Drinking the good stuff

We all know that New Year's Eve is good for celebrating with friends and drinking a toast to the end of one year and the beginning of the new. We celebrated with lots of really good champagne. Real champagne. From the Champagne region of France. If it doesn't come from the Champagne region, it's sparkling wine. There are some really, really, really good sparkling wines (I'm a big fan and don't let Mr. HH know you have some because he will tip it back and drink it like it's water), but real champagne is a whole other entity. We had 2 bottle of Veuve Clicquot (next year I'll buy a magnum-the same as 2 bottles just larger, which is optimal for champagne, or so I've read) and very fine bottle of G. H. Mumm (both from Reims, France). They were smooth and delicious and I drank waaaay too much. Happy 2010!

Tonight we got together with TOM (The Other Man) and TOM's wife for dinner. Earlier in the day we had all gone to this Italian restaurant supplier called Pronto and gathered food stuffs and wine for a big fat meal. I made squid ink pasta with a tomato/olive sauce (outstanding) and caprese salad (tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil and high quality olive oil). TOM made penne with a bolgenese sauce, set out bowls of stuffed olives (one stuffed with sun dried tomatoes and sliced up some Italian peperoni thing (I don't really know what it was, but Mr. HH loved it) and super thin slices of Pecorino cheese. Compared to Pecorino, Parmesan tastes like sawdust. It's that good.

At Pronto, we also spend about 45 minutes perusing their wine selection. It's HUGE and runs the gamut from 2 Euro up to 60+ Euro a bottle. We found 4 bottles of wines in the 6-12 Euro range and all left smiling. I didn't think we'd open them all, but since we were with TOM, who knows his stuff when it comes to wine, I was happy to keep buying. I'm a white wine kind of girl, but TOM found 3 reds he thought I should try (he's on a mission to find a red I'll like) and Mr. HH picked out a bottle of blush.

We prepared dinner (Indy loved the squid ink pasta!) and cracked open some wine. The first red I thought was okay. It didn't burn my throat or make me feel like a dust storm had just blown through my mouth, but it didn't excite me. We ate some more and opened another red. Oh, this red was delicious! I couldn't believe it. A red I actually liked! It was from the Campagnia region of Italy and grown on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius. Apparently the minerals in the volcanic soil gie it the mellowness. Fantastic! It was made from the oldest type of grapes brought to Italy by the Greeks. Yum, yum, yum! Since I was so happy with it, TOM decided to crack open a more "serious" wine for him and Mr. HH. I tried it, but it made my nose burn and my eyes water and my tongue retreat to the back of my mouth wondering why I would do something so horrible to it. I went back to my happy wine and all was well. They finished off the evil wine and decided to open the rose. It was actually quite good. I switched to it after my bottle of red was empty (sadness) and realized I was quite woozy. I almost never (with the exception of NY Eve) drink more than a glass or two of wine (Sangria doesn't count-you don't realize there's alcohol in it until it's too late) and probably had about 6. SIX! In the space of 2 hours! What is wrong with me? Between the 4 of us, we finished off all 4 bottles of wine with dinner. That is a lot of vino people. Too much! It's been about 3 hours and I'm still a bit tipsy. Thank heaven for spell check, otherwise my post would read something like this: Wedrabk a lotof wihe tonight with idnner adn I cna barerly sse ot type.

Mr. HH and I have decided to start a wine journal to keep track of what we like. TOM has an ELABORATE journal on Xcel that is up to 275 different wines since Jan 07. He has a few simple book journals but filled them so quickly he decided to go digital.

Do you have a specific wine (or champagne/sparkling wine) that you like? Do you keep a wine journal? Are you a red or a white fan?

You know who likes wine? Johnny Depp. That's who. Drinking it is just one more way we grow closer every day. Good heavens I need to go to bed. Love you all. Especially you Johnny. Call me. We'll have drinks.