Rosé Pokémon
Type: Grass Type.
Strong Against: Water, Ground, Rock.
Weak Against: Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying, Bug.
Ask any writer and they’ll tell you that writing reviews of things you hate is fun. So much fun. While it can feel great to rave about the latest film or book or baked good you’ve fallen deeply in love with, there’s nothing quite as beautiful as tearing something you despise a new arsehole. Metaphors, puns, superlatives—all these and more can be wielded with the bombast and energy of a parade down Courtenay Place, replete with large words and punctuated with marching bands of profanity. Reviews of bad things allow you the kind of creative freedom that reviews of good or mediocre things do not, simply because of the myriad of ways there is to point out exactly how deserving of scorn something is.
In a way, this is why I’ve been avoiding writing this review. Most of the wines I review are truly painful to ingest, and this makes writing A Beginner’s Guide to Budget Wine, By a Beginner all the more fun to write. But the Montana East Coast Rosé 2008 poses a quandary, one I do not feel fully equipped to deal with. I know this entry will not be entertaining to write. I know that my vocabulary is limited severely when it comes to things I appreciate. I know that the linguistic flourishes of my previous entries cannot be employed here.
Essentially, the Montana East Rosé 2008 was good.
I liked it.
That fucking terrifies me.
Of course, I’m not going to rave over this wine. I’ve got too good a thing going with my current schtick, and besides, it wasn’t that good. I will say, however, a number of good things about it. With a smell that tickles the nose without going too far and jamming forks up your nostrils while cackling maniacally, the Rosé gets off to a winning start. Furthermore, it scores good marks on the Taste-o-meter, being surprisingly delicious. A hint of apple makes a welcome appearance in the midst of some nice berry flavours, and the berry flavours themselves are neither overbearing nor weak.
Of course, this is being written a week after I tried the wine, because as I said, I liked it and this is a bad thing for my column. It should also be noted that the wine was consumed in conjunction with an unnecessarily hot butter chicken dish, so yeah. There’s that. My words should be taken with a grain of salt. Or a cup of yoghurt. One’s more relevant to my brief anecdote, but choose the one you like and cross out the saying that you don’t like.
So try this wine, ladies and gentlefolk.
Because something has to make these 490 words worth the painful, dragging hours it took to write them.