January 6, 2005

• Two Buck Chuck Nouveau

  For those of you who are relative heathen on the wine scene, Two Buck Chuck are the various wines bottled by Charles Shaw and sold for $1.99 by Trader Joe's and a nouveau is a wine meant to be consumed young.

  Nouveaux, which age more rapidly than gracefully, usually appear in late autumn or early winter and are best consumed by summer. This particular wine is a Gamay Beaujolais, a blend containing at least 75 percent Pinot Noir and Valdiguie grapes. It is light and sweet and fruity, a very pleasant combination. Tomorrow it may be different.

  Trying a nouveau wine is always an adventure. They are bottled when at their peak and change character with remarkable rapidity. They are unpredictable. Even two bottles from the same case, opened a week apart, may be distinctly different from each other and they will both differ from other nouveaux. Get them early enough, though, and you're almost guaranteed an enjoyable experience.

  Trying cheap wines is a different kind of adventure. A wine is usually inexpensive for a reason. I've made wines cheaply -- for $1.20 a gallon or so -- but I didn't bother bottling it. I used a variety of fruits, from cranberries to the pear-shaped fruit cashew nuts grow under. My son has made excellent wine from jalapeño peppers. Sometimes, though, I've been disappointed by cheap wines.

  I paid $23.88 for my case of nouveau. One New Years in Panama, Delia's half-sister's husband Roy Carlos and I spent the early morning downing bottle after bottle of his $80 Cordon Vert champagne, until Delia freaked out and made us stop. I've had some rare scotches and rare brandies whose prices would probably shock me if I ever found out what they were. I've enjoyed each one for what it was, rather than for what it cost, and for the memories that go with it.

  You do feel a sense of adventure sipping a full snifter of fine old brandy in the company of the elite, even when you're standing quietly in the background and nobody is aware of you. I once went into a bar where, it seemed, nobody else had ever previously ordered brandy. After a brief search in some cabinets, the bartender came up with a bottle so covered in dust and grime that I couldn't tell what it was. He poured about three fingers in a small water glass and served it to me with an ice-water back. He had no idea what it was, so he charged me something like $3.50. That was one of the best cognacs I ever had. That was high adventure.

  Every time I open an unusual or inexpensive wine, I anticipate a possible adventure in store for me.

  It wouldn't be the first time.

  [Cathy opened the door with a glass of wine in her hand. The delivery man was standing there, about to ring the doorbell, with a box of wines to deliver.]

  If you have a Trader Joe's near you, consider trying the double adventure of a case of Two Buck Chuck Nouveau, spread out a bottle or two a week.

  But do it now.

  Don't wait too long.

  • 21:20
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