Gossip Girl and Vouvray

Christmas has come early this year, mainly in the well-heeled shape of an awesomely bad drama. I’m of course referring to Gossip Girl, the show on that random network after America’s Next Top Model—which I of course also regularly watch. Gossip Girl involves Upper East Side dueling debutantes—power struggles rivaling that of Musharraf and Bhutto—an adorably tortured trust-fund kid, middle-aged cocaine enthusiasts, and “poor kids” living in lofts around DUMBO. Hailing from hipster central myself, specifically Williamsburg, I of course watch every Wednesday night surrounded by bottles of wine, random sushi rolls, and numerous roommates, friends, and others just a quick text message away. Although our kitchen table may be littered with the Christian Science Monitor, The Nation, and even the Economist, it sometimes feels so good just to tune-in and zone-out. Watching each “stressful” scenario unfold, which frock to wear at brunch, which Ivy League letter of acceptance to entertain, I’ve found my own problems a bit more justified and just slightly more real in a city that often seems candy coated, and I’m talking about powdered sugar, that which is easily brushed off.

Besides that week’s episode, the real star of the evening was the recently released 2002 Domaine Huet Brut Vouvray Pétillant courtesy of Robert Chadderdon Selections. It was freakin delicious. The bubbles were delicate and flirty, the nose a bit stoney and white grapey, the flavors mostly golden delicious apples. The bottle quickly disappeared, the episode appropriately forgettable. As our thumbs quickly began to fly, frantically typing text messages…“Can you believe Blair’s headband”…“Did Serena and Lonely Boy do IT”…I paused between my texts asking the group…“Since when do New Yorkers climb in and out of each others windows, this isn’t Dawson’s Creek”. Or maybe it is…with a dash of the O.C. and eye-candy courtesy of the Brooklyn Bridge.