1.5 Liter Wine Bottles

Soda has been banned from my house with rare exceptions.  Seltzer, plain or flavored, offers substitute fizz with fewer noxious additives.  So does beer, which I now usually keep on hand.  It is consumed one can or bottle at a time, rarely more than two in any week.  I keep canisters of lemonade and iced tea mix.  The manufacturers need to prod their food scientists to improve the speed at which the sugar dissolves.  It is possible, as Turkey Hill cold beverages in one or two-liter plastic containers never have sugar sludge on the bottom.  Fizzy soda on Passover, when the yellow top to the 2-Liter PET bottle designates cane sugar.  And when I go on a road trip, and rarely on an especially hot day, the WaWa or Turkey Hill dispenser with its endless customization tempts me to a liter of iced soda I would not otherwise drink.  While intended for health, measured as weight control, my weekly weigh-ins have not ticked downward.

Wine remains a special occasion beverage, purchased by the glass at a restaurant or bottle for when toiling in my kitchen created an elaborate dinner.  Guests, birthdays, Mother's Day.  They get a 750 ml bottle of wine.  As a beverage for an ordinary supper, as a late evening sip, or as a pre-supper wind down, wine is too expensive.  Its shelf life expires before I can finish a bottle's contents.  Beer, seltzer, lemonade, and iced tea serve the food wash-down function better.  Swigs of high volume do this better than sips designed to distribute smaller amounts on the oral surfaces for flavor appreciation.

At one time I bought mass-produced wine as a beverge.  It came in 1.5 liter bottles.  Popular brands.  Mondavi, Gallo, Taylor from NY State.  My default when I could not decide was Almaden with its lightly tinted green bottle, flattened front and back surfaces, and replaceable cork caps.  It's been decades since I even looked for these.  At the time, screw tops meant cheap wine, but also wine that could be stored for later.  Home devices to rid the bottle of noxious oxygen had recently come to market, but for this, a replaceable cork or screw top would do.  Sometimes they announced the grape.   Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Merlot though I hardly ever opted for red.  More commonly it had a generic identification.  Chablis, White Blend, Rose, Red.  Use whatever grapes could not be otherwise purposed to minimize a winery's version of Shrink.

I would drink two stemmed glasses of my selection with dinner on consecutive days, or rarely have one glass as a nightcap.  I worked long hours in that era, raised a family who drank soda nightly without fail, and could use an excuse to not drive anywhere after supper.  It generally changed to a much less pleasant taste for the final third of the bottle, though never vinegar.  Sometimes I suffered through to the end with nightcaps, sometimes found a cooking purpose, rarely spilled the remainder in the sink.

Now older, retired empty nester, introduced to bourbon on a road trip through Kentucky to Mammoth Cave a few years ago, and soda avoider.  Maybe get another big bottle of wine to replace the brown distillery liquid that I sometimes pour myself at 4PM or offer an alternative to lemonade from a 4C Mix at supper.  My preferred liquor outlet is a mega-mart.  My state and the one adjacent to it restrict alcohol sales to places dedicated to that purpose.  They had an entire aisle devoted to large bottles of 1.5 and 3L as well as boxes.  And I knew from many dinner purchases previously that technology of bottling has improved.  A screw top no longer doomed the liquid contents.

I roamed the aisle.  Almaden with its unique bottle gone.  Taylor nor more.  Gallo no longer a default.  All bottles were now cylindrical.  Some had screwtops.  Many had non-replacable corks, with the expanded size likely intended for parties where guests would consume that amount in one session.  There were wineries I never heard of from places I am unlikely to ever visit.  They replaced the mass producers from California.  Some specified a grape, some went generic.  Nearly all cost $12-15.  A bargain adjusted for inflation that has occurred since the era when I sought out Mondavi and Almaden. 

I wonder why the American mass producers withdrew from that market.  In the end, my half-case of the Moosehead and Squirrel that prompted my trip already secure in the bottom of my cart, I added an Australian Chardonnay, Martin's Pick-Up brand with what must be an outback vehicle as their logo, to the cart.  Roughly the same price as those twelve beer bottles.

I opened the bottle with supper the next day.  Not bad.  Two stem glasses.  Food pairing, Gorton's Crunchy Fish Fillets heated in the oven and peas.  Intended to be a beverage more than a fine stimulation of taste sensors.  And that's what it was.

