Reed's All Natural Jamaican Style Ginger Ale. Has the faintly astringent bite of the Reed's house style. How they determine, per the label, that there are indeed 17 grams fresh ginger for each bottle I'm not sure. Long division?

Down at the market, you can hear
Ladies cry out while on their heads they bear
Aki rice, salt fish are nice
And the rum is fine, any time of year

Drinking some chocolate Milk :)

Bourbon, neat.

Coffee and kale/banana/berry smoothie, making up for wing night.

Ginger ale, nectar of the Gods.

jfc, welcome back man.

I thank you.[/hattip]

My son-in-law brought me some fresh caught ocean fish over the past month and they paired better with fresh bought white wines than with elderly reds.
I did pull a few of the latter from their hiding place in the cabinet.
One was a 1985 Milano Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma County grapes, even though the Winery is the furthest one south in Mendocino County.
This small winery has been in production since the '70's and has a friendly tasting room on a two lane section of US 101 south of Hopland; the turn-in northbound is a white knuckle one with the southbound one much safer.
The wine was in good shape and tasty, but surprisingly similar to the next victim, a 1985 Sirah-Syrah from Preston Vineyards in the Dry Creek Valley near Healdsburg in Sonoma County.
It was a blend of 56% Petite Syrah and 46% Sirah. The winery still makes this Rhone variety blend but varies the mix.
I guess the similarity we found between these two very different wines comes from the waning of the influence their source fruit.
The corks I am encountering have benefited from storing the bottles on their sides for 30+ years, keeping them from drying out. They are fragile, however, and I am trying different extraction methods to keep particles from the wine; so far a really fine strainer has been necessary.

I just use a paper coffee filter in a funnel when pouring vintage port from bottle to decanter. They're thin: so, they don't absorb much.

I suppose you could use a surgical mask; but, stay away from N95s. They absorb too much wine and are difficult to wring out. :lol:

Ginger ale, w/a splash of black raspberry sparkling water.

What, I'm nothing if not consistent.

Last night I liberated a 1978 Parducci Mendocino County Cabernet-Merlot.
It was a Cellarmaster label with 60/40 blend.
The cork was stained only about 2/3 of its length and came free easily.
After 42 years it lacked a lot of fruit smells and tastes, but was all-around very pleasant.
This wine was part of a statewide effort in California to mimic Bordeaux wines from France using their traditional varieties. They came up with the name Meritage and many wineries produced them.
The blends still are common, but I am not sure if the term survives.

I wouldn't mourn the passing of the marketing term.

I'm interested by your observation that the fruit smells and tastes were lacking--what else is there in wine but fruit? #notasommelier


***

I am drinking--trying to drink--a little bit of bourbon. It seems the glass I used wasn't rinsed completely and the taste of soap dominated the booze. I threw it out. I poured another in a new glass--same result.

Now I'm sad *AND* sober. wtf.

Fruit can be harvested at different levels of ripeness. When Bordeaux and California wines are compared, it's often said that California wines are more "fruit forward" (riper tasting). Wines made from very ripe grapes can even be jammy (reminiscent of grape jam). Wines continue to evolve in the bottle and change chemically. The aromas and flavors of fruit can become subdued. It's probably more readily noticed by those used to drinking California wines rather than Bordeaux.

Organic whole milk

run and ginger ale