A Single’s Guide to Pairing Wine With Your Date

Thanks to my gorgeous friend Suzanne for coming up with the question for this week’s column. Suzanne, being a sexy single girl, suggested some dating situations in which a good wine is definitely needed. Being a loving and caring friend, who hasn’t even thought of dating in 25 years, I figured I would be the perfect person to give awesome advice!

The Endless Talker: Suzanne explained this person as “the guy who has already talked about his two exes and is now on to the rebound girlfriend and the night is still young”. My suggestion to this is a good Prosecco. Prosecco is light and bubbly, gently sweet with a lightly acidic finish. The reason why you want this wine is because you can consume a lot of it over a pretty long period of time without too many bad effects. You’re going to need it to calm your nerves and give you something to smile about.

The Inquisitor: My friend explained this as the guy “who is good at firing off questions, but not good at listening to the answers. He spends a lot of time looking under the table at his phone because he’s holding a full-on text conversation with someone else”. My thought is hopefully he’s paying for dinner. If so, order something really expensive. A really high end Cabernet Sauvignon or red blend that hits all the notes. Ask your server if they have any “library wines”. If he doesn’t remember another thing about your date, he’ll at least remember the bar bill!

The Silent Type:  Suzanne explained this as the person who “gives monosyllabic answers and grunts as you try to hold a conversation”. What you really need here is a truth serum, but in the wine world the only thing that really cuts a guy, or gal loose is a little extra ethanol. You can either go high class, such as a nice Tawny Port such as Graham’s, or you can take him down to the tracks with a bottle of Night Train. The magic word here is “fortified”. Either way, his lips will be looser.

The Groper:  What to have, or not have if your body parts seem to keep getting in the way of his hands. What do you want? I suggest keeping your options open here. You might want to go with something like a good Mead. After all, Mead is considered by many to be an aphrodisiac. If you want to go the other way I suggest just hitting him with the bottle on the side of the head.

The Inhaler:  Suzanne explained this as when you “just get your main course and you look up to find his plate totally empty”. Ok, I resemble that remark. Suzanne and I haven’t even seen each other since the 7th grade and she still talks about my eating habits. Ugh!!

This is my friend Suzanne, who helped me with this column!

The Dream Date: Suzanne says this is the date where you don’t want to forget a single minute, and you don’t want to wake up. I say, awwww! That is so cute! The trick to ordering a wine in this situation is to pick a wine that you really really love. The thing is, wine affects our olfactory senses as well as our taste senses. These are the two senses that are most critically tied to our memory. When you smell or taste something it often reminds you of a past event or place. I would personally go with a great Pinot Noir. There are several, but many of my favorites are from the Salem, Oregon area. Erath, Eola Hills, Firesteed, and Sineann are among my favorites.

My best to all of you lonely hearts out there. Enjoy!

Mmmmm...Mead!

My oldest son’s girlfriend’s dad has a very interesting hobby. He keeps bees. Living up on a grassy hill outside of Moscow, Idaho, John has the perfect environment for his hives. The little buggers seem to love it out there because they make some of the most delicious honey I’ve ever eaten in my life. Nearly white in color, the first-run honey from his hives is so pure and sweet that it tastes like sweet cream.

The only problem is that not all honey is super high quality. As the seasons change, and as the hive gets more mature, the honey darkens and becomes much more amber. It also picks up flavors from the wildflowers that the bees are also trying to pollinate from the area.

This is where it becomes my problem. My son, knowing that I’m the expert on all things alcoholic, delivered a bunch of amber honey to me a few weeks ago. His expectation was that I was going to brew up some Mead in my basement.

Now, I may be a great writer, and certainly a pleasant drunk. I may even know the general processes around making beer and wine. However, I don’t make alcoholic beverages. I just drink them.

Being the adventurous guy that I am, and never wanting to let my admiring son down, I have gotten to work on making my first batch of Mead. (Have you noticed it gets harder to impress kids in their 20s than it was when they were four or five?)

Luckily, there are hundreds of resources out there on making Mead. The internet is full of recipes. I also have a friend who lives close to me that is into the Medieval thing. (He is a king or something.) He teaches classes on how to make Mead which I fully intend on attending.

Did you know that Mead is possibly the oldest known alcoholic beverage? Its quaffing history goes back centuries to ancient Greece. It is mentioned in Hindu writings as far back as 1700 BC. Mead has been given credit in ancient times for making warriors fearless and strong in battle.

Mead also was given credit for what we now call a young couple’s “honeymoon”. Apparently a newlywed couple drank Mead for the first 30 days of their marriage so they could increase stamina and fertility in the bedroom. Liquid Viagra!

Part of my research has included a little Mead tasting as well. Commercially made Mead is available in Europe, and there are distributors who import through different wine and beer distributors worldwide. However, the only Mead that I know to be of commercial supply in this region is made by Honeywood Winery in Salem, Oregon.

Opened in 1933, Honeywood is Oregon’s oldest winery. Their specialty in the beginning was to produce brandies and liqueurs, however they have been producing wines for many years. Their fruit wines are super popular in the region for being super sweet and flavorful.

Honeywood offers two types of Mead. The traditional style, which has won many awards over the years, and a new Blackberry Mead, which I have not yet had. The traditional style Mead from Honeywood is made from clover honey. It has aromas of summer flowers. The flavors are super-sweet with a floral sense and a mouthfeel that is full and creamy.

You can get Honeywood Mead at several places in the region. Bellinger’s in Hermiston has the largest selection of Honeywood flavors. I suggest you slide in and try them.