I Am the Very Model of
A Most Obsessive Oenophile
By Mark Criden
WINE CRITIC:
I am the very model of a most obsessive oenophile,
I’ve indexed every wine by color, maker, smell, and bottle-style,
I know the crus of Burgundy, and vintages historical
And whether hype is accurate or merely metaphorical.
I’m very well acquainted, too, with Riesling from the Finger Lakes,
Bold Cabernet from our left coast and Aussie blueberry milkshakes.
That’s not to claim Down Under wines are lean on personality
Or fairly warrant repute as wine’s ode to bestiality.
I rack up every vintage of Latour to fill my vertical,
I worship at the altar of vinous writers expertical;
Even wines that gag or blind me, I fanatically pursue
As long as the Spectator gave them each a hundred point review.
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HOWARD CHORUS:
As long as the Spectator gave them each a hundred point review,
As long as the Spectator gave them each a hundred point review,
As long as the Spectator gave them each a hundred point rereview.
WINE CRITIC:
My cellar will outlive my heirs no matter what the calculus;
Drinking all my treasured wine would surely be miraculous.
In short, in matters no sound mind could ever hope to reconcile
I am the very model of a most obsessive oenophile.
SPREE FOOD STAFF:
In short, in matters no sound mind could ever hope to reconcile,
He is the very model of a most obsessive oenophile.
WINE CRITIC:
I’ve learned all arcane vineyard sites, for instance there’s Bulgaria,
Japan, Cyprus, and Zimbabwe (where growers fight malaria);
In India and Lebanon and even in Albania
They tend grapevines to slake my ever-growing dipsomania.
I can tell undoubted Zins from Barolos with just a hunch;
I know I’ve not mistaken them since earlier today at lunch,
And I can launch a toast with brut Champagne or other carbonate
While whistling the tasting notes from Parker’s holy Advocate
WORRIED FRIENDS:
While whistling the tasting notes from Parker’s holy Advocate,
While whistling the tasting notes from Parker’s holy Advocate,
While whistling the tasting notes from Parker’s holy Advoadvocate.
WINE CRITIC:
I lust for both the Bordeaux kings and lowly village Languedocs;
My taste for plonk and Lafite too is something of a paradox
And while I’ll take a tipple of Mad Dog down in the barrio,
My thirst is better satisfied with ice wine from Ontario.
Of course the wines I’m jonesing for are most artistocratical,
Those bottles marked “perfection” on a scale most mathematical.
In short, in matters no sound mind could ever hope to reconcile
I am the very model of a most obsessive oenophile
WINE MERCHANTS:
In short, in matters no sound mind could ever hope to reconcile,
He is the very model of a most obsessive oenophile.
WINE CRITIC:
In fact, when I know I’ve tasted some Gallo’s Hearty Montrachet,
When I can recognize on sight a Sancerre from a Cabernet,
When I can see there’s something more in Sideways than a parable,
And when I know precisely why my friends find me unbearable,
When Jeroboam makes sense to me as just another bottle size,
When I know more of which wines marry Spicy Hunan Chicken Thighs—
In short, when I know just the wine with beef, tofu, and shrimp and pork,
You’ll say a more obsessive oenophile had never pulled a cork.
FAMILY MEMBERS:
You’ll say a more obsessive oenophile had never pulled a cork,
You’ll say a more obsessive oenophile had never pulled a cork,
You’ll say a more obsessive oenophile had never pulled a pulled a cork.
WINE CRITIC:
Though fellow wine buffs see my zeal as proof of my urbanity
I’ve now convinced my dearest friends I teeter on insanity.
It’s true, in matters no sound mind could ever hope to reconcile
I am the very model of a most obsessive oenophile.
FELLOW OENOPHILES:
It’s true, in matters no sound mind could ever hope to reconcile
He is the very model of a most obsessive oenophile.
Mark Criden, a wandering minstrel, was born in the wrong century...
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