Wine with Dinner

Getting tired of making dinner, it had been my intent to use up leftovers last night, then go out tonight.  My wife has an obligation tonight so we shifted days to going out last night.  Most of our options, as we require vegetarian, are a few regional and national chains which this era of restaurant tech makes things efficient, as we can preview menus in advance.  Italian always has pasta, so we went that route.  

As much as I welcome the evening off from KP periodically, cheap evening outs have largely disappeared, mostly because the concept of a treat also includes a serving of wine or beer that I would not have available to myself at home.  About $8 a serving, one serving each.  While our choice offered house bottles for $20, which would have been a better buy, I did not want to drive home with a partially consumed bottle of wine in my car, even in the trunk, though in another era I once did routinely.  Our legislature has been grappling with a bill to make driving home with leftovers illegal.  The merits of that are obvious, the downside also obvious.  Had I purchased a bottle, would I have poured myself the same glass that I purchased individually, or might I have topped it off?  And if I couldn't take leftover wine home, would I get my moneys worth by having only minimal leftovers?  

In my younger years, as newlyweds we lived in a place that had a lot of students some quite wealthy, and a lot of faculty, all prosperous.  Lots of great places for supper, many walking distance from our apartment, but for special occasions I drove to someplace more elaborate.  Wine by the glass had not become available everywhere, so we would get a bottle for those special evenings.  And I would top it off, but keep myself still within safe driving limits, with about half a bottle in the back seat for later.  

My permanent home did not have quite the plethora of whim outing places, we grew our family, and went out less. In addition, I became interested in what I could do in the kitchen.  As a result we went out much less.  I became more interested in craft beers as they came onto the market, something usually served as an ice-cold pint in a tall glass, as I only ordered a selection that they had on tap.  My wife preferred wine, leaving a glass the best option.  Those bottles that we ordered previously essentially stopped, more for economic than liability reasons.

But at home, where saving leftover wine for the following evening had not legal implications, I still purchased a bottle for each elaborate dinner I made myself.  And I almost always drank beyond what would be safe driving.  So trying to duplicate that at an Italian restaurant, even if a better buy, would probably be unwise.  Paid a little extra per ounce, and we each got our glass, but it added about another third to our final tab.  Which is why going out for dinner is relatively infrequent as I reach my senior years.

Too Much Wine

Needed a bottle of wine for Valentine's Dinner.  I had been shopping for a few final items the day before but the distance between Shop-Rite and Total Whine was more than I wanted to drive for a basic bottle.  My state restricts alcohol sales to licensed stores, of which there are an abundance.  My route home from the supermarket took me to three.  I stopped at the one with the emptiest parking lot, a small store as these go.  There are some studies that people who choose from a few options, like at this store, tend to be more satisfied with their choice than people who choose among hundreds, as at Total Whine.  I only needed one.  Based on price and availability, I judged the best option to be a 1500 ml corked bottle, not the lowest price, but of the next tier in quality from a mass winery of good reputation.  For $13.99 I left satisfied, figuring I could have what I wanted for our dinner and gradually sip the rest over the week or maybe use some for cooking.

It really was a best buy.  Just right for seared tuna.  Mostly right the next supper for reheated lasagna I had made the week before.  Not at all right for Fish Market Apple Pie with home whipped whipped cream which made the aftertaste of the wine bitter.  But at least I know now that wine is not generic.  It really pairs better with some things than others.  The sommoliers that tried to emphasize this over the years remain snobs.

Not having anyplace to go after supper and needing to finish some of this stuff before it becomes only useful for cooking, I treated myself to one glass more than I would have ordered at a restaurant.  Went well the first night.  Less well the second, when I had also intended to do a major project while sipping the second glass and the desk timer ticks down to make sure I do it.  Didn't happen.  In its place, an early crawl into bed with a full agenda the next day, some e-reading from the cell phone, and an early drift off to the world of some stage of sleep.  And not very prolonged sleep at that.  Sleep Hygiene experts warn that evening alcohol makes falling asleep more predictably, but the piper gets paid in the later stages.  That's what happened.  

I never did my project.  Today for sure, earlier in the day.