Arya Stark, the headstrong, feisty, independent, young girl turned assassin from Game of Thrones.
Wonder Woman, the fearless, blunt, righteous warrior princess of the amazon from DC.
Thomas Shelby, the ambitious, family oriented, dapper Birmingham gang leader from Peaky Blinders.
Sheldon Cooper, the idiosyncratic, unapologetic, socially challenged genius from Big Bang Theory.
Jake Peralta, the talented and intelligent but childish detective from Brooklyn 99.
And the list goes on…
Then it hit me.
Why do we love them so much?
It’s simply because they are who they are as a character and they are consistent. Some characters do evolve, but who they really are is usually consistent deep down and that’s why we like them so much.
As an individual, I’ve been struggling since young in what kind of person I want to be. For everyone that tells me to be myself, there will be others that will tell me to be something else with all the best intentions.
Yes, I really like my aromatic full-bodied red wines and I also enjoy many other varietals, but most importantly it’s the time I get to spend with my friends and family around the table, just having a fun relaxing time over good conversation and company.
It’s common to see my feed with a record of the bottles we had for the night as I do like to remember what we had. Although I’ve got a Vivino account, nothing beats laying them out, tagging the vineyards and getting their kudos in the comments. ;)
I’ve never been a wine guy before 2015, so how did it all start you might wonder.
It started at a restaurant at Esplanade called Barossa I think around 2014. We were having a steak or wine buffet of sorts. My dear friend Desmond Khoh explained the dynamic chemistry that happens in your mouth when you have a bite of warm juicy beef and a sip of chilled red wine. It was magical and I was hooked. I’m still chasing for that wonderful feeling week after week till this day.
After that day, I started buying wines and was introduced to a few good bottles. They say that every wine lover have a few memorable first bottles that got them hooked and I’ve got 3. They all happen to be your big bold Australian reds.
End of 2018, I hosted a blind tasting night with my wine friends and everyone brought a good bottle (> SGD 80) and we tried them all out slowly with 8 decanters out in force.
We scored them based on individual preferences, favourite bottle gets 3pts, then 2nd best gets 2pts and 3rd best got 1pt. After tabulating the points, these were the results.
Australian Basket Press Rockford Shiraz 2010
Italian Proprieta Sperino ‘L Franc Bandit Vino da Tavola 2010
California The Prisoner Saldo Zinfadel 2016
French Château Langoa-Barton Saint-Julien (Grand Cru Classé) 2009
Italian Le Salette Pergole Vece Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2012
French Château Gazin L’Hospitalet de Gazin Pomerol 2005
French E. Guigal Côtes du Rhône Blanc 2014
French Château Plince Pomerol 2013
It was a great epic night. And I found a good use for our SAF army issued socks.
I’m also starting to train my daughter how to appreciate wine and being a teen, she do like the sweet ones. She can now do 5 – 7 serves, not bad. But we only do that during Christmas or Chinese New year big parties.
So the natural question people ask me is which wine is good and where to buy good wine. I’m honestly no expert, just an enthusiast at best, but let me try to answer the best as I can.
Good Wine really depends on what you like. Some like light wines like your Pinot Noir, Merlot and some like full-bodied like your Malbec, Shiraz / Syrah. Some like them sweet, some like them dry. Some like them with food, some like them for fun. So you need to first drink enough different types of wine in order to know what you like. You might want to try reading up as well. I would recommend checking out Wine Folly which is a very easy read and lots of information for reference, you can also check out their website winefolly.com and Instagram account @winefolly. Another nice book I got was Wine it’s not rocket science.
Now, where then do you buy good wine? This is a tricky one as buying a good bottle is abit like a hunt. You got to find them, check out their ratings and description, buy them to try them, then will you know if you found a good source. A good bottle does not mean expensive, good value is also important. I do have friends with exquisite tastes ordering bottles below SGD 30 by cases because they are of good value, while others camp on online stores to wait for sales of bottles that go for SGD 90. I personally shop between SGD 50 – SGD 100.
I use the Vivino app to check ratings and details of the bottles. Just keep in mind that reviews and ratings are subjective, however the number of ratings do give you a sense of how popular or widely available the wine is. To maintain a > 4.0 rating over 200 ratings I think should be quite a good bottle.
To motivate myself towards a more sustainable future especially in terms of transportation, here are a few more beautiful pictures of Electric Vans by Arrival which will be adopted by the the Royal Mail in UK and UPS in London and Paris.
Photo: ArrivalPhoto: ArrivalPhoto: UPS
Too beautiful right? And knowing that they have zero emissions makes them even more beautiful.
