Wine Cellars and Goblets

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Grocery store wine is not from Napa Valley U.S.A., Provence in France 
or Stellenbosch South Africa. Novels and films instilled all that in us.

You know Christmas is around the corner, when you see attractive dinner table displays in department stores. Color red is an over-kill, but tables have pretty plates, forks, knives and other eating silver. Don’t forget wine goblets.

Yes wine goblets. Only the British call glasses, goblets. Do we drink wine or gobble it? Anyway, living in mansions and washing down food with wine and not water from the stream, was part of the dream of most girls in so-called underdeveloped countries. We grew up and watched movies with houses with wine cellars. That is what came to mind some years back when Enid showed me her basement apartment to let. I needed a place to stay in Toronto after getting a job at the local university.

There was not a single bottle of wine when I moved into Enid’s basement but I still marvel at wine cellars I see online. Most of them are in basements, or lower part of the house. I entertain myself by letting my imagination run wild. Did the basketball star bring his own bottles of vintage wine, or they were included in the selling price? He might not even drink, but apparently, property with a wine cellar is a status symbol. On second thought, I don’t think the previous owner, who is a film producer left his investment behind. Investment? Yes, because you don’t have a wine cellar to fill it with bottles from Woolworths. It is not done. It’s a faux pas, a French word I inherited from Faz, my well-travelled and cultured friend.

The only wine cellar I’m interested in is in the White House. Did President Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump inherit all those bottles, or they brought their own?

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger

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