A Layman Exploring Wine 14

by William Powell

The thing is, this film has the greatest culinary and oenological effect on me. Every time I watch it, I have to drink Chianti and eat cannelloni. 

Every single time! And it doesn't even have to be good wine or quality pasta. Sometimes I'll start the film and, within ten minutes at most—provided the shops are still kindly keeping their doors open—dash out and frantically grab something from the wine shelf. It doesn't matter what sort of plonk it is, as long as someone has kindly put the word Chianti somewhere on the label.

Two Pots of Coffee with Chocolat

And at least that's one film where I actually notice it. Who knows what I shovel down when I'm just sitting in front of the telly like a zombie, consuming? So a little navel-gazing was in order, and lo and behold: I'm not sooo bad. Well, not always. With Chocolat, it was a good two pots of coffee... no idea why. I only noticed at half past one in the morning, when my heart was pounding like a bad techno beat from the nineties. 

But since I was awake anyway, I went all out and subjected myself to Alien. A truly brilliant idea. In the middle of the night, high on coffee. Not! Still, I managed to squeal only a little and not scream at all. 

A Comfort Blanket Tied to the Cot Bars

Instead, I polished off a bag of salted microwave popcorn, the rest of the sour gummy fries and half a bottle of South African Cabernet Sauvignon. Really heavy, deep-red stuff that leaves a stubborn carpet on your tongue for hours afterwards. According to the best wife of all, I spent what little remained of the night snoring so deafeningly that the only reason our youngest didn't fall out of bed was that he'd chained himself to the cot bars with his comfort blanket. Allegedly.

The next day, I watched Before Sunrise. My wife swooned and sighed every now and then—I thought it was quite nice. It was only afterwards, though, that I realised the film must have been dreamed up by some devilish winemaker in disguise. 

Green Asparagus and Apple Juice Spritzer

The film not only feels like a light white wine on a summer evening, it also tempts you to drink exactly that. Before I knew it, we'd knocked back two and a half bottles of Grüner Veltliner from Thorsten Melsheimer. Just like that.

And then, to finish off, The Godfather. After almost two litres of white wine and an extremely delicious risotto with green asparagus enjoyed beforehand. You'd think a Central European with a modicum of common sense could pull himself together and drink some water. Or an apple juice spritzer. Naturally, I succumbed to Don Corleone's criminal Sicilian whisperings. 

Sweet White Wine for the Girls

The Da Franco pizzeria was delighted with my late-night pasta order, and my father-in-law is one bottle of 2013 Chianti Classico Volpaia poorer. And yet—even though I'll be living without films and with a great deal of water for the next two weeks—on the whole, I'm not displeased with myself. 

That, however, was down to something else I experienced yesterday. Two young women were ahead of me at the checkout in Penny, talking about how much they were looking forward to their girls' night in.  When I discreetly glanced at the products the two of them had put on the conveyor belt, I felt a little faint. There were two Tetra Paks bearing the exceedingly simple words: White Wine! Sweet! That's one way to do it.