Barefoot in the house

I tend to drink inexpensive though always passable wine at home, and spend a little more for wines by the glass when I'm out. I guess when I'm home I'm watching TV or reading and my full attention isn't on the wine, so something simply crisp and refreshing is fine.  And since I usually drink white wine, the fact that it's always nicely chilled can distract from any shortcomings, as long as they aren't egregious.

Barefoot, an economical California wine, is a decent wine for my at-home purposes, and I buy the winery's Chardonnay a lot.  The other day at the liquor store, however, I saw that Barefoot is now getting a little ambitious and is now offering a new "Buttery" Chardonnay along with its regular one.  So of course I had to buy it, and of course I had to do a little comparison tasting using the dregs left from my existing bottle of regular Barefoot.

The result? I can't say there is a huge difference between the two. Regular Barefoot Chardonnay is crisp and refreshing, maybe a little fruity. And Barefoot Buttery Chardonnay are all those things, but maybe a little less crisp and a tiny bit more smooth. It certainly didn't taste all that buttery. But maybe that's a good thing: sometimes less expensive wines take short cuts to get a tasting note they're after, usually by simply adding an artificial flavor rather than complicating the fermentation process. So Barefoot could have simply added some artificial buttery flavor, but based on the lack of obvious butteriness, I don't think they did.

In the end, I guess I like both and will probably alternate between them, based on what I'm in the mood for and, let's be honest, which one might be one sale. For drinking at home, though, I'm basically fine with either a crisper wine or a smoother wine. And for what it's worth Barefoot's Pinot Grigio is pretty good, too, and definitely crisper- and more tart- than either of its Chardonnays.

Large (1.5 liter) bottles of Barefoot usually top out at $14.99 per bottle, but are often on sale (at least here in Pennsylvania) for $10.99 to $12.99.

Last call

When The Sacred Ginmill Closes is Lawrence Block's sixth Matthew Scudder novel, and another fine, interesting reading experience.  This 1986 entry in the ongoing saga of the unofficial PI who roams the streets of New York was a little different from its predecessors, however, but not in any bad ways. Just ways that made it, well, again, interesting.  Anyway, here's what's different:

1)  Unlike the previous five books, which took place one after the other, this story goes back in time a bit to tell an untold story from Matt's drinking days, which had finally (and pretty inarguably, fortunately) started to come to a close at the end of the last book, Eight Million Ways To Die. It's all very clear, though: a still-sober Scudder at the outset tells us that he's going to talk about a period of time from his drinking days, a time when several notable things happened to him. Once it's clear that Scudder hasn't relapsed since the last book, we can sit back and enjoy this story from his more out-of-control days.

2) The novel is richer, longer, and more literary than the others, which weren't exactly fast, mindless, slam-bam action thrillers, either. It features Matt working three different cases (two more than usual), moving back and forth between them, with the glue holding the novel together being many, many conversations in bars among Matt and his friends and colleagues.  While the cases are often the subject of these conversations, they're also frequently about, well, life, the universe, and everything. Hence, the literary feel. It's also sort of a deliberate tribute by the author to the one undeniably good thing about being a heavy drinker who hangs out with other heavy drinkers: the camaraderie and wonderful conversations.

3) This is the first novel to recycle a plot from a previous work, namely one of the author's more entertaining short stories: By the Dawn's Early Light. One of the three cases Matt works on here is the same case from that short story. Not a similar case, not somewhat adapted from that case, but the same case, right down to the dialog during the investigation. I mean, it's not a big deal, the short story was a good one (it's free for customers to listen to on Audible.com, by the way) and Block probably wanted to give the story the wider audience of a novel. It was kind of interesting, in fact, to see how Block doled out the story in small helpings throughout the novel instead of giving it the full, uninterrupted attention of a concise short story.

4) The novel ends by again reminding us that this story was being told to us from a point in the future, and many years in the future we're finally told, when Matt's young sons (a frequent fixture in the past novels) are now grown up and in college and the military, and Matt's ex-wife Anita has remarried. Again, just kind of interesting. I guess that means that the rest of the Scudder novels I need to read (and any others Block may write) might also be looks back to particular times in Matt's career, during both his drinking and non-drinking days. Or maybe not. The rest might be about the older Scudder who narrates this story. It'll be fun to see!

In any event, When The Sacred Ginmill Closes was another great visit to the streets of New York of decades past (the mid-1970's when we're fully into the flashback), with Matt Scudder again walking those streets and figuring out what needs to be figured out, as we get all the pleasure and entertainment.

All aboard for some thrills

Ruth Ware's The Woman In Cabin 10 is a decent thriller, not super propulsive but not slow, either. A travel writer covering the maiden voyage of a luxurious "boutique" cruise ship believes she witnesses an assault and murder aboard the vessel, but when she looks closer into the matter, there is no evidence to back up her claim.  The bulk of the book is writer Laura ("Lo" to her friends and colleagues) running around the ship, while it's at sea, trying to piece together what happened. And, yes, there are eventually dangerous consequences to her snooping, I don't think it's too much to reveal.

I enjoyed the book, but was intrigued to see that many readers, via Amazon customer reviews, complained that they just couldn't enjoy the book because the main character was too miserable and depressed all the time, and not enjoying her glamorous job at all. It's true that Lo is a bit down at the start of the cruise, due to a scary encounter with a burglar who invaded her London flat while she was home. She also had a history of depression before that. But all that didn't bother me.  The mystery is good and the supporting characters are interesting, and that's all I really needed. Lo being a bit down throughout the story wasn't a big black mark for me. Sure, a bubbly, happy travel writer caught in a dangerous situation would be good, too, but that wasn't the story here. And I also found Lo battling both inner demons and outer dangers kind of interesting. But that's just me, I guess.

I moved efficiently through the trade paperback version of the novel, though I understand that the unabridged audio version, ready by Imogen Church, is pretty effective, too. But whatever version you select, this dark thriller, which takes some creative inspiration from two Hitchcock film classics, Rear Window and Vertigo (I'll say no more), will deliver some immersive escapism whenever you need it most.

The Woman In Cabin 10, which originally appeared in 2016, is available in print, Kindle, and audio versions.