Tasty wine from down under: Woop Woop is reason to cheer

Bottom of the Barrel: Casa de Campo Moscato is juicy... Literally, it may be juice

Have you ever wondered what a gold medal tastes like? Or how about defeat? They say victory is sweet, but so is eating packets of Sweet & Low. While Ryan was in the oxymoronic state of “dry season” for swimming and attempting to win his own gold this week, I tried to find my answer through wine. I turned to the Fates to find me a new compatible columnar colleague. As the divine trumpets of a passing ambulance were faintly heard from Maine Street, my calls were answered as Sam Karson ’14 sauntered towards me. So now, glasses in hand, Sam and I shall venture forth to review the Casa de Campo 2012 Moscato.
Casa de Campo is a Moscato. Muscat grapes are tucked away in the northeastern region of Piedmont, Italy. The Muscat grape has both red and white varieties, but the Muscato wine is exclusively made from the white grape Muscat Blanc á Petits Grains variety. When wine is made using grapes specifically from the Piedmont region, it may be called a Moscato d’Asti or simply an Asti. However, the Casa de Campo is from Mendoza, Argentina and thus cannot receive such lexiconical labeling. Instead of a fancy name, our wine had an amateur painting of a cow. The artist decided to color the cow green, but apparently abandoned that idea halfway through the process, leaving the depiction of a cow in Astroturf stockings.
The first thing you recognize about the Casa (or as Sam and I like to affectionately call it, “The Big House”) is its rich golden color. It harkens back to memories of Brian Boitano or that Keystone Light you poured down the sink last Saturday when you told everyone you were going to shotgun it.

Bottom of the Barrel: A drink worthy of the gods: local mead is sweet as honey

Be this Valhalla? Nay, tonight we drink in the great hall of Tower 6A. We have fought long and hard and laid with women, men and beasts, but now the horn of plenty showers our heads with golden mead. A reward from the gods of Hannafjord aisle four for our fortnightly efforts.
Honeymaker semi-sweet mead is produced in Portland, Maine. Many meads are simply a type of wine, aged to allow the honey-derived sugar to convert to alcohol. Others may be brewed, hopped, spiced, and fruitened (a technical term). Ours is made from honey and water, simple by design.
Meads are some of the oldest alcoholic drinks in existence, dating back to 2000 BC across Eurasia. Mead’s first professional review came from the Brythonic bard Taliesin, in his song Tanu y Med, which peaked at No. 3 on the Brythonic Billboard Hot 100 in 550 AD. Mead was famously consumed by the Norse gods and dead warriors in Valhalla, where it sprung forth from the udders of the goat Heiðrún. Unfortunately, we struggled to find a mead goat, so we bought a bottle from Hannaford and duct taped it to Jordan Goldberg ’14’s belly.
While suckling at Jordan’s singular teat, we were struck by the incredibly rich golden color, effervescent in the torchlight of our banquet hall. Our drinking horns amplified the sweet honey nose. Anything normally expected in the nose of a wine was nowhere to be found; a pleasant scent of honey was the start and finish. We weren’t that surprised when the taste followed suit. A strong, sweet body was moderately supported by accents of light wildflower and a noticeable alcohol presence with a touch of dryness on the back end. We were happy to find that the mead is not at all syrupy; the body stays light and refreshing rather than heavy and cloying.
In Norse mythology, mead imbues whoever imbibes it with either berserker rage or poetic inspiration and intelligence. Mead—as well as immortal goat milk—has its origins in divine spittle. When the gods of Æsir and Vanir made their peace, they hawked heavenly loogies into a vat; from their spittle the man Kvasir was born.
Kvasir was quite intelligent. In fact, he was so smart that he embarrassed a bunch of dwarves, who, in turn, became angry with him. They killed him and poured his blood into a new set of two vats and a pot, respectively named Óðrerir, Óðrørir and Óðrœrir.
In Denver, Colo., pots are still named to this day, but more along the lines of “Sour Diesel” and “Maui Wowie.” Back to Kvasir. The dwarf mixed his blood with honey, told the gods he had drowned in his own intelligence (specifics on this are still unclear), and mead was born. Then it was somehow put in that goat.
Whether found in vats, goats, or on the shelves of a local Brunswick supermarket, mead is a wonderful way to expand your palate. Who knows? It may just give you the wisdom to ace that test next week.
Or maybe, you’ll get written up for berserker rage. Either way, pour a horn of Honeymaker, recite a skål or sumbel, and drink up, for the battlefields of Ásgarðr shall await us in the morn.
Additional Notes:
Ryan: I think I grew a third chest hair.
Dan: Tanu y Med is on my “spring jams” playlist.
Nose: 3/5Body: 4/5Mouthfeel: 4.5/5Taste: 4.5/5
Pairs well with noble death. $13.99 at Hannaford.

