Half Life – 23 – wine with breakfast
April 2nd, 2021
The class took what had started as a bit of end-of-week fun too seriously. After explaining the intricacies and cultural significance of the Full English Breakfast to the five slightly bemused non-Brits, as well as why it’s such an important meal, the debate turned to what had to be in it to qualify. Vegetarian options were quickly discarded, and the essential components boiled down to fried eggs, bacon, sausages, and toast. Black pudding, hash browns, mushrooms, fried bread, beans, and cooked tomatoes became optional extras, as each one generated a spectrum from love to hate. The last pedantic criteria, insisted on by the tutor, was it had to be eaten in the morning, so putting an end to the crafty idea of serving it for dinner, which would have made wine choices easier.
With more than half the available time used up on definitions, those on the Wine and Spirits appreciation course, a respectable middle-class cover for dipsomania, finally started to address the real challenge of what wine to match with breakfast. Cocktails, including Bucks Fizz, were removed unanimously within seconds as sidestepping the challenge, and spirits barred for simply being a really bad idea. Memories from three days earlier, when the course planners had scheduled a Bourbon tasting as the first session of the day, probably played a part. Fifteen different intense spirits, wonderful as they are, between nine and ten thirty in the morning is a day destroyer, even if you are only tasting, spitting, and writing notes. Even adventures in curry for lunch failed to drive away the flavours, with every wine for the rest of the day carrying the faint background hints of the deep wood, vanilla, and rich caramel of Wild Turkey, Maker’s Mark, and Woodford Reserve.
Many had assumed it would be a protein loving red, perhaps a light Pinot Noir given the time of day. However, the unanimous view of the perfect wine with an English Breakfast ended up being white, with the apple, honey, and peach packed flavours delivered by Chenin Blanc, preferably from the Loire or South Africa, the winner. Theory is fine, but you can only find out by doing it and, tragically, we never found out if our choice of breakfast wine was a good one or worked. Even with the South London wine course venue being surrounded by cafés, all offering their version of the perfect breakfast, the final test never took place. The intention was there and a vague plan to meet up the following week early in the morning was talked about. Procrastination kicked in, everyone involved said they wanted to, but it was clear, by failing to do it there and then, it was never going to happen. People went their separate ways still declaring they were planning to try it soon.
The course finally led to a long postponed, mid-life crisis based, decision to dump the corporate world and set up a fun wine events business that had been a dream of mine for years. Like having wine with breakfast, there was no reason why not and you have to do it to find out if it works. Endless planning, identifying yet another excellent reason why ‘now’ was not the right time, had only resulted in nothing happening. In the end, the dramatic life decision was made to great fanfare and excitement, but too late. Four months later Nobby fired his first salvo, just as the website had gone live, event plans finalised, wines chosen, glasses and equipment bought, and the first customers had started to nibble and talk about dates. Two months beyond that and Nobby had forced his idea of a complete life turn on top of mine, killed the dream, scheduled chemo in place of wine events, and made sure the day I had tried to seize vanished through my hands like a slippery carp. Those first optimistic months had shown that fears of there being nothing on the other side of the wine events decision had been unfounded. Similarly, the other side of the fence Nobby then unceremoniously threw me over has been neither empty nor barren; just different. The morning right after deciding what should go with an English Breakfast, that bottle of quality Chenin Blanc should have been grabbed, stood next to the ketchup and brown sauce, opened, and drunk with the full fry up.
An arm’s length away sits an almost full wine fridge, the dust coated boxes of glasses, spittoons, openers, coolers, and bottle closures still piled on top. Undisturbed for nearly three years they remain a future that almost was, and now never will be. Stretching out a hand that short distance and grabbing a bottle the next Sunday morning we have a family English Breakfast will answer the question as to whether the class, all those years ago, were right about what wine works with breakfast. That decision, at least, has not yet run out of time. From ordering things for the house, to planning trips, or getting in contact with long lost friends, putting off decisions now brings no comfort. It’s not brave, and it’s not bucket list living, it’s losing the fear of taking those decisions and knowing there is always something on the other side of the fence, even if you can’t see it and the fence was not one you had planned on going over. Leaving it till later only means it may never happen.
I'm not so worried about the wine but a cooked breakfast has to have cooked tomatoes! Love you forever xxxx
Another sparkler, Charlie. My 'wine with breakfast' stories are somewhat less sophisticated. X