WORDS BY LJ/ DRAWING BY JEN
1. 2 $14 glasses of NV Bisol Desiderio e Figli 'Belstar' Prosecco DOC
I am at an airport bar, and sadly, it’s not a very good one. But I am, however, here. So that's something!
At work yesterday, I told my friend how much I was looking forward to having a drink at an airport bar— “If you’re having a drink at an airport bar,” I told her, “It means you have literally nothing, in the world, to do, except have a drink at an airport bar.”
At work yesterday, I told my friend how much I was looking forward to having a drink at an airport bar— “If you’re having a drink at an airport bar,” I told her, “It means you have literally nothing, in the world, to do, except have a drink at an airport bar.”
Even being on holiday is higher-stress than being at an airport bar. On holidays you have to go do something, go look at something, see a building, eat a food you can't get at home. You're supposed to be having a very special time and if for whatever reason at whatever moment you're not, it means you're fucking up your holiday and that kind of thing gets me really skittish. No one would ever ask you to be having a very special time at an airport bar. So I feel very safe here.
Here I am, me, at this piece of crap. I have fully committed myself to being here, drinking a glass of Prosecco, which I ordered on an iPad, which is bolstered to a wall. I briefly considered giving Wayne Gretzky Estates’ Chardonnay “No. 99” a go, as a joke about being Canadian to myself, but I needed bubbles. I needed this thing I’m doing to be as close to my romantic ideal of “drinking champagne at an airport bar” as I could get it.
Something I often say, and sometimes believe, is that I want it to say It’s only called Champagne if it’s from the Champagne region of France on my tombstone. Drinking a glass of Prosecco at an airport bar and telling someone you drank a glass of Champagne at an airport bar is, sorry, unacceptable. On instinct I just started writing a sentence that began "Calling Prosecco Champagne is like calling...", but really, there's no comparison more coherent, more profound, than Prosecco v. Champagne itself: "Calling generic-brand club soda Perrier is like calling Prosecco Champagne," you could say, or, "Calling your synthetic velour H&M camisole velvet is like calling Prosecco Champagne" —
Calling Prosecco Champagne is like calling Prosecco Champagne. Calling Prosecco Champagne is slightly worse than calling Prosecco Cava. Calling Cava Champagne is slightly better than calling Prosecco Champagne. Calling Cava Prosecco is gauche. Calling Champagne Prosecco is literally the gauchest thing a human being could do. If I ever heard a person call Champagne Prosecco, I would literally die, for seemingly no reason, on the spot.
(My tasting note for Belstar Prosecco: Sugar on the nose, plain white sugar, the bad stuff. And there’s fruit on it, stupid generic fruit flavour— it’s imprecise. Pears? Tangerines. Synthetic tangerine, some tangerine & acacia flower Bath & Body Works-branded bubble bathy body sprayey thing, but I don’t hate it, in fact I love it, it’s an on-the-nose example of its own horribleness, so I appreciate it for that, and also, okay, here's my thing: it’s better than a Fresca! That’s my tagline for Belstar Prosecco, if I were Don Draper pitching to the Belstar people, just get me in a room... "One hundred percent, unfuckwithably, you literally can’t deny it, the taste of it tastes better in your mouth than the taste of a can of Fresca- though not by much! But by a little.")
Calling Prosecco Champagne is like calling Prosecco Champagne. Calling Prosecco Champagne is slightly worse than calling Prosecco Cava. Calling Cava Champagne is slightly better than calling Prosecco Champagne. Calling Cava Prosecco is gauche. Calling Champagne Prosecco is literally the gauchest thing a human being could do. If I ever heard a person call Champagne Prosecco, I would literally die, for seemingly no reason, on the spot.
(My tasting note for Belstar Prosecco: Sugar on the nose, plain white sugar, the bad stuff. And there’s fruit on it, stupid generic fruit flavour— it’s imprecise. Pears? Tangerines. Synthetic tangerine, some tangerine & acacia flower Bath & Body Works-branded bubble bathy body sprayey thing, but I don’t hate it, in fact I love it, it’s an on-the-nose example of its own horribleness, so I appreciate it for that, and also, okay, here's my thing: it’s better than a Fresca! That’s my tagline for Belstar Prosecco, if I were Don Draper pitching to the Belstar people, just get me in a room... "One hundred percent, unfuckwithably, you literally can’t deny it, the taste of it tastes better in your mouth than the taste of a can of Fresca- though not by much! But by a little.")
