And it's not just bad wine I've drunk. I've drunk a lot of other horrible, borderline-undrinkable things. Jaegermeister. Yukon Jack. Goldschlager. Night Train. Mad Dog. The "punches" people make at high school parties. Robotussin. Homemade absinthe. You get the picture.
Until last night, never in my life have I drunk something that is SO BAD, so completely foul that I couldn't drink it. I couldn't even finish the small glass I'd poured. The only reason I saved the bottle was to take a picture.
This wine was akin to sake, but not in a good way. I've always thought sake has a somewhat farty taste to it, yet there's something to the heat of it, or maybe the food you have with it, that makes it okay. This wine just tasted like farts. And it's not like it was corked or anything-- it's a screw top. Sometimes when a wine is really nasty, I try to salvage it by heating it with mulling spices and maybe even some sugar, but I don't think that would do any good for this wine. And I certainly wouldn't insult food by trying to cook with it.
After tasting the wine, BE called it "köpek öldüren" (dog killer). In English we might call it rotgut or dog piss. However, I wouldn't use any of those terms to describe this wine, because to me they imply that something is yucky but drinkable, or at least worth drinking to achieve a goal. You might bitch the whole time you're drinking it, but you can still get it down. Not this wine. I tried. LE is sick and I'm recovering from his same sickness and it had been a hard day. There's nothing like a nice glass of wine after dinner before I pass out from exhaustion at 9.30. After four sips and a lot of grimacing, I gave up and dumped it down the sink.
Living in Turkey, my wine standards have fallen pretty low. I started drinking white wine here because most wine is pretty bad, but with white wine you can at least chill it and take some of the taste away. Prices have gone up so much recently, my usual acceptable cheap wine no longer seems very cheap. This particular disaster was on sale for 11.90YTL at Tansaş. If you live in Turkey, don't go for this bargain. Just don't.
Trust me. I know what I'm talking about.
4 comments:
Have you ever tried 'Izmir'? the only way to make it palatable was to drown it in orange juice. My worst Turkish alcohol experience was with a bottle of what was laughably called champagne, given to me by a student. The cork, rather than pop out, slid out ominously. The liquid within was a silty brown gunk with about one bubble in it. I won't describe the taste, but I still have flashbacks at 3 in the morning.
Ew, that champagne story reminds me of a time I was visiting someone, and they brought out this 'prized' bottle of wine, saying they'd been aging it for like 10 years. When I saw it was a bottle of Villa Doluca, I became concerned. The cork kind of crumbled out, and the wine itself was pinkish brown (it was white wine, BTW). They had no idea the wine was ruined, and I just didn't have the heart to spoil it for them, so I managed to choke enough down to be polite.
Go for an Iman Surprise* - i.e. drown in a litre of tonic. That makes it more palatable - it being most wine but not Harman.
By the way Migros has Asma at a stonking YTL 9ish and you can order on line and get a gross delivered.
* Disclaimer: The surprise refers to the fact that it's still not necessarily palatable or even non-gaggable.
Crap, I wish I'd thought of the tonic before I dumped it out! That might have been the thing to save that wine.
Or, I might have just ended up ruining perfectly good tonic.
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