open the door! Its too funky in here!

i enjoy a red wine.

i like an aged cab sav, to be precise: the fuller the body, the better.

and give me a brunello from montalcino in tuscany any day of the week.

loving a good wine is not something i actively sought out. i just seem to have constantly run into wine lovers on my travels;

when i was in adelaide a couple of years ago i meet a latvian, completely at random, who took me on two separate trips, firstly, to the barossa and then to the clare. on two separate days. she drove. she didnt drink. she simply drove me to all of the best wineries and i drank wine. all day. both days. then we made love in an oak barrel. just jokes.

when i was in italy this year i met a wine merchant in rome. he' s a friend of a friend . he sells wine in a little shop there. it' s the law in rome that if you want to sell wine in a shop you have to sell books as well, so he pays lip service to the law by having all these vintage books lining the walls of his little shop. needless to say, he doesnt sell as many books as he does bottles of wine.

this chap, Gabriello Grandoni, took me to tuscany on a wine recon. he took me to all the wineries which supply him. I drank wine. he drove and he drank wine. we ate wild boar. i was given free bottles of wine. i was stoked. then we made love in an olive grove. just jokes.

when i was in perth this year i met a soprano who loves her wine. she took me to the swan valley and i drank wine. she also drank wine. she drove me to margaret river and we drank wine there as well. then we made love on a hay stack. hmmm. ill let you be the judge of the likelyhood of that.

fuck wine tasting is pleasant. and civilised. so fucking civilised, especially when there' s cheese.

i dont have a cellar and i dont profess to know anything about wine but whenever i pass a vineyard on the way somewhere i will invariably stop in and have a taste and, more often than not, make a purchase or two.

now back to the point i was trying to make.

i dont understand how the opinion of one particular person, namely james halliday*, can influence a nation of wine drinkers. i mean, sure, he's probably "done a course" and hes been sinking piss 'n' vino since time immemorial but taste is taste. one person' s opinon is merely one person' s opinion. is his palate so much more refined than the ordinary human being? was he born with super sensory tastebuds? is it a gift? like a sixth sense or x-ray vision? that enables him to be able to taste a wine and sum up its properties with words like:

"clean, floral spice... good drive and finish"

or

"glowing yellow- green; cool-grown style with a gently toasty entry, then stone fruit, cashew and grapefruit; long lingering finish" ( i reckon he was pissed when he wrote that)...

or

" subtly complex amalgam..malolactic ferment inputs on melon fruit; understated but satisfying"

I mean, come on! spare us all! just drink the shit!

moreover, you go into any wine merchants these days and everywhere you look there are little signs saying james halliday thinks this... james halliday thinks that... three bags full fucking james halliday.

but i digress.

now james halliday described a wine which i bought in the swan valley as "funky". its a mixture of cabernets. its spicy, sure, and full bodied enough... but funky??? what does he mean? does he mean, like, james brown- funkaaaaayyyyy... Like - Poppas got a brand new bag fuuuuuuunkkkkkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy, like, open the door! its too funky in here! like ha! good lord! i feel nice! like sugar and spice? Get on the good foot!

I drank it. it had an interesting and unique flavour. i bought it. end of story.

then they wrapped a cape around the bottle and helped it off the stage, like the godfather of soul himself: this, truely, was the funkiest of wines. HA! Good lard!

get your hand off it halliday.

*" james halliday, australias most respected wine critic and wine writer, has written or contributed to over 50 books on wine. he is the founder of coldstream hills in victoias yarra valley, and before that of brokenwood in the hunter valley. a regular judge at wine shows both locally and overseas, james halliday is an unmatched authority on the australian wine industry." these are all quotes from his book, the 2006 australian wine companion.