WINE: Tarkettle Road Zinfandel

So ironically, the hard labor of shelving books has made my body sore enough to justify the use of alcohol to soothe my muscles, which does work. Lactic acid from serious exercise damages your muscles, which makes your muscles create more muscle fiber in response, making your stronger. As I work for 6 hours at my volunteer job shelving books, which rather impresses the librarians who are ladies and rather exhausted minding the front desk and answering questions for library patrons, my shelving the books so they don't have to deal with it is a huge weight off their shoulders.

So Dad and I lucked into a rare vintage called Tarkettle Road Zinfandel, from Lodi. Lodi is a smelly place between Sacramento and Stockton. You can tell you're in Lodi because the silage stink is so foul you curse out loud and reach for the Air Recirculate button on  your car dashboard, but it is always too late. The stink is inside. You can't escape except by driving away several more miles and opening it again. Sigh. Silage is nasty. I doubt the cows like it much either. Cows are easy to understand. They aren't nice, and I always feel glad to eat them because I was raised next to a cattle ranch, so I have no illusions about nobility or other ignorant crap. Anyone calling a cow noble needs to have their face shoved in some cowpies. Cows are mean creatures. Eating them is doing them a favor. The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe has an ideal cow. One that will nip off and shoot itself so you can eat it. And is glad that you will. That's how a cow should be. Not viciously hoping to gore you. Like real cows.

This Zinfandel from Lodi is good, once you let it breathe, as in oxygenate, and goes well with beef, as in steak or ribs or hamburger or various other cuts of beef. Beef and wine are happy friends. And beef is happy to be roasted or BBQ'ed and devoured by the one clever enough to buy it, rub it in spices, and cook it properly. California is all about the good beef, the good cheese, the good wine, and the good beer. We are also about the avocado and the Spanish style architecture. Cordelia Chase may be a total bitch in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she's a fairly accurate rendition of a Socal Princess, even if the actress is from Las Vegas, and is a mix of Cherokee and Mexican. I wouldn't throw her out of bed. Charisma Carpenter is a Beautiful Woman. I wonder if she likes steak and zinfandel?