Lots of wine

I am going through a wine-drinking period and boy are the wines good! Most of them Spanish. I've tried Malaga and port for the first time and I recommend both. Malaga tastes literally like fluid raisins while port - a fine ruby I am currently drinking - tastes like the mildest of kirsch - a gentle but rich cherry or berry taste. Exquisite! Very strong, too, 19% alcohol. Don't be fooled into drinking half of a bottle in one standing 'cause man you're going to look a drunken old sod the next day at work ;-) It's not easy to stop, though, especially if you sip them slowly in front of the PC or TV, like me.. So sweet and warming! I'd say it's safer to drink them if you have company.. hopefully they'll persuade you to stop once your speech becomes blurry ;-)

I love the traditionally shaped black bottles, too. I haven't thrown away any yet.. I store them in my pantry in the hope of filling them with some sort of an equally delicious fruit syrup in the summer.

Having inspected the bottle shelf, I can tell you that this fall and winter I've gone through five sherry amontillado ("Piconera" by Bodegas las Urtas at El Puerto de S-ta Maria, 15% by vol.), one golden sherry 15% by vol. ("Don Pablo" by Bodegas Bellavista), one Malaga Dulce 15% by vol. (Quitapenas Malaga Vina with bright red cap) by Bodegas Quitapenas and one fine ruby port 19% by vol. by Westport I've actually just opened this evening.

Yummers all of them, Malaga best to pour over ice-cream while the others perfect on their own as aperitivos. Don Pablo appearing a sherry of lesser quality which I do not intend to purchase again (unless I become an alcoholic), if you don't mind, messieurs - or senores - manufacturers ;-)

As for non-fortified wines which tickled my fancy, I also drank two random bottles of Merlot, one semi-sweet Australian (Cudgee Creek, as encouraged by the previously drunk Merlot by Jindalee.. I was pleasantly surprised to discover both brands came from the same producer/family) and one semi-dry from the Veneto region of Italy. The latter perfect to accompany pasta, not so much as an aperitif.

Ten bottles alltogether in a several months' period. That's a lot of wine for (the innocent little) me.. and all by myself!

I'm enormously tempted to buy even more wine when I see store shelves filled to maximum capacity before Valentine's Day.. I mean where have I been not having tasted all those gorgeous wines before? The white port, the cream Osborne sherry, the sweet Sauternes, the Gewurztraminer - along with the Greek Metaxa and the long forgotten Southern Comfort - are all there waiting for me! I can't believe how greedy I've become for them!

I can't really afford any of them either, mind you. I've just read my gas meter and, well, I've used four times as much gas during the last - winter - months as I had used during the summer. This translates into a bill almost four times as high.. which I can't possibly pay even though I've been saving towards it from each of the last three monthly salaries. I can only pay abouth two thirds of that bill, splitting the outstanding amount between the three "summer", or non-heating period, bills of May, August and November. The latter marking a beginning of a new heating period, in fact. What can I say but "be grateful that you can still pay them"?

Spring! You are anxiously awaited!! I've planned my first vacation days this year at the very end of March, right after we switch to daylight saving time. I can't wait for the miracle of light.. as if it could cure.. or make everything right. Or more bearable.