You've gotta kiss a few Frogs

Disaster stuck our house about 6 weeks ago when our venerable House Wine, La Chamiza Shiraz/Malbec, disappeared from the BCLDB shelves. My sources at the board indicate that it will return in late November but we've been forced to take drastic measures in the meantime. House wine is essential to wife and I because we work opposite schedules so we only sit down to dinner together two, maybe three, times a week. The rest of the time wife may grab a glass while dining with daughter and I'm always going to have a tumbler full upon returning from work. so we need something that will hold up to being open for 4-5 days or more and is cheap enough to be used in the pasta sauce while still being drinkable.

The above mentioned La Chamiza has filled the bill for about three years now, it's reliable, tasty enough and sells for $16 for a magnum. The inability to have access to our "House Wine" for two months was like being handed lemons, so I set about to make Lemonade. I decided to work my way through the "cheap and cheerful" section of the BCLDB catalogue in search of a suitable replacement. The requirements were that the wine should be red and price out at less than $9.00 per 750 ml., things did not go well. I have tasted a half a dozen "House Wine" replacements and only one has really come close to matching "The Venerable Chamiza", that being Concha y Toro's Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot CSPC#286187, $15.97. The wine is medium bodied with little tannins but reasonable balance in that it's not over the top fruity and has the bonus of being under Stelvin Closure (screwcap) to aid in lasting for up to a week. This wine will tide us over until TVC returns, but I tried some bad alternatives in the meantime. Potential House Wines to be avoided include, anything from Tocornal, anything from Italy and Stanley's 2L. bag in a box Cabernet-Shiraz. All in all this was an exercise I'd rather not have to go through again in the near future.

I'm suffering from "Going to the Pollsitis" having voted in both federal and provincial elections recently and now I'm forced to vote on the Vancouver civic slate tomorrow. In all honesty my choice for mayor is probably "none of the above" as neither "Ken Doll" candidate has impressed me much but I'll make an informed choice sometime tomorrow morning, assuming I can find my voting card.

Business at the restaurant where I work is, to say the least, slow. At this time of year we depend strongly on traffic from the hotel beside us, along with local corporate business, and the economic slow down has basically seen both sources dry up. Not quite sure what I'm going to do about it, maybe 6/49 will do the trick....... yeah that's it.