Coffee pots and wine bottles

[shewhomust]

I thought I'd been posting about the coffee pots - and maybe I have, but if so I haven't tagged the posts in a way that enables me to find them now. So if I'm repeating myself, please skim this bit.

The coffee pot we've been using is the one J. gave me for my birthday, back in the spring. I'd broken the previous pot a few weeks before, and had scoured the town for a replacement (glass, the sort you sit a filter on top of, not too expensive). Meanwhile, I was filtering coffee into the measuring jug (tricky, because the filter is precariously balanced, and you have to hold it steady). "Great!" said J. "Stop your search now, and I will find you one for your birthday." It wasn't as easy as she thought, and she ended up opting for a solution which I'd already declined (but which, as it turned out, has worked very well): use the kind of coffee pot which is a glass cylinder with a plunger, but discard the plunger.

It was at this point I promised myself that next time I was in a charity shop and saw a coffee pot even vaguely of the desired kind, I would buy it. This was tempting fate, which presented me (in Berwick, at midsummer) with a pot of exactly the shape and size I was looking for, but in heavy pottery, not glass, royal blue with a bright red handle and lid. I took the plunge and bought it - and just as well I did, because I haven't seen another since, and on Sunday morning we broke the glass coffee pot. So I'm now learning to judge how much water to pour through the filter into a pot which is opaque and too heavy to judge by weight.

For once it wasn't me who broke the coffee pot, it was D. Since practically all our breakages occur during the washing up, this simply means that he was helping with that, and I'm grateful. Anyway, since D. was here, we'd decided that this would be a good opportunity to hold a wine-tasting lunch: invite a group of guests, each of whom brings a bottle with its label obscured, and drink our way through them. It was a good party - at least, I enjoyed it, and (despite some sparks at the end) the company seemed to get on well together, and to enjoy the game: a good balance of falling naturally into conversation, and having to be dragged back to talking about the wine, but on the whole being willing to be so dragged.

Things I learned:

1. We were twelve, and we were at capacity. I could seat and feed more people, but it would mean two separate tables, whereas twelve will just fit round the dining table and the kitchen table pushed together.


2. If a couple are invited to bring a bottle each to a wine tasting, they will tend to bring a bottle of white and a bottle of red. I proceed, on principle, on the assumption that people will bring what they most want to drink, but on this occasion I'm not entirely sure this was the case - one white, in particular, felt a little - shall we say 'dutiful'? fjm identified it as pinot grigio on the basis that it tasted like the wine served at departmental parties (I paraphrase, but I think that's close).


3. It's harder to get the white in the right order than the reds. The reds are more forgiving, but desperance's sauvignon from the south of France did not show well after fjm's Pouilly Fuissé. I wonder how it would have worked later still, and with the goat's cheeses? But then, to know that was worth trying I'd have had to know it was sauvignon.


4. Speaking of Pouilly Fuissé, I should remember that there's a flavour I tend to identify as oak which is actually chardonnay. I'd be much more efficient at grape identification if I didn't keep forgetting this.


5. fjm can identify Margaux blind, and is therefore declared the winner in the tasting stakes; I, on the other hand, mistook Burgundy for claret, thus demonstrating that French and classic are stronger indicators for me that details like grape variety. (The bottle was sufficiently swaddled in tissue paper that I couldn't see the shape of its shoulders, but I am still embarrassed; chilperic flinched visibly).


6. People can eat more bread than you would think possible, especially considering that on this occasion we were a baker's dozen of eleven, since one of our number is gluten intolerant. Admittedly, one loaf was desperance's sourdough (less sour than advertised, but still excellent), and I found a loaf which had been overlooked in the oven this morning, but even so...


7. That chocolate chestnut cake does not turn out of the tin, whatever the recipe says. Next time, use a tin which doesn't rely on its co-operation. But certainly do it again.

durham_rambler and I are the exception to point 2: invited to bring a bottle each, we are liable to aim for one red and one dessert wine. Our red was a Hardy's Oomoo Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre - bought on the strength of its silly name, its pretty label and a favourite blend of grapes. I placed it last of the straight reds, a little nervously, since I knew this would mean I was serving it after better, but less robust wines, and I think this was the right decision. It may also have had something to do with why no-one came close to identifying it. Knowing what it was, and also knowing (and assuming that at least some of those present also know) my tastes, I thought it was fairly obvious: a Rhône blend, and if not Rhône itself, then Australia. (And not hard to identify as not Rhône itself, I thought. It was nice, but the real thing is nicer). We ended with a Maury from the Wine Society, which did, as it is reputed to, stand up very well to the chocolate cake.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

I don't think that you've ever told me about the coffee pots. How cool. ;-)

And I think that I know just the charity shop in Berwick where you found yours; I found a Harry Potter lampshade there myself. Good times.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I think this was an animal welfare charity - not the most inviting charity shop in town by any means. But it's amazing what you can find, isn't it?

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

"I have measured out my life in coffee pots" - great first line for a poem.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Also, it's true...