Prosperity and a Room with a View

Sun’s emerging after days of rain and clouds, and I am grateful – for the sun, for the Big Gulp of Aich-two-o provided to the thirsty earth, for my life of wealth.

I am so rich. How rich am I? I am so rich that I have the time (months!) to contemplate just what wines go with a milestone birthday and a week’s hiking in the Grand Canyon. I am so wealthy I have a cabin reserved with some of my favorite people at the North Rim, from which we will descend (I presume) on day hikes, returning before sundown (I hope) to reward our weary bodies with comestibles and libations. Vittles and licker. Red wine and food that is bound to taste great no matter what it is. How blessed am I?

I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon. I’ve been to a number of countries – Germany, Korea, Turkey, France, Spain, Great Britain – oh yeah, and a few days in Japan – (none of which compares to the journeys undertaken by my apparently ageless parents and ambitiously peripatetic sister Karen, who has parlayed an Air Force career into a personal quest to set foot just about everywhere) – but I have yet to see some of the great glories of our glorious-but-besmirched-by-Bushian-badness country. The U.S. of A. Hurray for the red, white and blue, where the bounties of Bryce and Zion and the Grand Canyon and oh so many other delights await!

What wines go with the round perfection of the half-century mark? Wiry tomboy Kim has morphed into middle age, um, roundedness. Fullness. Curves, that is. Full breasts, padded hips. Begone, tummy fat! Or stay if you must, and pass the wine. After a day’s trek in the grandest of canyons, we will need the medicinal euphoria accompanying the sound of a cork snicking from the bottle. And the more tired one is, the better the first sip o’ wine tastes, doncha know. Time for some vino planning. . .

I will of course need a Tomassi Ripasso, perhaps the lovely ’97. Luckily, I have one.

I will want something zinny from Seghesio, probably the reliable bluecap. It’s less pricey and more available than its big brothers, the Home Ranch Zinfandel, the Cortina, the beyond yummy San Lorenzo, the Old Vine. . .

Something from Dry Creek Vineyard, methinks, a Cab or a Meritage. My new favorite, the Guenoc Petite Syrah. Perhaps a white wine or two, and not just for my friend Linda. For her, I have selected (so far) the luscious 2005 Fume’ Blanc from Ferrari Caranno (91 points, WS), and will likely pick up a few Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, which almost uniformly top 90 points. Maybe a St. Supery White Meritage – I know I used to love that wine. Ooh, ooh! Perhaps a Montrachet, Puligny or Chassagne!

Damn, we only have a week at the Grand Canyon. A short week. How the heck are we gonna get through all the wine I want to taste to celebrate friends, and life, and the richness of my life?

Yes, I am rich. I am so rich that I only owed $92 in federal taxes this year, my income being discernibly non-existent, but capital gains taxes still rapping me lightly on the pocketbook. No income, plenty of pets, a cherished partner, and my oldest, dearest friend waiting for me at the Grand Canyon, corkscrew in hand. As my latest, Darcy-castoff sweatshirt proclaims, Life is Good.