Mount Nelson 2010 Sauvignon Blanc
Marlborough, NZ

Let’s face it, moving sucks. It is, to the best of this admitted optimist’s knowledge, the one fundamental exception to the pie-sky notion that life is all “about the journey, and not the destination.” My experiences have proven that when moving, it’s better to blow right past the enjoying the ride part and concentrate fully on getting the hell to ones destination. Moving day is no time for lollygagging or sentimental gaping. Not with extorting landlords demanding spic-spanness, over-eager new tenants streaming in, asking to stash their ratty couches in the garage, the utility dogs gnawing at your heels, and the promise of a glorious fresh start awaiting on the other side.

It was in these keyed up circumstances that our mild-mannered mailman Enrico happened to arrive at the front door with box in hand. Typically, a late-arriving package is the last thing anyone wants to see at their stoop when defying the laws of spatial physics by way  of shoehorning their junk into a rental truck, but this package was not just some misremembered EBay prize that we’d have to ferry along. No, it was a perfectly timed gift of liquid lubrication from the Lords of Relocation themselves: a refreshing bottle of Mount Nelson 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, sent along for a review which, in our haste to relocate back to our home in the mountains of Colorado after three years in the fallow flats of California, I had forgotten that I’d been assigned.

My wife, the Redhead, was quite excited about our random score, and insisted on chilling the bottle. Since our refrigerator had already been de-thawed, she set the bottle carefully in a rocky nook in the creek out back, which flowed heavy with spring runoff.  A half hour later she returned excitedly. We were in business, albeit ingloriously, due to our having already packed away the wine glasses. Improvising on the fly, we each poured a glass into our last two remaining unpacked vessels – a pair of plastic “Carbondale Mountain Fair” beer cups that I’ve saved and reused.

I clutched the lip of the cup with my teeth, grabbed a box from the stacks in the kitchen, and wobbled off to the truck outside. The wine splashed up and wetted my whistle as I jostled along, giving me my first sweet, tart tastes of the Sav Blanc. Startled by it’s crisp hold on my mouth, I quickly chucked the box I was carrying into the maw of the Uhaul and sat down for a second to further study the interesting Mount Nelson flavor bouquet.

“Moving is so much better with wine!” the Redhead exclaimed, joining me on the tailgate. We compared tastes. I noticed a strong, lime or tangerine-like citrus note, heavy on tannins. The young wine was surprisingly, pleasing unbalanced, morphing from sweet to tart on its meandering journey across the landscape of my tongue. My wife thought that she caught the scent of strawberries in the bouquet, and strangely, the tang of freshly picked field greens.  

Feeling guilty about sitting down on the job under such duress, we ran back to the kitchen, filled our cups, and continued shuttling our earthly possessions out to our steel camel. Soon enough, we were down to the last two cups, and had moved everything but the couch, most recently a place of great comfort in our home, but now a piggish thing seemingly made of anvils and rail ties. The doorbell rang. It was the new people, wanting in. We clunked our plasticized cups together, downed the last of the Mount Nelson, capping what was an entirely undignified, but well-appreciated tasting, and hefted the couch out to the moving truck.

*Corby Anderson is a freelance writer based out of Emma, a small valley in Colorado’s Western Slope inhabited only by livestock, a few hearty skiers, and the occasional curious coyote.  His works have appeared in the Aspen Daily News, The Monterey County Weekly, Canyon Country Zephyr, and BEER Magazine. www.corbyanderson.wordpress.com