Analogy of the Day
Wine analogies for Irvine Welch’s Trainspotting/Porno characters. This is more about the novels than the movie, although true about both to an extent.
Sick Boy (the handsome guy, I forget which actor):
Cabernet Sauvignon. Great depth, a complex and rewarding experience. Best of the lot.
Renton (Ewan McGregor’s character):
Merlot. Both are very well known and highly rated by very many, but not particularly dynamic.
Begbie (the psycho):
Cabernet Franc. Possibly the single most stimulating element, but too much stimulation causes a numbing effect. The quotient should be limited to roughly 3 to 10% of the blend.
Spud (the stuttery guy with big glasses):
White wine. Both have a fair enough raison d’etre in the abstract, but neither belongs in the first person. They get wack very quickly, if not immediately.
Additions to the list are welcome.
Saturday, October 28th, 2006 @ 10:15 pm 
Food, Shallow Thoughts
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October 29th, 2006 at 1:52 am
Forgive me, can’t remember the movie the whole way through and have never read the book.
That said, I would say that a Cabernet Sauv is not as dependably handsome as a Beaujolais — even the cheapest bottles taste brilliant. The cab, however, has the potential for an awful aftertaste and leave the palette dry. I confess, I don’t like chasing my wines with water so I don’t gag.
The tricky thing about Merlot is that a good bottle is a great bottle. Maybe McGregor will make a great movie.
What do you think of a sparkling wine or Champagne instead of the Cab.Franc? It is stimulating especially with the bubbles but too much will cause a heavy head and at worse, a rebellious belly.
Let’s clarify the white to a Chardonny. Might as well just use it as a cooking wine.
Any thoughts on the girl or the fifth guy?
October 29th, 2006 at 10:58 am
I thought Ewan McGregor was quite good in Moulin Rouge! and Big Fish, for what it’s worth, not to mention Trainspotting.
Of course, I also really like A Life Less Ordinary, but that has much more to do with Holly Hunter than anyone else.
October 30th, 2006 at 12:12 am
I actually fault McGregor for being pretty and because of that, manage to wonder if some of his performances become either better or worse.
Big Fish was a wonderful movie but I enjoyed Albert Finney’s older Ed Bloom to McGregor’s younger. That’s probably directorial disgression, a choice that made the movie all the more fanastical (which I approve of).
In that regard, a merlot is an excellent choice. It’s taste can be enhanced by food so easily — as can any wine, but I’m beginning to suspect that merlots are moreso after the amount of house reds I’ve had that are merlot.
October 31st, 2006 at 3:14 pm
I was mainly writing about the books, which I highly recommend if you liked the movie. Think loosely of “Trainspotting” the book as “Tom Sawyer” and porno as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin.” McGregor’s Renton is a lot different from the Renton in the book. The McGregor Renton is more like a laughably expensive and highly fun Pinor Noir, if anything. Book Renton is, alas, duller and dryer.
I’ve pretty much written off white wine, and champagne usually gives me a headache. I’ll entertain a small glass of a really dry one once every blue moon, but even that’s when I don’t have much of a choice.
I don’t really mind red wine leaving me a little bit dry — I do drink water whilst drinking wine, and pretty much every other part of the day as well. I used to get dehydrated when I was little, so now I just drink, drink, drink. It’s kind of a wonder that I like dry wines and hate sweet ones.
Merlot can be awesome. I had an ‘01 from Napa valley that was in the top 10% of wines I’ve ever had. But that was a special combination of factors — ‘01 being a good year for Cali merlots apparently, and lots of money being spent. That brings me to my last point, the Thomas Benton Rule, which probably should be a post of its own. But to sum it up, a store price of $15 is the maximum rational amount of money to spend on wine. Not necessarily the maximization of capital per se, but rather, the logical ceiling. The store price of that knockout merlot would probably have been well over $20, which not only violates the Thomas Benton Rule, but also brings you into a price category where you’re demanding quite a lot. This is why I’m generally down on merlot, I just don’t have any outstanding experiences with a reasonably-priced merlot.