The Wines of Guantanamo Bay

 

 

I’ve got a problem.

My private stock of wine includes several bottles that shouldn’t be in the house.

They’re undrinkable, and frankly, an embarrassment.  I have no idea how they entered the front door of my home.  Now, I don’t know what to do with them.

Life can be so full of challenges.

 

This weekend, while doing my inventory, I counted 382 bottles currently in stock.

That sounds like a lot of wine, but I wouldn’t call what I own a “collection.”  That’s because I don’t collect wine.

Rather, I drink wine.  There’s a difference.  Collecting wine can be an investment.  But drinking wine is lots more fun.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated healthy reserves of most of the wines I enjoy.  That way, in case there’s a nuclear war and we all have to take emergency cover inside bomb shelters, I’m pretty much covered for an entire year.  At a rate of consuming about a bottle per day, that means 382 bottles will last me slightly more than a year.  Add in the assorted bottles of liquor, and I can probably stretch it for two full years, so long as no freeloaders take cover and end up raiding my stash.  These are the survival skills I’ve developed.

In between all the solid “go-to” wines I’ve hoarded and the more-expensive bottles for special occasions like when I have a winning day sports betting, somehow a few catastrophes of the vintner trade slipped their way past my consciousness and into my private reserve.  I’ve captured 18 intruders among my current inventory.  They’re segregated into a corner of the room, but off from the good stuff in what I’d call the wine reserve’s equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.  If a serious wine connoisseur were to see these wines resting amidst the classics, I’d be laughed out onto the street.  So that won’t happen, I now find myself faced with the unenviable task of having to dispose of 18 bottles of crap.

Just to set the record straight so that Gareth Edwards and Stephen McLoughlin and all the other snobs living on Planet Elite don’t excommunicate me from the universe, these shitty bottles were either casino giveaways, or were deep clearances from grocery stores, or in some extreme cases….gifts from “friends.”  If you happen to see your prized bottle in the mugshot above, take the following advice with the best intentions:  Do some fucking research first before buying me a bottle of shitty wine.  Friendship has its limitations.  Oh, and Merry Christmas to you, too.

There are also a few bottles of Merlot, which I refuse to drink unless my finances get really, really bad.

Here’s the inventory of horror:

Rex Goliath 47 Pound Rooster — 2001   (3 bottles)

Rex Goliath 47 Pound Rooster — no year listed   (1 bottle)

Yellow Tail — no year listed   (1 bottle)

Finca Flichman Malbec — 2010   (9 bottles)

Barefoot Cabernet — no year listed   (3 bottles)

Cooks Brut — no year listed   (1 bottle)

What should I do with these wines of embarrassment?  Got any ideas?  A few worthwhile options include:

— toss them into the garbage

— save them for guests who don’t know anything about wine and won’t know the difference between drinking a $5 bottle and a $50 bottle

— re-gift to people I don’t really care about

— save them just in case I have to stay in the bomb shelter more than two years…..that aged bottle of Yellow Tail is going to taste pretty damn good when the rest of the stash and the world are wiped out.

What do you think I should do with these 18 bottles of shitty wine?

UPDATE:  Someone read this article and came and took the bottles for free.