Cul de Cuvée 12-11-2022

A bluntly-curated selection of absolutely random recent bits from around the wine and drink world served up “mostly fresh” for your enjoyment.

If you ever thought, “I really enjoy reusing my teabags until their spent, but how I can find this in a wine?” then your wait is over as the French peasant trash drink called, “piquette” is being pushed by wine dealers distributors these days. Oddly enough, many of them are in the natural wine sphere despite the fact that this thin, limpid drink best served with a glass of real wine is made by taking the spent skins and other junk from the press, adding sugar and refermenting it. One keen Twitter user opined, “if I soaked my dirty laundry in my own bathwater and then bottled it, it would be an improvement over the ones I’ve tried.” Oh, but it’s upcycling! Oh, but it’s not, although it’s amazing how it manages to capture not just the flavor but also the entire oeuvre of “seething” perfectly.

Apparently some trapped South Korean miners survived for nine days by drinking powdered coffee which will surely make for great marketing along the lines of, “When you’re in mortal peril, we’ve got your back. XX powdered coffee, for when you’re really screwed.”

At the top of the Sacré Bleu! File comes word that the second largest wine museum in the world is opening in… Beijing. Cité du Vin won’t admit it, but they’re shaking in their bottes as their #1 status has a tenuous future. Surely heads are rolling in China for not having built the biggest wine museum in the world.

It’s never too early to think about Christmas gifts and for those of you who have someone on their list whose tastes run along the lines of, “I like shit-tay, but you know, not shitty”, then these glasses at a mere $55 USD each will be perfect. If you happen to be thinking, “But don’t those look like the glasses an award-winning writer got for free and drinks out of at home?” the answer, is naaaaah.

For readers in the US, if you’ve been waiting for the latest hot take of the newest own-brands wines from Trader Joe’s (who sell a whopping 40 million bottles of wine every year) well dangit, you’re in luck! You may very well enjoy these wines but just remember that Two Three/Four Buck Chuck is where hope goes to die as it is in fact, ‘shitty not shit-tay’.

A Roman fort has been discovered in Western Georgia adding credence to Georgia’s very broad claim that they’ve been “making Roman forts for 8,000 years”.

People are continuing to discover that the wines of Languedoc and Roussillon (they’re separate and very distinct regions) are in fact quite good. We’ll shortly be learning that turning on a light before walking up a staircase is in fact, better.

The Thanksgiving Wine (yeah, Canada, I know, it was last month) suggestions have started to trickle in and yes, Beaujolais Villages is a decent option but always, always remember that whatever you have, just get a lot of it.

While the Cul de Cuvée is a safe space for meaningful discussion and we have purposefully not stooped to talking about American politics, we would like to mention that 73 year-old Young Boozer has apparently won his race in Alabama because of course it’s in Alabama.

Palate Cleanser

In case you ever needed an ode to ice water, you now have it. May your day now be refreshing day.

Until we meet again in the cul of the cuvée.