Chinese Temples and Cinnamon Sticks

I hosted a barbeque at the weekend. We have had the wettest May for 23 years so I was praying for clear skies. You wouldn't believe the water companies are worried about drought.

The heavens opened on the morning of the party, so I rushed of to the local, rather vulgar DIY superstore, and battled through some very miserable looking people in search of a garden pavilion. Interestingly the word 'gazebo', while perfectly understood by the generic, apron adorned members of the staff, has baffled etymologists for years. The best they can do is guess that it is derived from the Latin suffix 'ebo' and the English word 'gaze', meaning 'I shall gaze'. 'Gazebo' first appeared in 1752 in a book called 'New Designs for Chinese Temples', so one might be excused for thinking there was an oriental origin where none has been found. Anyway I navigated my way out of the myriad of aisles with gazebo in hand and then struggled with the grotesque mutations in my DIY DNA to assemble it at home.

The barbeque went well, but the weather came down so that it felt more like midwinter than the end of May. At this point mulled wine would have been the perfect warmer. I have always made mulled wine from the cheapest possible, undrinkable red wine mixed with a pot of tea, orange juice, sugar and various spice combinations like cinnamon sticks, cloves and nutmeg. Alas I had no spices, and indeed no wine that I would be happy to inflict this discourtesy on.

The rest of the party is a blur which is probably a good sign. Thankfully the gazebo was blissfully unaware of its own confused identity, and calmly kept us all dry.

Free parking

With the television airwaves filling up with more and more adverts interspersed with rubbish programs, other pursuits are starting to take precedence to pass the evening hours. Big Brother is a case in point. It should be consigned to Room 101, destroyed by its own creation.

Last night, while I was enjoying my first chilled red of the year after dinner with friends, I pondered why in the world the UK consumed 5 million less bottles of wine in the first 16 weeks of 2006 compared to the same period last year. This is a 1.5% decline, causing ripples of surprise in the wine industry. With this in mind, avoiding the lure of television, we all retired to the sitting room to play Monopoly and made a considerable dent in the wine deficit.

I had this romantic vision of the Monopoly from my childhood, where the notes seemed real (500 pounds was also a small fortune), and the pieces where forged into elaborate designs from semi precious metals, effortlessly sliding around London on a beautifully crafted board in Farrow and Ball style colours. We had the Cambridge version, so no Old Kent Road or Mayfair. Unsurprisingly the modern build quality seemed poor. The notes were inseparable and all the same size. The board was made up of Cambridge places that bore no relation to each other geographically and were plastered with advertising logos.

My mind transformed into an overladen 'Buckaroo' mule, and past Monopoly memories, previously languishing comfortably, were rudely thrown off into a heap of cheap tack.

Concentration waned as I switched on the box for some background entertainment, and I was drawn into Amer Khan dancing around some poor beaten boxer, not noticing all the rent that was due to me. 'Free Parking' was fast becoming my only chance of victory.

Don't despair, there is hope for the board game as an alternative to television in the form of the wordsmith's game of Scrabble, the megalomaniac's game of Risk or even Mouse Trap, to mention but a few. Perhaps the modern London version of Monopoly retains some charm, but I think I will search out an old traditional set next time.

Red or Dead

It was my birthday last week, 36 years old, the misty year of 40 fast becoming a reality. I suppose age isn't really a nagging issue on my mind, it might be rather fun being an eccentric cantankerous old prune 'when I'm 64'.

I like to think that we all improve with age to some extent, much like some wine, in fact wine can even help dampen the harsh onset of years. Red wine has just been hailed good for the creeping deafness that becomes more apparent in senior years. It is thought to protect your inner ear hairs from the over excitable oxygen free radicals who are intent on gradually eroding away those delicate instruments. This might dispel any visions I had of having to use a Herge 'Professor Calculus' style ear trumpet later in life. Red wine is also thought to be good for the arteries and can fight off dementia, some think it can even slow the ageing of cells themselves. The only catch seems to be drinking in moderation, which might take a lifetime of mastering, and by then gout and liver failure could have set in.

I was wondering exactly why some wines improve with age. Apparently this is due to naturally occurring tannins in grape skin and seeds (mainly red wines) which act as a preservative. Over time these help form more complex chemicals, some get so big and complex and self congratulatory that they end up as large awkward lumps of ego (sediment) in the bottom of bottles, rendering the wine less thick inky looking. These wines are also happier while reclining, and accepting the onset of age (yes, parallels can be drawn). This helps to keep the modest lump of Portuguese bark damp, avoiding shrinking and letting the oxygen in, which would spoil the chemical party.

I do not have a wine cellar, but I do have an ample space under the stairs where I will place some very nice birthday wines which would benefit from a little time alone.

Pumping

I was recently given a rather strange contraption. It's a tall device with small rubber stopper shaped accessories, a vacuum pump for wine.

The idea is that you pump out all of the air from a partially finished bottle (not many of those in my house) to keep if from turning into another Sunday roast gravy ingredient.

I found that expelling the air makes you feel a little uneasy, a sort of eye watering malaise of uncertainty as to whether the bottle will implode in defiance. To my dismay, after blindly believing the marketing hype, I have just found out that this is not the best way to keep wine fresh. You are better off replacing the cork and putting the wine in the fridge, remembering to remove the wine early to warm if it is red.

The main benefits of using the pump appear to be an imperceptibly more toned right arm and a nice popping sound when the plastic stopper is removed on drinking.

Heavy Metal

I have tried my first wine from Moldova.

It was Easter day and my Uncle produced a Firebird Legend Merlot. A very big wine, thick dark and strong, it makes me break into a sweat just thinking about it. I read that Russia recently banned wine from Moldova (and Georgia) claiming that it had found traces of heavy metals and pesticides in the wines. I suspect this is more due to the old Soviet republics gradual breakaway and associated problems, highlighted with the gas supply shut offs.

Moldova is one of the main producers of wine for Russia and this will naturally cause major issues for its wine industry. I wondered whether this heavy weight of a bottle appeared on the family table due to an oversupply of Moldovan wine in Europe. It tasted good, but I could not drink it in quantity.