Author - Grant
Based In - The Napa Valley, California
Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157618265974227/
I’ve always been led to believe that only poor quality, inexpensive wine will cause hangovers and, being a tight arse that will happily drink draino for a cheap high, I have never really had the opportunity to test the theory. As such, in the spirit of Mythbusters, I happily put my liver on the line all in the name of research.
Monday was the day chosen for the ill-advised experiment because...well, because all day drinking sessions on a Monday are one of the many perks of being on permanent vacation. First stop, the Clos Du Val vineyard for a tasting session. Now this might not seem like the most appropriate way to announce such personal and monumental news to the world but it is at this point that I am going to slip in that my wife is currently 13 weeks ‘with child’ (which is very exciting, we’re both over the moon, blah blah blah etc etc) and the reason I mention it is because clearly she can’t drink. And by ‘can’t drink’, I mean that it’s socially unacceptable and bad for the baby rather than whenever she has a couple of glasses she lip-syncs to Brittney Spears whilst stripping on the pub table. So I mention it here because her tasting session involves rolling a couple of molecules of wine around her mouth leaving me to neck mine and glug the rest of hers. 20 minutes into the day and I’ve already put a cocktail of six rather cheeky vinos (ranging from $30 to $150) down my throat. It is at this stage that I hand Kate the car key and apparently I have that glint in my eye that says there is going to be trouble. Of the wines we tried, I loved the Merlot (like an alcoholic blackberry smoothie complete with super smooth, creamy and vanilla finish) and Kate took a shine to an unoaked chardonnay for its crisp taste and relative cheapness. As such, a bottle of Merlot came with us for a later date and a bottle of the chardonnay was purchased to consume with the picnic lunch we had taken with us. What, you’re not drinking Kate? Oops, guess that means I get to quaff the bottle on my own as everyone knows that unoaked chardonnays turn to poison just 45 minutes after the cork comes out...although I might have started that rumour.
So with lunch consumed and a good bottle and a half of wine inside me, it’s time to do what any sensible Napa visitor would do...head to another vineyard for another tasting. In complete contrast to the homely, friendly atmosphere at Clos Du Val, Darioush was a bit pretentious thanks to being flanked by dozens of roman columns and being frequented by swarms of Hooray Henrys. Put it this way, when they offered us water for Molly, it was four bottles of Von imported from Sweden . My addled brain, however, recalls the wines being pretty special...especially the Cabernet Sauvignon which is what Napa is renowned for. Still, at somewhere between $80 and $200 a bottle, I wasn’t piddled enough to splash out.
By this stage it was late afternoon and the vineyard tasting rooms were closing so it was back to the hotel for some R&R...and to tuck into the exceptional bottle of Merlot from Clos Du Val. So by the end of the day I had put away close to three bottles of wine but felt surprisingly good. A glance in the bathroom mirror, however, told a very different story. Bloodshot eyes surrounded by skin that a panda would mistake for his photo negatives and my intentional beard had turned from suave to hobo within the space of 12 hours.
Still, the question remained as to whether I would get a hangover after drinking such fine wines all day. As Molly licked my feet at 6:30am on Tuesday morning, the mystery was solved. I was a good-for-nothing mess and stayed that way up until lunch...when a couple of large glasses of Broken Spur Zinfandel set me straight. In fact it was so nice I handed Kate the car key and bought a bottle to take away ‘for a later date’ (i.e. 7pm that night).
We’ve left Napa now and it’s a bloody good job else I would have to start the remaining blogs with “my name is Grant and I’m an alcoholic”. But the moral of the story is, it doesn’t matter what the quality of booze is, put enough down your throat to tranquilise a hippo and you’ll regret it the following day.
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