There's that at least. The not being alone. It's better than the alternative. Neal has realized and internalized that much over the past however many years--with others and hurting is better than alone and safe. Mostly. As long as you leave yourself a way out. As long as you don't go in so deep that there's no easy escape.
Neal makes an obliging noise, in the middle of taking a drink from his own glass. He clears his throat, his whole mood brightening at the question. "It's an Italian dessert wine, a 2008 Valentino Butussi Picolit. The picolit is the grape varietal, dried to concentrate the sugars of the fruit prior to fermentation."
He sits up a little more, warming to the topic as he speaks. "It's the hotter-climate equivalent of ice wines, where they let the fruit freeze on the vine so the sugars get separated from the water. Both techniques leave you with a much smaller pressing of very intensely sweet juice, and the picolit grape in particular is a sweet fruit that tends to have a low crop yield to begin with."
He holds up the glass in his hand. "Technically this would do better paired with a meal, something heavy on fats and strong flavor, like duck or beef, but a dessert wine is meant to be just that, something you can have on its own or with a mild dessert, so the focus is on the wine itself."
no subject
Neal makes an obliging noise, in the middle of taking a drink from his own glass. He clears his throat, his whole mood brightening at the question. "It's an Italian dessert wine, a 2008 Valentino Butussi Picolit. The picolit is the grape varietal, dried to concentrate the sugars of the fruit prior to fermentation."
He sits up a little more, warming to the topic as he speaks. "It's the hotter-climate equivalent of ice wines, where they let the fruit freeze on the vine so the sugars get separated from the water. Both techniques leave you with a much smaller pressing of very intensely sweet juice, and the picolit grape in particular is a sweet fruit that tends to have a low crop yield to begin with."
He holds up the glass in his hand. "Technically this would do better paired with a meal, something heavy on fats and strong flavor, like duck or beef, but a dessert wine is meant to be just that, something you can have on its own or with a mild dessert, so the focus is on the wine itself."