Good evening to you!

I hope your weekend went well and you aren’t trapped in a winter hellscape like I am with a 4 year old and a pug who needs to get his balls cut off so he calms the fuck down.

I guess we should start with a Sunday Scaries tune as tomorrow is the start of another hell week.

We’re moving in 3 weeks which is very exciting because then the boy and the dog can have a wee yard to blow off some steam. It isn’t too far from downtown and on the train line so my fear of suburbia is not too intense. We’ve moved about 15 minutes due west which will save about a half an hour in drive time to get out to the mountains due to traffic etc. I plan on building a pub in the basement with the bar I have on hand (thanks to booze exchange for obscure tipples) and the over 80 footy scarves I have which will be adorning the walls. Mrs. Cola will have a room that she will turn in to an office/art studio, basically a place for her too to escape from us. We’d sold my albatross of a condo what was vacant for 10 months due to a hellbeast of a neighboUr. This broad chased off the tenants of 4 years and also chased off potential tenants numerous times. My plan is once we move to mail her a glitter bomb. My former roommate who is no longer with us would approve as she hated that cow and used to send glitter bombs to all of her exes when they did her wrong. The real bitch of it is that we had this place sold but the buyers financing fell through so we are back to square one. At least the albatross condo sold.

Enough of the downers, let’s get to a dumb travel story. This next tune is how I leave now land and remember my travels.

In 2005 I was returning from living in Australia and a gang of us organized to meet up in Eastern Europe and do a tour for a month which would finish us up at Oktoberfest in Munich. If you’ve never been, it’s exactly as you think it is, drunk, dumb and fun.

I will get into Oktoberfest stories at another time. Slept in a stairwell!

Prior to Munich we were staying in a hostel in Vienna doing the usual drinking and being idiots. We had found out that Rapid Wien was playing one evening so we got day drunk and set off to the stadium. On the metro ride we felt like there weren’t nearly enough people on the train for a match but whatever. Once we got to the stop near the stadium we ducked in to another bar with a lovely beer garden and continued to drink.

Half an hour to game time and the streets are still not that busy and it struck us as quite odd. We went to the local store got some beers for the 20 minute walk to the stadium. On that walk we could clearly tell that something was amiss as there were no supporters or fans kicking around. We went to the wrong Vienna stadium. We are morons.

Wine time!

Last week we touched on the classifications of wines in Italy (DOCG, DOC, IGT), this week we will dig in to Super Tuscans!

We now know the rules with the 1st 2 classifications having to be where it is grown of it, how much and what varietal is grown. Where Super Tuscans throw everything off is that they break the old time Italian wine rules. All Super Tuscans are labelled IGT because they break the DOC rules  for some reason or another. This would make you think that they are cheaper than DOC’s but you would be wrong in some cases.

Generally Super Tuscans refer to wines that blend Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot and of course Sangiovese. The percentages vary but the reason that they do this is that some people find a straight Sangiovese a bit mealy, too acidic, too tannic. By blending it with the traditional French grapes it smooths out the rough edges that are associated with Sangiovese. Basically if your wine is good enough as an IGT then it can surpass both DOC’s and DOCG’s in price and prestige. Some wine makers want to make their wines with very few rules and if it’s good enough the classification doesn’t matter.

As an example we will use my FavoUrite Super Tuscan and that’s Tignanello. This bad boy was one of the first IGT wines as in 1971 they decide to say no to DOCG Chianti Classico classification and did their own thing. In my opinion this is the best wine produced in Italia , but that means nothing in the grand scheme of things.  It’s better that Sassicaia (another Super Tuscan) and it is more moderately priced if you can get your hands on it.

So this week we have reinforced the DOCG, DOC, IGT classifications in that;

DOCG – We know everything in history about the vines

DOC – We know the neighboUrhood

IGT _ We know the region, and if the grapes are good enough they  have no rules and don’t care.

Super Tuscans are classified as IGT’s because they blend a non Italian grape(s) and can be more prestigious and more expensive that DOCGs.

Next week, we will talk about Italian Mighty Whitey, not Fulham Or Lazio (IYKYK).

Lastly, a really good Aussie band’s new track.