Me again! I can feel your excitement through the internet.

At this point I am probably day drunk partying either downtown at The Calgary Stampede, or still in my backyard pre drinking for the concert tonight.

To continue from this morning my evening at the restaurant last night was quite interesting as it always is during Stampede week in Calgary.

I drew the short end of the straw for sections and had the far patio which is very hit and miss. I have had 500 dollar nights out there and 100 dollar nights. It started out not very promising with a table that thought our ala carte vegetables included pasta…. Oh yeah sure, a top 5 resto in a city of a million and a half people operates like an olive garden. When I brought their a la carte mushrooms, they asked where the pasta was?

“We don’t have a mushroom pasta, just mushrooms for with the proteins.”

“Harrumph where’s the menu?”

“Oh you mean our menus which double as a placemat? Yeah, you gave them all back to me but here you go.”

Silence. Point proven, I knew I was going to make nothing off of them so I fully took the stance that they were high maintenance morons. I was correct.

I thought that I was going to get to go home early but a pack of 7 married, drunk ladies came in around 8:30. They were high maintenance, tipsy but very friendly. I’m good at this gig and they loved me immediately for my jokes and attentive service. Then, oh boy, then a table of 3 hammered cowboyed up dudes came in. Immediately, and I mean immediately one of them just sat down uninvited with the seven ladies. Here. We. Go.

The ladies took it well and started chatting with the other two lads from the next table. The lead cowboy orders an expensive bottle of Barbaresco to start, ok, nice. He then orders the meal and his buddy is still sitting at the other table. The third guys is clearly embarrassed but it’s Stampede so this is normal behavioUr.

“10 Limoncellos please.”

“Oh its this kind of party is it?”

“We’ll see Litre, we’ll see.”

He ordered 2 rounds of Limoncellos, 4 expensive bottles of wine, round of Sambucas, and by the time their main course came the lads were sitting at the ladies table.

“I hope we aren’t being too loud.”

“You are and I don’t care, its Stampede and you guys are basically my night now.”

End of the night they have run up a 1500 dollar tab, gotten quite wasted, tipped me very generoUsly and all gave me handshakes and hugs when they left. Such is Stampede. All it takes is one table in this resto to make your night. I believe that there was some adultery following their dinner. There is a catch phrase “It ain’t cheatin’ it’s Stampedin”. Legit there is a wedding ring check at a hotel in the city.

Wine time!

Due to BFC’s upcoming trip to Spain we will continue with the two prominent regions there. This week will be Rioja and next week will be Ribera del Duero.

First thing is first, most wines from Rioja are made with the Tempranillo grape, if it isn’t 100 percent it is blended with Garnacha (Grenache). It’s full bodied with enough acid, and tannins to hold up to most foods. The complexity gets more intense with aging as is custom.  You get ripe cherries, a bit of leather from the aging and depending on the vineyard some herbaceoUsness. Due to the acid Tempranillo pairs great with pizza, pasta, salty meats or just straight up as normally they aren’t too big that they need food.

Last week we discussed the three levels you will see on bottles, Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva. You also will often see the same producers wines next to each other in the wine store so a wine nerd thing to do is buy all three and drink them side by side to compare.

I had a buddy do a wine tour there and upon completion he threw away all of his clothes and just brought back wine. Why? Clothes are replaceable and He couldn’t get those wines here in Canada. I believe he brought back 38 bottles.

There are 3 regions in Rioja proper.

Rioja Alta – Obviously up high which will make the climate a bit cooler and will make the wines a bit smoother with less acid than the other two

Rioja Alavesa – This area has wines with the highest tannins in the region and the most acid. These are ones that you may need to pair with food or age.

Rioja Oriental – Wait, is that word still ok? When I got my papers it was called Baja but I guess they changed it due to it being the most Eastern region there. This are the fruity wines and really should be enjoyed when you buy them. If they age they lose a bit of their lustre, kind of like aging a Beaujolais which really you should never do.

I hope this gives you a bit of knowledge when in your local wine store. See you next week!