Wine for a Small Party

You can make fun of my passion for all things summer all you want.

"Oh, my dear, you must be getting the vapors this afternoon, as steamy as it is," the soft male voice drawls in a thick southern accent when the phone unexpectedly rings mid-afternoon.

Ignoring his condescension, I explain that when an afternoon gets to be too much, I simply tilt the blinds and lay down for a bit, a time-honored southern way to deal with the summer heat. But today it's a temperate 83 degrees - admittedly inside and outside the apartment - and I hadn't the slightest need for a mid-day lie down.

What he's really calling for is to make plans for the later part of the night.

When he asks, "What time is the first seating?" I understand that he's asking when my first plans of the evening begin. Hearing that they begin at 5, he immediately puts me on notice to join him and friends post-plans.

My first seating is with my fellow Gemini to belatedly celebrate our birthdays at Amour. We're the first ones in - despite what passes for "heavy" traffic getting to Carytown from Church Hill - and begin with Le Petit Rouvier Rose and three small plates (mussels, steak and fried eggplant) over talk of John Currance's restaurants, three of which we've been to.

When people begin arriving around us, we realize the Alsatian wine tasting is about to begin and promptly put on our wine goggles. Gemini makes an aside that she may not be able to keep up, an amusing comment given that she practically taught me to drink six years ago.

"But I'm tasting to taste now," she says, making a distinction and putting herself at the mercy of my bad jokes.

No surprise, from the very first wine we taste, Cave de Belbenheim Heimberger Pinot Blanc with a nose of honeysuckle that makes me want to dive into it, we are led through a series of interesting wines that demonstrate the terroir, styles and flavor profiles of Alsace. Having an Alsatian teacher only makes it better.

That small plates arrive with each set of pairings is an unexpected surprise, especially after we'd just polished off a meat and cheese plate (the Morbier so deliciously barnyard funky we paused for cow poop humor) not long before. We are nothing if not hearty eaters.

Our group, which includes a recent new friend and her wine pro boyfriend, moves through Rieslings such as the Cave de Belbenheim Heimberger Riesling with its nose of petrol and citrus, to Pinot Gris (learning that the grape was brought to Alsace from Hungary in the 16th century) and finally to Gewurztraminer, described as "wine for a big party" and heavenly with the accompanying lychee and rose petal sorbet.

Much of our conversation revolved around oral history projects, something that interests us both. Who's collecting the good stories and recipes before the people with them are gone? Why doesn't someone ask us to do it? Where's FDR when you need him?

Five hours and nine wines later, we called it a night, considering our birthdays well celebrated, at least for the moment. Officially, it's my last birthday celebration of the 2015 season, although I'm always open to invitations. Hint, hint.

Once home, I found not one but two messages from the friend who'd called earlier, necessitating one last social gathering for the night. Our foursome took flutes of La Marca Prosecco outside to the deck to enjoy the languid evening heat and banter back and forth. Twice I was shushed for laughing too loud.

In my summer world, I like to think that all the humidity absorbs the sounds of night time laughter, bothering no one. That and everyone else in the first world besides me uses air conditioning, so their windows are sealed shut.

My dear, it's simply wrong to stop a summer lover from laughing on a warm night with friends. Especially when she's on her evening's second seating.

Can't Buy Me Love

Just another Tuesday, wherein I try to see as many friends as possible in one evening.

The first was visiting from Maryland and we met at Pearl, where she marveled at how much hair I had.

Seems she hadn't considered that if we didn't see each other for a few months, it would grow in her absence.

She was operating on four hours sleep, but that didn't stop us from ordering a bottle of La Marca Prosecco to grease the conversational wheels.

Unlike me, she's been in a relationship the past few years and is eager to get to the next stage, namely him putting a ring on it.

Can't relate.

What's interesting about this is that after her first date with this guy, she sent her cousin an e-mail telling her that she was going to marry this guy but that it would probably take five to six years.

I told her it sounds to me like she's right on schedule...and that she should read that e-mail to him at their wedding.

As if I should be giving anyone romance advice.

Since it had been a while since we'd seen each other, she wanted details about the men and all the dates I'd been on recently and even did some low-level online stalking for the accompanying visuals.

Someone recently told me that I was the only person he knew without a cell phone and I'm beginning to think I'm also the only person who doesn't web-stalk.

Call me old-fashioned.

We managed to do all our catching up before I had to leave her for Pru, who was meeting me for dinner at an undisclosed location.

We weren't in our bar stools five minutes when she told me how beautiful my hair looked.

Clearly I was having a good hair day.

After our meal, we set out for the Grace Street theater to hear New York Times film critic Dave Kehr, a writer known for his concise, clean writing style.

Or as Pru put it when I invited her, "Free NYT film critic? Wow and yes please."

It was part of the VCU Cinematheque series, meaning an auditorium full of students and a smattering of adults.

Kehr started writing for a free weekly before moving on to the Chicago Tribune, noting that it's a particular talent to turn out writing daily.

So I found out when I started this blog.

Many in the audience seemed surprised to hear Kehr say that every time we change formats, roughly half of the movie titles go away, meaning they're not put on to the newer format.

"It's gotten hard to find pre-1990 movies," he said. "Young people coming up now won't have the ability to graze that field like we did."

Considering that few in the room were alive in the '90s, I'm not sure how that surprising statement resonated with them, but it came across as a bit tragic to me.

After a Q & A with the moderator, Kehr took questions from the audience.

We learned that "Fantasia" was his first film at age four, causing him to fall madly in love with movies.

When he began mowing lawns, he used his earnings to buy 12" reels of old silent movies.

He credited his writing style to an admiration of film critic turned dance critic Arlene Croce.

"I loved the way she put sentences together," he explained.

I understood completely; I couldn't fall for a man if I didn't like the way he put sentences together.

He seemed to hit a nerve with the young audience when he said that there were no more film critics like Pauline Kael and Vincent Canby because, "We get the critics the films deserve and we're in a fallow period. Not a lot of good film is being made."

Some students tried to convince him they'd seen good new movies, but as he pointed out, they're not movies that a man of 50+ necessarily appreciates.

Or, for that matter, anywhere near good.

It was funny hearing him trash what they thought were "important" films ("Raging Bull" I always found kind of annoying") while they sputtered their disagreement.

When one asked if he'd changed his opinion about "Alien," a film he'd not reviewed favorably, he stood by his assessment that it was nothing more than a well-executed horror film of its time.

"Who would have thought in 1979 that "Alien" would still be around today?" he asked rhetorically. "No one!"

That's the part that the students couldn't wrap their heads around and it was more than a little fascinating to see them confused at having their false idols toppled.

So besides some great film criticism and discussion, we also got to observe a roomful of confused and self-righteous 19-year olds, making it a well-spent two hours.

After dropping off Pru, I hastened to Rowland's to meet Holmes and his entourage for a get-together.

Chef Virginia came out and said hello before giving me a quizzical look and saying, "Your hair looks very pretty. What's different?"

Hell if I know. Now if only I could get this many men to notice.

My friends were just finishing their meal so I joined them in more Prosecco and lots of banter.

I-95 vs route 301.

Exaggeration vs. deviousness.

Alvin Lee vs. Peter Green.

Poor writers vs. poor restaurateurs.

Best line: "Money doesn't buy happiness, but it buys a lot of other good stuff. You can quote me on that."

I think I just did.