WINE & MUSIC: A BAND AND A WINE YOU SHOULD REALLY GET TO KNOW

One of my favorite bands is Failure, the project of L.A. musicians Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards, two musician/engineers that have collaborated with the likes of Maynard James Keenan from Tool (in the really cool covers project The Replicants), Queens of the Stone Age, and a host of others. Though Failure is no longer a group, I recently downloaded the “Magnified” CD, which was released originally in 1994, ironically around the time that my first marriage was disintegrating, and I was heading out to what was to be a failed migration to L.A.

Failure (the band) has pretty much been a band that mostly other musicians “got.” Their dark histrionics and self-deprecating lyrics struck a chord with me the first time I heard them, which I believe was riding around with a friend of mine on the way to work., listening to WOXY when you could get them in your car. The song was called “Stuck On You” a song about (in the words of Stephen King) “earworms” – those songs that just stick in your head and you can’t stop singing them. Failure’s homage to those earworms is itself an earworm, and I still find myself singing it wherever I am.

You can check out the video here:

I was trying to come up with a wine that might fit that category, something that you can remember wherever you are, no matter if you haven’t had it in a long time, or just finished up a bottle. One that comes to mind is the Luigi d’Alessandro Fontarca, a Chardonnay/Viognier blend from Tuscany that is one of the fullest-bodied whites I have ever had. It fills the palate with so many layers of fruit and spice, that the finish just rolls on long past your last glass. Pineapple, passionfruit, banana, star fruit, guava, mango, nectarine, cinnamon, nutmeg, crème fraiche, almond, coconut – it just goes on and on and on. I usually get this wine in the store every so often, simply because it is not a cheap white wine. But for those of you looking for a truly sexy bottle of white wine for that next date night, or just something to marry with a vibrant, tropical themed menu, this bottle is it. And listen to a bit of Failure. It’s the only kind I am sure you’d like.