Wine And Football

On Sunday night, I was at the French Connoisseur's home watching Germany's demolition of the Australian team of geriatrics when his wife criticized his choice of beverage (a 2005 Listrac-Medoc) and suggested that football must be experienced with a chilled beer in hand. If I am not mistaken, her exact words were, "How can you watch football with wine?" Of course, her sentiment was shared by the Disney-obsessed man child who merrily dug into a bowl of barbecue-flavored chips and poured a KEO (his Mickey Mouse of beers) into a tall glass.

Like myself, the French Connoisseur was seduced by a Cypriot woman and tricked into joining her on The Rock. Love was then followed by a big fat Greek wedding and a marital contract that forbids us from leaving the island without written, notarized and stamped authorization. Okay, I exaggerate but you get the point. In any case, to pass time and boredom, the French Connoisseur began importing French wine, bottles upon bottles that must go through a grueling and rigorous quality control process involving his friends, hard cheeses and roast meats. So it goes without saying that when I am chez lui, drinking beer is the equivalent of going vegan (and asexual) in Buenos Aires.

Since this blog is about island wine projects, Sunday night's exchange got me thinking: Which Cypriot wine best goes with football? Red? White? Rose? Sweet? In fact, do any of them go with football?

So for the next four weeks, I will drink four different bottles of wine, each while viewing a different World Cup match, preferably from the Round of 16 or Quarterfinals. I have discarded the first round matches because, truth be told, the level of play has been sad (quasi-Rock level!) and one misses out on the sense of urgency teams have to deal with during single-elimination games. The only good that can come from drinking wine while watching a first round match is the drunker you get, the more magical it all seems. Like "beer goggles" sans the happy ending.

I have picked four bottles, all of them considered top of their class by local experts:

z. 2008 Domaine Vlassides Shiraz

y. 2009 Kyperounda Petritis  Xynisteri

x. 2009 Zambartas Rose Lefkada/Cabernet Franc

w. 2006 Agia Mavri Mosxatos Muscat

Also, I have excluded Commandaria because it reminds my co-conspirators (The Wife, Ph.D., et al) of communion and there's no need to mix football and religion. FIFA has already disallowed it so it only makes sense for me to do the same.