Pink Broom. Red Wine.

Good thing Elzee and I behaved ourselves last night and simply made our ways home after the East Van Culture Crawl ended last night because getting up early enough to head out to the Pink Broom Bonspiel in the morning was enough of a task for me as it was. Arrive on time, I did, however, and it was a full day on the ice - with everything from regular play games thru doubles and on to skins games.

The thing about bonspiels - particularly funspiels like the Pink Broom - is that there's bound to be a bit of down time. Or, perhaps that should be noted as "drinking time."

I think it's safe to say that curling is generally associated with beer far more than wine and, true to form, our Raising Red team never seemed to be short of a live pitcher - not to mention the shots that seemed to appear far more often than an old codger like me is used to dealing with.  It's a miracle there weren't any spills on the ice.

Seeing as I'd been paired up with the red team, it only seemed natural to use the Pink Broom as an opportunity to add a bottle of red wine to The List. Now the Vancouver Curling Club isn't exactly known for its extensive wine list but even a limited list can, hopefully, offer up a simple sipper to warm you up after a jaunt on the ice. How about a little Malbec to the rescue?

1804.  2013 Pascual Toso Malbec (Mendoza - Argentina)

I'm guessing that, in addition to having a limited list, our club doesn't revise the wines all that often either since I added the 2011 vintage of Pascual Toso to The List while curling last season at our league's feature bonspiel the Pac Rim Cup.

Like last night's Malbec, I usually figure you can count on Malbec to offer up some fruit and drinkability in social situations where food isn't going to be featured prominently. This is Pascual Toso's entry level Malbec and it's been a stalwart on BC shelves for years now. The winery's association with Paul Hobbs, as consulting winemaker, has likely played a big part in their steady presence in the North American market.

I didn't really know any of my teammates on Team Red and five of the eight were either first- or second-year curlers. We did surprisingly well, finishing second over all. Granted, we saw a big jump in the standings when our team took all sorts of points in the final round of skins curling. There were all sorts of points up for grabs and we were on fire - one foursome took three of fours skins and the foursome I played with saved our best curling of the day for that round and we took all four skins.

I'll leave it up to you to figure out the emphasis on bonus points that can be available in a gay curling league when your team takes all four skins.

Suffice it to say, the day was a big success and I look forward to seeing how much closer I'll be to reaching the 2001st bottle on this Odyssey by the time this season's Pac Rim Cup comes along. I'll just have to watch that I don't grab another bottle of the Pascual Toso - unless the 2014 vintage is out by then.