Vinolent
another old vocab word that I’d actually love to bring back into modern parlance.
You know, it’s funny—I do like me a nice glass of wine on occasion, and even a way-too-chilled bottle of rosé on a veranda in hot weather. Back in my vampire days,* I would be adamant about drinking only reds, but I have long known to bring Chardonnay over to my Mom if I’m visiting her (and enjoy it with her when I do). I like a Prosecco as an aperitif or to toast the new year. A tiny tasse of port with a couple chocolate covered espresso beans is a treat. But even having said all this, I wouldn’t call myself a wine guy. I’m much more a beer guy. Have been for a while, as you’ve seen in my Popinations posts, if you read me on Mondays as well as Fridays.
*Okay before I continue, I realize I need to explain what ‘my vampire days’ refers to. Back in the mid-ish 1990s (from 1996 to late 1998 inclusive), along with doing all the sword stuff with my bros in the Band of Young Men, I also was a pivotal and then primary dancer in an aerial dance troupe called Frequent Flyers Productions, in Boulder. Those years, they had a big spectacle of a Fall show they’d put up each year around the holiday season called Theatre of the Vampires. This was a delightful romp of a narrative-heavy aerial dance show based off of the concept of the vampire theatre in Anne Rice’s (immensely popular at the time) novels. The roles I’d play, er, dance, were always tall elegant menacing vampires in all the beautiful pale skinned gothy regalia not so far off from my own personal style. I had a good friend in that troupe who danced as an extra, and our mutual friend Christina, too, who worked tech for many a Vampires show and the three of us single women would hit the town or party in our living rooms, always with red wine. Though it’s ironic: famous beer pioneer of Boulder, Charlie Papazian, the man and the myth who kickstarted the craft beer trend in Colorado and beyond, was the guy who paired with FFP in a promo campaign, in 1997 and 1998. So we had a Vampires themed beer, not a wine, sold in stores during our shows, with our catchphrase on the label: ‘Bite me, I like it.’
It’s been interesting looking at the drinking culture across the various cooking shows on streaming and places like YouTube and TikTok these days; I find it fascinating that there’s a thing called ‘wine mom’ culture, and that the technology of 0-percent drinks has gotten way more effective in beer than wine. Though wine is more alcoholic than beer for the most part, it seems like it’s much more accepted a drink across the cultural board than beer. Of course, liquor is a whole different monster, but. Is it just me, that I’m noticing a more massive basic culture of wine consumption than beer? It still smacks of a sort of high-class thing, but it seems like those borders are changing quite a bit, especially since knowledgeable folks like popular online sommelier Andre Mack has been making tasting notes and label-reading much more accessible to us normies. It’s less a matter of: working class blokes drink watery domestic beer and fancy dames drink wine. There’s a wine for every occasion and every taste. Every price range, even. And every meal, if we can believe Andre Mack, who has paired wines not only with Thanksgiving dinners and various oysters, but also different pasta dishes and in one episode, he paired wines with fast food favorites.
I was going to muse about the fact that ‘vinolent’ as a word is medieval and so that’s why it’s about wine, but isn’t beer the oldest type of alcoholic drink in history?
I’m going to embark on a tour of wines this weekend, comparing French selections with others of the same varietal across the globe. My partner did the selecting, based on what he likes (he’s the wine guy of the house) and what his visiting dad enjoys. We got the idea of the world tour from one of Mack’s shows, and will be delighted to see what visiting fam will think too. Maybe I’ll channel another favorite food-related show during our tastings, an old one—the OG Japanese Iron Chef, and bop around the living room with a microphone interrupting everyone every two minutes, saying, “Fukui-San?”
Hopefully things won’t get vinolent. Or violent.
(Oo, check out this amazing never-aired-in-the-US Iron Chef Wine Battle I found! Whoa!)
One of the most beloved episodes of Columbo from the original ‘70s series (unequivocally the best of the two) is called ‘Any Old Port in a Storm’ and it features as its killer-of-the-week a winery owner and connoisseur. Said killer knocks his younger brother’s block off for mentioning that he’s going to render his beloved winery in the possession of the Marino Brothers (obviously a nod to Ernest & Julio Gallo) and their cheapest of cheap, but profitable, wine. “They don’t make wine!!” wails our killer, “They don’t even make good mouthwash!” Which of course makes us understand that his kid brother is not long for this world.
As the episode goes on, we get so much about this awkward character, who’s only good with wine, not people, not money, not anything else in the world. Well, except for one thing: Columbo. He is one of those rare murderers that Columbo actually befriends in a way. You can tell, in their every interaction, that the two strangely brilliant men are finding a lot in common. And when the good Lieutenant does indeed go learn things about wine* and returns to show off his nose and his knowledge, he’s applauded by his new friend. When Columbo nabs him to bring him in for arrest, he tells the Lieutenant that he’s learned very well. To which Columbo declares, “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
*“How can you tell a good wine from an average wine?” “By… the price.”
A sweet moment. Columbo gets it—sometimes, as the comment below the clip says, a person feels so cornered, so without options, so threatened, that they lash out. Our murderer takes the ‘gotcha’ with such grace, and is genuinely thrilled to receive the wine gift on his way out. “An excellent dessert wine.”
When the vinolent turns violent, indeed.
That episode of Columbo is one of my favorites; Donald Pleasance was perfectly cast in that one!