In the spring of 2020, about a month after switching my online classes to Zoom and stashing some extra boxes of toilet paper in the basement, I bought a case of Dirty and Rowdy 2019 Mourvèdre Familiar. I can’t remember if it was my first D&R purchase or not, but it was close; I’d been inspired to seek them out, of course, by all of David’s TNs here. Fast forward almost four years: not sure if the pandemic’s really over or if attention has just moved on to the next disaster (mass coronal ejection, anyone?) but we finally got our cellar built, which meant that I could finally unpack all those boxes that had accumulated in the basement in the meantime (including a lot more D&R and Yeah! wine), which meant that I discovered that we still had three of these Familiars from that case. Tonight, popped one. It’s a little less angular and spiky with acidity than I recall but otherwise fresh and vibrant: crunchy purple fruit with a little funk (not much; no more than any of us in the work-from-home bathing regimen), “quaffable” or “crushable,” depending on your generation.
Which is all to say that this wine made it through the last four years with more grace than I did: last time you all saw me here, I was throwing a temper tantrum about some perfectly harmless thing David said that touched a raw political nerve. I’ve apologized to him, but I apologize to everybody else, too. Not my best moment. All I can say is that I think I’d been rubbed a little raw by the state of the world, and I hope you don’t mind my coming back out of the woodwork. I promise to behave. And thanks, David, not least of all for turning me on to Hardy’s wine, even if the Familiar isn’t your thing.
Cheers,
Patchen
