Monthly Archives: January 2008

I have some extra time today so I choose to cross northeastern Kentucky from Lexington to Kokomo, Indiana on a two-laner. This is the way to see the country, white-knuckled on narrow, twisting roads carved out of thick mountains. Past fields of yellowed broadleaf tobacco plants and houses partially constructed of shipping pallets. In downtown Frankfort I think I almost see white haired legislators drinking bourbon, neat, on the porch of the Capitol House. But then I see the Capitol house doesn’t have a porch.

Just before Pleasureville, Kentucky, I fall behind a man in a red pickup truck. He has an electric cattle prod resting on a gun rack in his rear window. I hope he is a farmer. The road straightens out and I’m in Indiana, then in my hotel room trying to open a bottle of 2004 Eric Texier Côtes du Rhône with a Mazda ignition key.

I travel enough to know better than to expect I can easily find a restaurant with a wine list worth ordering from or a retail establishment without end caps crowded with Yellowtail. Anyway, after a full day staring down broken white lines, who wants to drive around an unfamiliar city studying a map while simultaneously avoiding red-faced commuters?

I make my road trips prepared (with wine, at least, if not a corkscrew). I go stocked, anticipating long days and lonely nights. If I happen upon a quality restaurant or shop, or I have the will to seek one out, then my only problem is bringing back home a good bottle of wine. Plus, it gives me something to anticipate for the evening, something more than a strange hotel room, Sports Center and double Priority Club points.

I think about dinner. What easily found food will go with a wine that, after breaking through a haze of lavender, is redolent of black cherry, chocolate cake, spiced oatmeal cookies and a river bank tossed with wet driftwood?

My first thought is Jägerschnitzel and Kartoffelklässe but that’s just me being silly with myself. I’d be lucky to find good Chinese takeout in middle Indiana. A toasted Italian submarine sandwich might do the trick. A plate of barbeque would be better.

I think of going to the grocery store and getting a jar of cured olives, a hunk of goat cheese and a loaf of bread. How could that classic combination not pair well with the cherry skin and stones flavor of the Texier? All the sugar is illusory in the nose and we’re left drinking some herbed cherry jam substituting alcohol for sweetness. These are the good kinds of problems.

I end up eating out. A decent cornmeal coated catfish filet washed down with Boston Lager. Convenient sustenance for the body. My soul would have to be taken care of at the hotel. But the problem of opening the bottle without a corkscrew still remains. I punch the key down into the synthetic cork as far as I can until the cork starts slipping into the bottle. I give the key a quick tug and cry out when the cork pops clean. I feel like a wine drinker, at last.