Frank had ridden through the night. The moon was lucent, the terrain rocky and an antagonising posse of some of the hardest lawmen in the West were after him. Upon their chests shone the stars of the law; on Frank's a death's head adorned by grape clusters and crossed with venencias, emblematic of the League of Outlaw Sommeliers. Frank, better known as the Cornas Kid, was the fastest corkscrew in the West.
To say that we're in the midst of an epidemic is no overstatement. The dreaded “cork taint", anathema when present in wine, has found its way into our fruits and vegetables. And while it's estimated that somewhere between 2 and 5% of wines sealed by natural cork closures are "corked", my a posteriori evidence would suggest that the percentage in fresh produce dwarfs this figure.
During my reckless youth, the acts of bowling and drinking often coincided amongst my friends and I. We bemusedly noticed that our bowling skills improved with modest imbibing, but rapidly diminished with the onset of inebriation. To my memory, this was as far as the analysis ever went, it never occurring to us that the mastery of the game could in essence be achieved through the meticulous, almost mathematical, engagement with alcohol. In all honesty, this idea might have become manifest, but on most evenings reaching execrable levels of drunkenness was more important than an impressive bowling score.
The interweb is already cluttered with the relevant meteorological data and qualitative assessments of seasoned experts regarding Germany’s 2018 vintage. But as I’m humbly commissioned with the noble task of purchasing Metrovino’s German wine (which some years I responsibly keep under 50 selections), and having just spent two intensive weeks tasting with some of the country’s top producers, my opinion as to what you can look forward to might be relevant. You already know my directive - as a human Riesling solera, I order the wines that I personally want to drink... it’s just a bonus when our palates overlap and you buy a few bottles too!
