Another Vat of Wine, Dear?

Not a vat. Just two glasses, but that for me is probably equivalent to a vat for most of the rest of the world.*

Ask and You Shall Receive
The pencil shavings wine turned out to cost a whopping $11.25 per glass so I asked, as disarmingly as possible, if I could try it before committing. The server obliged. Ack! What is it with all these vinegary wines? I don’t know how anyone could find that acidic bite pleasant. I moved down a notch in price to sample the 2000 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano ($9.50 per glass), which is supposed to have an “enticing finish.” Vinegar again.

At this point, I was beginning to feel like I was wearing out my welcome and becoming a major pain in the posterior, so I just asked the server to give me something mellow and flavorful, but not sweet. She pointed out the cheapest thing they had on the menu: the 2001 Cecilia Beretta Valpolicella Ripasso, described thus:

Dark nose with dried cranberries and toffee. Plush chewy (?!) palate with long lingering finish.

The Out of Towners
It was quite nice, although I found it neither plush nor chewy. All this wine flap-jaw is just too pretentioso for B and me. We don’t often eat at “nice” restaurants, so whenever we go to such a place we feel like Sandy Dennis and Jack Lemmon in the Out of Towners, gaffeing and blundering our way through the meal.

What a lovely meal it was, though, and I feel it only right to give a little plug to the restaurant, Assaggio, even though they do serve some questionable wines with noses of smoke, tobacco, and tar (shouldn’t the Surgeon General know about this?) We both had super yummy pasta dishes and a fantastic tri-mousse dessert, one portion of which was more than ample for two.

Stuff We Got for Free
We scored some FREE STUFF and, as everyone knows, giving me something for free is the surest way to my heart. Here’s what we got:

• A wild mushroom bruschetta (to make up for the fact that our server failed to notice for about 20 minutes that George and Gwen had arrived)
• A cannellini bruschetta (same reason as above)
• A loaf of rustic bread in the shape of a bull’s heart, weighing close to 5 pounds and measuring, roughly, 8 inches by 11 inches (just because we were such a lovely couple and it was a slow night)
• A souvenir copy of the menu suitable for framing (just because we were such a lovely couple and wouldn’t it be nice to show such a thing to our friends back in Ohio so they could know how high toned and classy we are?)

Did the server get a good tip? Yes, she most certainly did. And she deserved it. And I have been dropping XXXL hints to B about going back there for his birthday, a mere two weeks from now.

*I attempted to post this entry last night (Monday), but Blogger was on the fritz, hence the delay.