Bottom of the Barrel

Tasty wine from down under: Woop Woop is reason to cheer

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

February 28, 2014

According to the ever reputable urbandictionary.com, Woop woop is “an expression designed to express approval, happiness, joy, and/or excitement usually accompanied by a knocking together of the fists with a buddy.”

The two of us work on a strictly professional basis, but we couldn’t help but bump fists over glasses of this 2012 Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.

When we first poured this wine we were immediately struck by its rich red color. We haven’t seen a red like this since our ill-fated experience drinking dragonfruit MD 20-20. Or that time Ryan ate a Sharpie. Woop Woop looked different. Its red was acidly bright but beckoned seductively, like crimson lipstick in a bottle. Had it done something new with its hair? Was it showing us a little too much leg? Or was it just a really red wine?

As we brought the glasses up to our lips we encountered strong earthy tones and subtle notes of berry. For $13 a bottle, this wine’s nose was surprisingly sophisticated. Understatedly high-brow, Woop Woop Cabernet could find a kindred spirit in a newer Matthew McConaughey film (maybe not that NC-17 one where he kills people), or that freshman lax bro with a solid grasp of Hegelian philosophy.

Our tasting sessions are conducted in silence with an occasional muttered critique of the wine.

As we got our first impressions of this wine we tried to maintain our composure but couldn’t help but scream “Woop woop!” The call echoed through Coles Tower and across town, cracking the white silence of winter. Strong earth tones of peat and moss are balanced perfectly with sweet cherry and plum carried over from the nose. The mild sweetness is balanced well by tannins that developed after allowing the wine to breathe for five minutes.

Mother nature herself must have heard our exclamation, for snowflakes began to lazily drift down from the sky. A sharp mewling from the Coles Tower lobby broke through the muffled breeze. We opened the door to discover six direwolf puppies huddled around their mother’s body. We knelt, the rusty scent of the she-wolf’s blood permeating the sixth floor.

“Valar morghulis. Valar morghulis,” the man whispered. The steel sunk into one back, then another. The wine columnists fell to the ground and Jaqen H’ghar was gone. This column is now brought to you by HBO. “Game of Thrones” starts April 6!

Woop Woop is produced in Australia: a country with the distinction of both being founded as a prison and being filled with things that have evolved to kill humans. The grapes came with the prisoners, brought along with the First Fleet of 11 ships in 1788. The unfamiliar climate proved problematic, probably because it tried to kill everything, and grapes were not successfully grown until the mid-18th century. Today, Australia is a major producer of wine and most grape varietals have found success in the country.

Our one reservation about Woop Woop is that the sweetness can be a little overpowering initially. Allow it to breathe, or just drink with a friend. In Westeros there are no friends, no enemies. There are only players and pieces. And dragons.

This Cabernet tastes good and is backed by a solid body with a high alcohol content (14 percent). Despite the body, it is not at all heavy, and feels silky and cool in the mouth.

Additional Notes:

Dan: My mind was telling me no, but my body said yes.
Ryan: Is it wrong that I think Jaime Lannister is the most sympathetic character?

Nose: 4/5
Body: 4/5
Taste: 5/5

Pair with Parents Weekend dinner, Thorne Dining Hall. Thirteen dollars at the New Hampshire State Liquor Store.

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