Some shit

The reason I never updated for more or less the entire month of December was as such: I would wake up at 9, go to work, and sell wine until 5 or 6. And then I would work on grad school applications until 10. And then I would sleep. And then I would go back to work and be hit with questions like "I want your best wine in a blue bottle," or "I want a merlot but not a sweet one."

One quick note for all casual wine drinkers: 99% of the wine which you see on the market has precisely no residual sugar in it. It is all converted to alcohol during fermentation. This is how you get "wine," and not "Manischewitz." Sure, dessert wines, ports, sec and demi-sec Champagnes, Moscato d'Asti and the like, Boone's Farm and the like, cream sherry, and most German Riesling on the shelf have residual sugar. But that's it. Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet, etc? No, not sweet. What people usually confuse as "sweet" is usually the a full-bodied wine combined with the fruit character from the grapes, and usually lack of tannin. They get that oily texture and fruit coming together, and none of the sandpapery feel from the tannin, and somewhere along their synapses these combined sensations convert to a word which we pronounce "sweet" and which signifies the presence of sugar. But there is no sugar. Note.

Speaking of beverage nerddom, my favorite customers are beer customers. Wine customers generally have an idea what they want, and also trust us more to make good decisions (which I think we usually do) when it comes to pairings, gifts, recommendations. Beer drinkers assume that since their beer of choice is Guinness (because their great-great grandpa was Irish and they are therefore just as Irish as I am, shalom) and because GUINNESS RULES they are therefore beer experts and need NO HELP of salespeople like my coworker who has tried over 4,000 beers and is an excellent homebrewer. We call these customers mustache people. Why?, I don't know, they probably have mustaches. Also note some customers talk about how FUCKED UP they get from drinking two Guinnesses without knowing that Guinness has a smaller ABV than Budweiser. I just ruined all your Irish pride.

Anyhow one day a customer wanted me to help him pick a keg. I suggested to him Pilsner Urquell and when he asked me to describe it I said it was a "golden lager" at which point he interrupted me and said "BAH, I hate lagers." He then asked me to describe Sierra Nevada, which I said was a Pale Ale and then "Bah, I hate ales" (yes he really said "Bah"). Keep in mind that by saying that he hates ales and lagers, he denotes that the only beer he likes is lambic (which is sort of an ale anyway), hard cider, and kvass. Mustache people.

I'm kvetching. Pride of the Irish y'all.