A Vintage Little Number - review

From Wine Searcher

(XX)

I am feisty at fifty myself, so I like a good cougar tale. I found that once I hit the big 5 oh, I couldn't be bothered to keep up the proprieties and I decided to age disgracefully. I collected a stack-load of cubs panting in my wake, so I realised that age cannot wither a woman's appeal if she is willing to snerk a lot and have a larf. An older woman is mature, vintage, as full of taste and body as a good wine.

From Quentin 
Saddler's wine blog

Well Roxy Cunningham from Fantasy Football sure has a good body with plenty of spirit! My word. If I offered to do half of what she does, taking that college cub through his paces, my appointment book would be full of young men till the next millenium. (No no, darlings. I am very lazy these days. Rarely get into bed for anything less than a bottle of Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque and some diamonds.) What I really like about Roxy, though, is that as she doesn't give two toots about what people might think, she doesn't hide her superior knowledge about football. Acksherly, I have another story review tucked in my stocking top (Brennan's Not Alone) which shows that being an ardent knowledgeable sports fan can make you more attractive to the type of serious man who takes his sport seriously (wink) than pretending to be a bimbo.

For those who are distracted by typos, this is a lovingly crafted tale with not a spelling error in sight. No wonder it hit top spot for downloads when it was first uploaded, the characters are fully rounded (especially Roxy, what boobs!) and likeable, the background is faultlessly sketched and pleasurably filled with hints of luxury and fun.

Another thing I like about AreaMan's story is the way he uses a wine label. Elsewhere I have written about how name-dropping luxury labels can create atmosphere in a story and AreaMan offers a textbook example. (Blogpost on writing about wine here.) Wine is a great way of conveying character, vide Flanders & Swann's fab: Have Some Madeira, M'Dear. The fortified wine Madeira: sweet and strong, more unusual than Sherry, adds to the sketch of the caddish old seducer of youthful virtue. (Mmmm, don't mind if I do <snerk>.) 

Part of college kid Chuck Harper's task in the story is to deliver three crates of Alain Jaume Chateauneuf-du-Pape Domaine Grand Veneur Les Origines to a Cockaboose car for a football party. To start with, AreaMan describes how Chuck mangles the pronunciation of the name, establishing for us his character as without much knowledge of the world as yet. Roxy takes charge of the wine with grateful appreciation, showing her distinctive understanding of the finer things in life, and comments disparagingly on the 'fans' who will come to the party but not appreciate either the wine or the football. Chateauneuf-du-Pape is not the most expensive of wines, although three crates will set you back a buck or two. It is a robust and sophisticated red wine, to be enjoyed by proper wine lovers, not to be taken lightly. The Cunninghams are well sketched by their choice of something which is not a millionaires' flashy tipple but that of people who are willing and able to spend good money having fun.