Really old Reisling

A few weeks ago we had a garage sale to get rid of some of the pre-wedding handme downs. We didn’t have much of real value, most of it was junk, but junk that took up space. A lady purchased an old patio set asked us to deliver it, since she was just a few houses down. No problem, of course, so Mr. Lush takes off. He comes back with a large container of wines that she had from her father, and she doesn’t drink wines. Sounds very exciting right? The vast majority of it is Riesling from 1979-1986. Hmm. I have never had 20+year old Riesling before, but I thought it lasted a while and call Lucy to ask her. She had heard the same, but had never had one.

Curious, Mr. Lush and I open a bottle of 1982 Spatlese. (Spatlese refers to the level of sugar/sweetness in the wines) Hmm. Its awfully golden. That’s what happens to whites when it ages, right? Smell. Hmm. Smells like sauternes-ish. Probably not going to be very Reisling, right? Taste….sort of apple juice like. Not moldy apple juice or funky apple juice. Just apple juice like. Dang it. We tried a few more, one with the Luce’s, who thought the same thing. Dang it. After looking it up we see that Spatlese wines will keep for 5-10 years, maybe 15 in extraordinary years. The youngest wine we had was a 1986, so they will all probably be thrown down the drain. Of course, I’ll open them and taste, hoping that perhaps we had one bottle that magically managed to stay good, and will probably be disappointed that the wine acted just as it should’ve….it was past its time. It might’ve been fantastic in 1990, which is probably how long she’d had it, based on other bottles in the bin.

I could be mad at the Wine Gods again, but one bottle did have a lovely rendition of a tapestry of the wine gods in a garden, so I thought perhaps it was a sign that I shouldn’t be mad at them, since I'm collecting art wine labels.

See, looking things up IS useful

Recently, due a near obsessive compulsive disorder to look things up, I looked up how far the Olympics are scheduled. Aside from satisfying a curiosity, I was able to use that knowledge nearly immediately. While at a school “team building” activity yesterday, we had trivia. One of the questions was “Where are the 2014 Olympics going to be held?”.

Are you kidding me? I actually know this, and just found out. And only one other person out of 60+ people knew it, and some of these people knew EVERYTHING. How awesome. I can’t wait to tell Mr. Lush that its actually USEFUL that I frantically look things up. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have know it when I needed it. Yeah!

Want to go to the 2032 Olympics? Not so fast....

I’m sure you all know one….someone who actually goes and looks it up when a question is presented that they don’t know. It doesn’t have to be important or school related. It can be something like what side of the street do you walk on- facing traffic or the same direction as traffic to can a President who’s served 2 terms become president again if they were elected vice president and the current President was removed from office. This person doesn’t just casually look it up-often they will get up, mid conversation to go google it. Or a pending question that was posed when a computer was unavailable will bother them until they finally look it up.

Well, I’m one of those people. Mr. Lush loves it sometimes and hates it other times. Hates it when I prove him wrong and loves it when he wants to know something or when he feels like messing with me and will just pose a question to see if I will go dash and look it up.

My most recent pending question was “How far out are the Olympics planned?” While in Kansas City this weekend, Mr. Lush and I were watching the Olympics at a bar (read=no computer available) and that question came up. Mr. Lush thinks its “oh, just one out or so”. No, it has to be like 3 or 4 at least, don’t you think? With no answer and no way to look it up, it was dropped. Until I looked it up today.

Now, we know if Lucy was on the Olympic committee it would be planned until at least 2042, with backups for potential natural disasters or major wars of destruction. However, Lucy is not on the committee, so currently the Olympic locations are only planned out through 2014. (Vancouver 2010, London 2012, and Sochi (in Russia-I didn’t know either) 2014. Currently, Chicago is on the bid for the 2016 games- feel free to “add your voice” if you’d like http://www.chicago2016.org/News/Pages/home.aspx .

Thought you might like to know.