Oh, the holidays.
Christmas this year is feeling the pinch everywhere. My family celebrated early with gifts of mittens, costume jewelry, framed photos. From me, loved ones received a jar of homemade seasoned salt and some olive oil infusions. We traded our mock-Christmas Eve prime rib for pizza. It was lovely and simple and economical. Still, we have never been a parsimoniousness family. This holiday, while toasting our thriftiness, creativity, and adaptability, our cups continued to runneth over as they have in years past, only now, it is with slightly less expensive wine.
My mother, the original wine goddess and the person largely responsible for this questionable passion of mine, knows all too well our familial ability to fill her recycling bin with empty wine bottles at lightening fast speeds. With three of her four children and their spouses (where applicable) home for a few days, she very wisely hid the good stuff. When I arrived at her place in Florida last week, her wine cabinets were stocked with Pepperwood Grove Chardonnay, a little $7 grocery store gem of a wine from California, and Rosemount Cabernet Sauvignon, an $8 bottle hailing from one of Australia’s largest wine houses.
The Pepperwood Grove Chardonnay, in particular, sets the bar for bargain bottles. It is your basic, no bull chard. It has a spiciness to it that sets it apart from other California chardonnays in its price-point (read: it does not taste like cheap apple juice, nor does it smell like blackened wood chips). It has a crispness that lends itself nicely to food and a softness that makes it incredibly flexible. My mom likes to drink it at room temperature, and after much deliberation, I agree that the wine speaks a bit more clearly when not fresh from the fridge, showing off some no-frills floral notes. It is the St. Pauli Girl of the wine world: beautiful in a simple, conventional way. Naively wholesome yet spicy. Uncalculated and easy to love.
Even my inner wine snob didn’t see anything to sniff at, just things to sniff. If you can afford to pour top-shelf vino for family and friends this season, more power to you, and you can send my invitation to your holiday party to me through my email here at The Whole 9. But remember that the holidays are about spending time together, perpetuating traditions and creating new stories to laugh at next year. In my family, this means having some food, drinking some wine, telling the same jokes peppered with a few new ones, and laughing. Usually, we dance around the kitchen, too. And let me tell you, once we’re all shaking our booties to Jimmy Buffet’s Christmas Island album, none of us could care less what kind of wine is in the glasses scattered around the room.
A very Merry Christmas to you.
Joy, Peace, and Cheers.
