States? That (federal) law keeps getting changed and challenged, but at the moment, you can't do it without a license -- no matter the amount of wine, the distance, or whether it's to a family member or even yourself at a separate address. (Guns do better than that, if only because a dealer license is more readily obtainable. Stick 'em up! I've got a Chardonnay!)

Fortunately, it turns out that Mt. Brow Winery in Tuolomne County makes some lovely bottles of fine olive oil. They're dark red and quite tasty. My mother reports that their Sangiovese olive oil is particularly scrumptious. She likes their Zinfandel olive oil too. Woohoo! I score a point in the game of learning my mom's taste in wine fine cooking ingredients.

Comments

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I had to laugh out loud when you described the incident with the Châteauneuf-du-Pape. To me, it's perfect. More than once, I've had to find another wine when someone wouldn't drink it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Isn't that weird? I'll grant you that some of 'em are better than others, but pretty much anything with those magic words on the bottle will at least get a smile out of me.

[excessor.livejournal.com]

Indeed, some are far better than others. But I've never had a bad châteauneuf.

Or maybe I'm not very discriminating. No, that can't be it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, no no. It means you have very fine and discerning taste. That is clearly shown by the fact that you like Chateauneuf-du-Pape!

[redgrrl.livejournal.com]

The winery itself should have been able to ship it to her, if CA has a reciprocal agreement with whatever state your mom lives in. Ditto with Mt. Brow, aamof.

It's a dirty system, out to make the big guys (wholesalers) rich at the expense of the small guys (small wineries and consumers).

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I *love* Chateauneuf-du-Pape. (My brain was screaming, "Not down the drain!!!")

It's a stupid law. (I sneak wine into my packages. Shhh. Don't tell anyone. BevMo sells those really nice Styrofoam wine shippers, and I put the wine in the middle of a bigger box and wrap bubble wrap around it and put it in a bunch of Styrofoam peanuts and it always gets where it's going. I sent cognac that way once, too.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I were at the winery I'd have had them send it. As it was I was in a tasting room in a tourist information building.

Some day I want to know how I can buy my own federal law. You are not allowed to send a letter unless you are CJ SMITH!!!!!!! But she'll post one for you, for the low low fee of $1.29!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I got my wine shipper by emptying my wine-of-the-month bottles out of it. Fortunately, UPS has no idea what is in a sealed box and won't open it except in the case of in-shipment damage. The helpful guy behind the desk told me that many things are shipped in that kind of package, and that it sounded *just like* a couple of bottles of olive oil. Heh.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Tasting Rooms can usually ship too. They actually just go back to a shipper they know and say "Ship This".
But yeah, the law was specifically set up to screw small wineries and people. They claim it was to protect those under 18 from getting booze. Some how they get the booze anyway. But Big Business gets bigger with the new system. Funny thing.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Well, this one was a temporary setup in a tourist info booth... but maybe she (the woman behind the desk-on-two-file-cabinets) and I could have faked up some kind of order form and had it not fall through the cracks. Yeah. Anyway, now that I know olive oil can come in a wide variety of colors and flavors, I'll be okay. :-)

mmm, Chateauneuf-du-Pape

[callyperry.livejournal.com]

I hate that law. For one thing, it made it really hard for Romana and Tito to move to Massachusetts...

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

The olive oil thing craced me up :) I'll have to try the Chateauneuf-du-Pape sometime

Re: mmm, Chateauneuf-du-Pape

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Stoopid rules. :-P

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it can be arranged! :-)