Nothing But Iron: Fine Wine & Thirty Nine by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. August 22, 2005 Today is my brother Bruce’s birthday. He likes wine. He even took a class about wine, and got a Wine Tasting Certificate of Achievement, which is kind of like the Clean Plate Club at Denny’s. Not really. The Wine Tasting Certificate of Achievement is something more sophisticated, like a wine taster merit badge. I think Bruce might even have wine taster merit badge and he might wear it sewn on a khaki-colored sash, with his other merit badges like cheese tasting and sushi tasting and seared croutons with mango chutney tasting. When Bruce gets wine he swirls it. And swirls it. Sometimes I’m afraid he’ll get a repetitive wrist injury from so much swirling. After swirling Bruce smells the wine. Then he swirls it some more. Then smells it again. Swirling must make the wine smell better. Eventually he drinks it–not with gusto, but daintily, like a doe drinks from a pond when there might be a famished mountain lion nearby or like you or I might drink a cup of 400-degree soup. My brother got a special refrigerator for his wine. It is so special that he had to cut a hole in part of his house and install the refrigerator where a perfectly good closet used to be. I wonder where he put all the hangers that were in the closet. You probably won’t find any leftover pizza or moldy cottage cheese in my my brother’s special refrigerator. At least not until next time I stay at his house, then I am pretty sure you will find these things there. For my brother’s birthday I went to Target to get him a really good bottle of wine. They didn’t have wine there, so I almost gave up. Then I had the idea to go to a wine store. I said to the wine store guy, "What is the very best bottle of wine you have regardless of price?" He showed it to me and I told him not to sell me that one. Then I said, "What would be a pretty good wine that is only mildly expensive?" He brought another, and I bought that one for myself. Then I said, "What’s a cheap wine that doesn’t taste so good but is uncommon enough that my brother might confuse it with something he would want in his special refrigerator?" The wine store guy disappeared into a back room and emerged carrying a dark bottle with dusty label. He blew the dust away to reveal a wine called Despair. Turns out it was produced illegally in a nearly bankrupt winery in Utah called Chuck’s Wilting Vineyard and Tire Recycling Lot. It appeared to be a red or maybe an orange, with a suspicious green tint, which might have been the coloring of the bottle, but might have been something a lot worse than that like flesh-eating bacteria. The wine store guy wanted $2.95 for it, but I bargained with him and he ended up giving me $2.75 to take it. As he credited my Visa card, I read the description on the back label: Despair is not exquisite. It is not even adequate. It is best served on an empty stomach or with cigarettes. You will notice it does not have a bouquet, but it does smell, and we don’t recommend smelling it. There are no subtle under-flavors of peach or pomegranate leaves or shredded chives or oak or even knotty pine, but you might be notice a hint of burnt latex if you leave it on your palate for more than a second or two. Swirling is not recommended, at least without eye protection, because this vintage is inherently unstable and may combust if mishandled. I admired my discovery on the way to the post office. This would be a wine my brother would not soon forget. The post office guy said that my bottle of Despair was a hazardous material and it could not be mailed without me going to prison and/or being fined $10,000. I was disappointed, but rather than go to prison or pay a fine, I figured I would just hang onto it and let it age a few months in my basement next to aging paint cans and baseball caps that nobody would wear anymore. I’ll bring it up when my brother visits in October. We’ll drink a toast of Despair for his birthday. He’s 39 years old so that may be appropriate. ______________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column. This issue has nothing to do with sports, except for the fact that both the author and his brother are amateur athletes and that wine drinking is considered a sport in certain parts of Arizona by certain people in their early 39's. Bruce is the author’s brother’s real name. Chuck’s name has been changed to protect him from Bruce. ©Vintage 2005, DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.