What I Drank on My Summer Vacation

"One car, two people, 22 states, 38 days, 8,053.1 miles, and a purely decorative wooden oar." To that summary of my summer, I'm pleased to add this photo. We took with us, distributed to our hosts, and in a continuing fit of self-abnegation drank not a drop of until the final day of this total trip -- a case of Unti rosé.

Hold a case of Unti in your hands someday. It feels this good.

We called it the "people, not places or things" tour of the USA, and we saw a lot of good friends and tiny family members. Still, of course we made time for the important things, such as wine. 

We resisted buying a lot of the regional wine which, in surprise #1 of this trip, has sprung up seemingly everywhere. Kansas has its own wine. Why shouldn't it? Kansas is a notoriously good place to grow plants. And many, many years from now, when Kansans have learned how to make wine without adding so much sugar and weird chemicals, let's drink some. I'm extrapolating, I admit it. Like I said, we didn't try any of the Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. product, not even the one simply titled "White Lady" wine. 

The hat equivalent of a Denver rosé tasting.

Surprise #2 of this trip: Everyone drinks rosé wine, all over the country, all the time. Look at Amendment 21 Wines in Denver. They have in-store rosé tastings. Unfortunately, those events, as illustrated by the store's website, are spastically heteronormative and pointlessly gendered, staffed by women in fuchsia dresses and cotton-candy pink feather boas. Those two things don't even not clash! Unsurprise #1: Americans neither have nor want any dignity, or any way to communicate with each other that doesn't involve tackily selling one another products on the flimsy platform of the very first stupid thing those products remind them of. Other countries are not always like this, USA.


Regardless of my opinions, this joint sells tons of good wine off the dedicated and illuminated rosé wall, and I myself bought a bunch. We had to drive through Utah after that, I was cornered, I had to. It was great! I got that super pale one toward the right, there, which I wanted to love for its iconoclasm, but really it was bland. It was French, just for the record.

Also, I had a rosé flight in Carrboro, North Carolina in a lovely, really beautiful restaurant. Unfortunately, all I remember about the experience is that my dinner partner, at whose house we stayed for three days, is amazing (She's an Anthropology professor at Duke University and she studies in Guatemala a lot which makes her very, very resilient on account of all the harsh death.) Also, we both agreed that the good one was the expensive one, and that it was of pinot noir.

And I was served rosé in Milwaukee by my wonderful hostess who remembered it was my favorite. She and her tugboat-captain husband went on to introduce us to mini-bowling, as well as the arms race that is Wisconsin bloody-mary decoration, which involves cheeseburgers and beerbacking.

Summer sausage, cheese, a prawn, and ... a slider. With the so-Wisconsin touch of a beer back, not shown.

 And in Cloverdale, Indiana, in the worst possible crap motel and accompanied by criminal pizza, I thanked myself for having provisioned us with the amazing, barely effervescent, rocky, fruity-juicy Biohof Pratsch rosé from Austria. You can drink this magical wine under better circumstances, I hope. Unsurprise #2: Do not for any reason eat pizza in Cloverdale, Indiana.

Next post: New York City, where the streets run pink.