Drinking on the dancefloor.
I manage to have a glass of wine again - at 3.30am in the morning. By Kate
I hardly drink anything at the moment which is starting to get a bit tiresome. I have said before (and can never reiterate enough) though that stress is a VERY bad reason for having any sort of drink. Not to mention the fact that even great wines taste sour and flat when sipped through a gauze of nervous unhappiness.
There is just too much going on in my life – some good and some not so good – and that means quite a bit of stress which means my body is simply not capble of handling both that and the effects of any amount of alcohol, it would seem. In the main, I am resolutely sober.
I had bought two bottles of very natural dancing wine, at Mr P’s request. Unfortunately, the text instructing me to call him from outside when we arrived did not pop up on my phone until I was already just inside – right around the time the tall and stick-thin bouncer uttered the words “Miss, can I see inside your bag, please?” He had initially let us pass without incident but mere seconds away from victory, a tell-tale clinking sound had ruined everything.
Mr P was furious but there was nothing for it. Green & Blue cloth bag and both bottles were whisked away to behind the bar at the end of the room, past the Electric palm trees. It was not such a tragedy for me at first – I am used to not drinking and don’t have a problem with dancing without the limb loosening effects of alcohol – but later on it became as much a matter of needing calories to keep going as it was of hankering after even just the mildest tingle.
Wine being consumed for energy is of course age old tradition. In Europe , for centuries, it was one of the prime sources of physical zeal for those doing backbreaking work (warnings concerning the operation of heavy machinery while under the influence of anything at all came much, much later). Clearly, the use of wine as fuel for cavorting round a pock marked concrete floor in deepest Dalston is utterly decadent by comparison but it still works.
Mr P and his brother began to scheme. Both being lawyers, they spent a long time discussing different negotiation strategies with the owner of the venue. Corkage, the spectre of a sulphur allergy (which was to be attributed to me, so I was under instruction to look suitably allergic while they made their case), and the lack of any other wine were all mooted and then abandoned. Around the time they were on to the possibility of mounting a commando style raid on the bar with one or both of them vaulting the defences I was starting to lose interest. If I am even slightly tired stopping the dance is fatal. Like a ramshackle car I must keep moving or starting again may be impossible. I went back to the dance floor.
Some time later (and who knows how much later – the hour was such that the night had taken on that surreal feeling of timelessness), Mr P appeared looking both nervous and triumphant. He was clutching one of the bottles – Mon Puzelat’s Pettilant Natural. I never got to the bottom of how he did it in the end. Perhaps it was a commando raid after all.
http://www.greenandbluewines.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=481&category_id=15&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=30
Much surreptitious fumbling behind a speaker ensued. I had a supply of plastic glasses all ready and as soon as the bottle was opened, we started passing round tumblers of foaming gold. It was, I had thought on feeling the bottle, just a touch too warm but I was wrong. Although probably around 14 or 15 degrees Celsius, this temperature proved to be perfect.
The wine was much richer for it. The waxy honey aromas were more to the fore and the aromatics considerably less so but the overwhelming impression of richness in texture and flavour was exactly what was needed. It is quite wonderful how having exactly the right thing at precisely the time you require it gives a huge boost of energy in itself. Despite being served in completely unsuitable receptacles there was definite development of the wine as well. As I drank, yellow cling peach and apricot flavours began to emerge with opulent yeast eventually coming out as well.
As always, it tasted vital and alive. Why would you want to put anything that didn’t taste so in your mouth while at a party? And I must again stress the mythical properties of these natural wines – something more processed, less dynamic would have had a far less powerful effect. That would have been all about calories and the consumption of fuel. This was a much purer, electric energy. Every sip felt like it was doing me good. That feeling of a mental shrugging off of heavy, difficult and uncomfortable realities happened almost immediately and the flavours were so right and delicious that I couldn’t stop sipping away.
This is how drinking wine should be I thought. Surrounded by very good friends (there was quite a Green & Blue gang present), in a place you love while you are having fun. It should feel like a real pleasure, every aspect of which you give yourself time to examine in full and one which you enjoy in every single part of your body. Given that, isn’t a dance floor the perfect place? I finished my first glass relatively quickly and immediately had another.
Following on from our last Wine & Music tasting, which was one of the most interesting we have ever done, perhaps we should do a wine and movement tasting. We match a wine with a piece of music and while tasting, everyone has to express, through the medium of movement, how they feel about it.
Not really - that would be a level of avant garde pretentiousness I hope we never attain but
Even on a really bad day that will cheer me up no end.
I hardly drink anything at the moment which is starting to get a bit tiresome. I have said before (and can never reiterate enough) though that stress is a VERY bad reason for having any sort of drink. Not to mention the fact that even great wines taste sour and flat when sipped through a gauze of nervous unhappiness.
Mr P and his brother began to scheme. Both being lawyers, they spent a long time discussing different negotiation strategies with the owner of the venue. Corkage, the spectre of a sulphur allergy (which was to be attributed to me, so I was under instruction to look suitably allergic while they made their case), and the lack of any other wine were all mooted and then abandoned. Around the time they were on to the possibility of mounting a commando style raid on the bar with one or both of them vaulting the defences I was starting to lose interest. If I am even slightly tired stopping the dance is fatal. Like a ramshackle car I must keep moving or starting again may be impossible.
Some time later (and who knows how much later – the hour was such that the night had taken on that surreal feeling of timelessness), Mr P appeared looking both nervous and triumphant. He was clutching one of the bottles – Mon Puzelat’s Pettilant Natural. I never got to the bottom of how he did it in the end. Perhaps it was a commando raid after all.
http://www.greenandbluewines.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=481&category_id=15&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=30
As always, it tasted vital and alive. Why would you want to put anything that didn’t taste so in your mouth while at a party? And I must again stress the mythical properties of these natural wines – something more processed, less dynamic would have had a far less powerful effect. That would have been all about calories and the consumption of fuel. This was a much purer, electric energy.
Not really - that would be a level of avant garde pretentiousness I hope we never attain but
Even on a really bad day that will cheer me up no end.
