Malbec

She said if it has the consistency of mead then it's probably gone bad. It's supposed to happen over five or so days. she told me, but that seemed wrong. I heard two weeks somewhere and that sounded more like the truth, although as a wine novice I'd really no idea. Any normal person would have finished off the bottle by now.

She'd insisted that I take the bottle with me, half-drunk and uncorked. I'd hidden it in the inside of my coat, which somehow I'd worn even though it was too warm for it. I grit my teeth and worried at the state of my best white dress shirt as the cab aimed for every pothole on the way home. But by the time I reached the light of my apartment: no stains. I covered the open bottleneck with packing tape and set it atop the fridge.

Now the tape was on my fingers. I flicked it to the floor. I poured the Malbec out into my all-purpose wine glass. The smell was fine, the color was fine, there were no chunks or skins of any kind. It seemed to pour as any wine that hasn't turned should pour, that is to say smoothly and without incident. I didn't know much about wine but I knew that Malbecs were crowdpleasers, a straight-shooting and flavorful red with just enough personality to not ruffle any feathers and not taste like crap. I related.

It was a subtle question but I thought it alluded to more. I asked her how to tell if wine went bad, I mentioned there was nearly an entire bottle, I confessed I knew nothing about the stuff. And she'd actually been helpful, which I couldn't get mad at, although I did. Maybe I was too subtle, maybe I was too stupid, maybe I should have learned to be bold back when boldness didn't loom so large. I did what I did and I said what I said and I could only live and learn and move on and all those other horrible things that people say.

So I poured myself a glass, and I sipped from that glass, and I commented in my head about the liquid's unctuous legs. Wine always seemed so thick to me, so medieval, something you use to wash down an entire fowl cooked over a spit. Late grew later and later grew early, and I made myself a king in this great hall, and after three or four glasses it seemed to me the red was almost black.