Aquinas wine: the review

On Friday, we consumed the bottle of Aquinas Chardonnay, mentioned in this space last week. Although there is always a Chardonnay bottle or two in the Johnson household, it's hard to match with food (which is strange, since it's incredibly popular) and so we usually drink it with smoked salmon or chicken.

Our Lord ate fish cooked on a charcoal fire after his resurrection, as the Bible says (John 21:9-13), and so it seems like an appropriate Friday meal, though I suppose Sunday would be just as good. With salmon grilled over charcoal and hickory, homemade bread, potatoes au gratin, and a light salad with vinaigrette, Aquinas Chardonnay was a great companion. It wasn't too fruity, had a surprisingly strong body for a $9 wine, and didn't have the taste that screams I SPENT SOME TIME IN AN OAK BARREL!!! like many inexpensive Chardonnays do, presumably to cover up for their shortcomings.

Father Poumade couldn't make it, but another priest came, whose name I won't mention because I didn't ask him. Our lovely and loquacious friend Cindy was also in attendance, which was good not only for her excellent company but because our kids love her to death.

One last thing I have to mention -- when I pulled the cork out of the wine, there was a quotation from the Angelic Doctor himself: "...for it is written, that wine makes glad the heart of man." Unlike the bogus quotation I found, this one is genuine. It's from an article entitled
"Whether wine of the grape is the proper matter of this sacrament?" Aquinas quotes Psalm 103, which would seem to answer the perverse fellows who think that what Bible calls "wine" is unfermented. Whose heart ever became glad from grape juice?