2012 Jacob's Creek Reserve chardonnay

This, my fatheads, is a souvenir from the days when At First Glass was moderately well known, well enough known at least to earn sample offerings from wineries' public relations firms. The Jacob's Creek reserve was very good; my fatheads know that I rarely do tasting notes or winemaker biographies, since wine always shows notes of peach and lychee, and every maker has passion, integrity, and respect for the land. I do stories instead. Somewhere in one of his great books Hugh Johnson himself said that was a better approach anyway. 

Sometimes I prefer just the notes to stories. If I jot -- "glorious summer. Picnic; laughter. Deer -- herons -- tern -- gulls -- swallows -- ducks -- pipers. World chaos. Strange giant snapdragon in a ghetto backyard," would that be enough for you to form a story of your own? 

By the way, the strange giant snapdragon in the ghetto backyard was actually a young catalpa tree. My friend who fishes was much struck when I told him I had looked it up and learned that. He said he knew of these trees as a source for the "catalpa worm," excellent as bait. Wikipedia confirms him: "The tree is the sole source of food for the catalpa sphinx moth (Ceratomia catalpae), the leaves being eaten by the caterpillars. When caterpillars are numerous, infested trees may be completely defoliated. Defoliated catalpas produce new leaves readily, but with multiple generations occurring, new foliage may be consumed by subsequent broods. Severe defoliation over several consecutive years can cause death of trees. Because the caterpillars are an excellent live bait for fishing, some dedicated anglers plant catalpa mini-orchards for their own private source of "catawba-worms", particularly in the Southern states."

My, my. It's a big world out there.