Oh, yikes! I've been away so long they've gone and changed the whole set-up on me. What a slacker!

Well, I'm still a little under the weather from an overindulgence last night, so no flowery prose here. I'll just mention a few of the things that we opened and you'll understand why (there were only four people here).

Dinner at our place in summer usually starts out with a bottle of Prosecco, in this case a NV Loredan Gasparini Venegazzu. The first bottle was incredibly difficult to open and totally flat. It'll be fine for cooking with. The second was yummy.

This was our first experiment at home with alligator loin, so we didn't know quite what to expect. The meat was delicious, grilled with just a little olive oil and Joe's Stuff. The 1989 Prince Poniatowski Vouvray L'Aigle Blanc turned out to be a pretty good match.

And, for the main course, a lovely ostrich fillet. Now we almost always have a Central Coast Pinot Noir with ostrich, but we wanted to try something different. Our guests were wondering how their last bottle of 1986 Pesquera Ribero del Duero (Crianza) was doing, and since we still had two and knew they were probably fading, we opened one. It was fading fast, a shadow of its former self. Don't you just hate that?

Next up, a 1993 Anderson's Conn Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. I last posted on that one here, so I thought I knew what we were in for, but this bottle bore no resemblance. It was tight as a drum and it never opened up. Don't you just hate that, too?

Anyway, both of these bottles were put aside, and we went for the Pinot. There was something horribly wrong with the 1997 Hartley-Ostini (Hitching Post) Bien Nacido. A raging VA (volatile acidity) problem, not typical in my experience with this wine, that was impossible to get around. It was refreshing after the Cab, but only for a sip or two. That bottle also got put aside, and it's still there.

Maybe my taste buds were just numbed out at that point, but the usually excellent 1997 Foxen Bien Nacido didn't thrill me, either. It was, however, an improvement over the Hitching Post by a mile. Everyone agreed that it's hard to beat the ostrich/Pinot match. Although California Syrah, which we didn't try last night, can work pretty well, too.

Well, at this point, having had too much wine to know better, no one wanted to stop. So the Pesquera and the Conn Valley ended up getting drunk as well. I don't believe I participated in that part much, but I confess that it gets a little fuzzy.

So that's the story. Hey, I know one or two of you are reading this blog, or at least linking on it momentarily. Drop me a line sometime and remind me to post something. I'm getting forgetful in my old age.