So
I'm thinking about for once raising my game to the extent of going in
search of a nice Fitou/Corbières – I can't say why, some kind of
vicarious wine tourism, nostalgia for somewhere I once went, with the
added bonus of some spicy Mediterranean keynotes and big 'foursquare'
(as Hugh Johnson calls them) drinking personalities. Nothing tricksy,
but some good manly reds, with a follow-through of espadrilles.
But
even as I dream of these possibilities, the doorbell rings and my
wife lets in a mixed case from Virgin Wines. She calls up the stairs
with her usual forensic rigour.
'Did
you buy more wine?'
'I
did not,' I shout down.
'Well,
it's here.'
Pinpoint
inaccuracy
I
come down and look at the completely-branded Virgin cardboard box.
Just because I bought a one-off case a few months ago, it is now
clear that their system has tanked and has concluded that I want more
of their fairly easy-drinking, borderline sensibly-priced, everyday
wines. Which I don't. I laugh.
'Did
they send these because you mentioned them in your blog?' asks my
wife. Her tone, normally graven with sarcasm, sounds oddly credulous.
I catch the mood.
'Yes,'
I say, 'it's possible. It's quite possible.'
Half
six
I
know, however, in my soul, that it can't be possible, as in the three
years of Sediment's existence, we haven't scrounged more than six
free bottles between the two of us, let alone a whole case for one
person. My heart slowly settles like glue coming off the boil. And,
sure enough, when I call Virgin Wines to make sure, it turns out I
should have read the fine print in the original offer.
'You
joined the Discovery Club,' an almost hilarious man on the other end
tells me. 'It was on the back of the voucher. We send you a case
every three months.' At £7.49 a bottle, it turns out.
'Okay,'
I say in a contralto, and cancel my subscription.
A
heart-stopping moment
When
I tell this to my Brother-in-law a few days later, he merely
observes, 'They all do that. All the mail-order wine sellers,' I
understand that he has scant respect for my business sense, but it
stings. He then produces a 1983 Châteauneuf-Du-Pape which turns out
to have a dud cork, with consequent leakage (somewhere on the
unknowable floor of his wine store) and wholesale destruction of the
wine, which you might think would put him on the back foot (and
believe me, we did take a couple of appalled sips just to make
absolutely sure, like callow prospectors willing their Fool's Gold to
be real), but no. My shame persists. And £7.49!
(Actually,
the guy on the phone did offer me a rebate, bringing the nominal
price per bottle back down to about £6, so what am I complaining
about? Well, like all stupid people who have made things difficult
for themselves, I need to complain about something, even if, perhaps
especially if, it's the wrong thing.)
'My
terrible discovery', says idiot
What
have I bought, though?
I
haven't gone through the case with any thoroughness. In fact I
haven't gone through it at all. I've just emptied it out in fuming
silence. Only a 2003 Navarra of some kind has caught my eye:
potentially the one classy item in a box of leftovers. Otherwise, so
far, of an evening, I listlessly reach into the wine rack and grab
one of whatever Virgin has sent me, white, red, I'm stuck with it
now. So far, I have got outside a gristly Bel Olivier Vin de Pays
Sauvignon; a Coorong Sounds Shiraz Durif (the Durif part new to me,
possibly responsible for the fog of tarry morbidity that hung around
the glass); and, as I write, a Finca Manzanos white Rioja, which
ought to be fine - I mean, who doesn't like a white Rioja? - but
which makes my eyeballs hurt just as much as the Sauvignon.
Nine
bottles to go. Why does PK not make these mistakes? I'm as
intelligent as him, I'm certain of it, reasonably certain, anyway.
Nine bottles to go. Does anybody read the fine print?
CJ
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.