Four Dollar Wine Critic: Four Dollar Wine Date Edition
Harvard students like to multitask. I am a Harvard student. I’ve also been meaning to hang out with this cool chick. So I asked myself: why not murder two innocent winged creatures with one proverbial projectile? Our panel of judges: Me. My roommate. The Queer Crush I’ve been eyeing in Adams dining hall who has enthusiastically consented to appear in this article. Welcome to the four dollar wine date.
Purple Moon Merlot
($3.99/bottle. Trader Joe’s.)
The four dollar pickings are slim this week, so I ask Trader Joe’s Dude, a relentlessly hip guy with a nose ring, for suggestions. He indicates a sparkly white at $4.50, but I demure, as I have integrity.
Queer Crush: Do you have a brooding, sexual red?
Trader Joe’s Dude: Not in your price range.
Me: Do you have any reds that are weak and headachey?
Trader Joe’s Dude: [Points to Purple Moon.]
But Purple Moon, it turns out as we enjoy it sprawled on the very stained common room rug, is not weak, and I experience no headache after consuming rather too much of it. After weeks of wallflower whites, in fact, the Merlot is a font of complexity: a bouquet of dark chocolate and warm vanilla pudding, some sandalwoody notes of upper-middle-class yoga studio. This trope of rediscovered complexity and satisfaction is similar to the rhetoric my relatives are using to try to get me back on men, who also, presumably, have crème brulee overtones and aftertastes of Thai iced tea.
Green Fin
($3.99/bottle. Trader Joe’s)
This wine is not unpleasant; it is sweeter and less cringey than any wine I’ve tasted in this project. Roommate says it tastes cheap; I think it tastes expensive, and inform her that she tastes cheap, which is a classist and nonsensical comeback. Queer Crush claims that Green Fin has subtle notes of “that lemony smell that comes from garbage.” The bottle informs us that Green Fin’s aftertaste is focused, like a student who uses Adderall for study purposes in a culture that undervalues sleep, and I think it’s juicy, like a cute little clementine. All in all Green Fin is a rich wine; if it were a Harvard student, it would be disproportionately likely to be in the Porcellian.
Purple Moon Chardonnay
($3.99/bottle. Trader Joe’s)
Purple Moon Chardonnay smells quite nice: soft and not aggressive, like honey, yet with the subtle little bubbles that keep it sassy. In accordance with the general sexy-moody teenage-goth-chick Purple Moon aesthetic, the label sports a spooky picture of a moonlit sky.
Queer Crush: This label evokes Twilight, which reminds me of teenage sexual angst.
Me: Everything reminds me of teenage sexual angst.
At this point we decide to watch the “Rocket” video, in which Beyoncé presents a series of images that could also probably symbolize this wine’s flavor: a wet t-shirt; a squeezed lemon, a lit match, a key turning in a door, Mt. Everest under her panties. A plate of toast that falls and shatters.
If only this wine had overtones of Beyoncé.
The Crimson’s Resident Lesbian Sex Icon Reina A.E. Gattuso ’15 is a Literature and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality concentrator in Adams House. You can send all date proposals to her @college.