Wine to drink when everyone (and it does seem like everyone) wants to buy your house

The calls, texts, and emails are crazy – and I don’t even have granite counter tops

The Wine Curmudgeon is not ashamed to admit he knows nothing about real estate. Hence, Dallas’ pandemic-fueled housing boom has left me especially baffled. Yes, my 1950s-style ranch has lots of trees and is more than comfortable, but there are no granite counter tops, double kitchen sinks, or master suites.

Nevertheless, the emails keep coming. The texts keep coming. The phone calls keep coming – in English, an Asian language, and Spanish. There’s even someone who keeps sending postcards with a color photo of my house.

And the message is the same: “We want to buy your home!”

So what’s the WC to do when overwhelmed with all this foolishness? Drink wine, of course. It works for power outages, tree catastrophes, and broken air conditioners. So why not a housing bubble?

These four wines have made it much easier to keep all that is going on in perspective. The housing market will eventually crash, but I’ll still have a place to live:

• Joseph Drouhin Mâcon-Villages 2019 ($15, purchased, 13%): This is chardonnay from Macon in France’s Burgundy region, and as such offers tremendous value. It’s bright, fresh, and lemony, truly tasting of chardonnay. I drank this one afternoon when I got six texts in a row about the house – so sip, block, delete; sip, block, delete;  and repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat. Imported by Dreyfus, Ashby & Co.

• Capezzana Carmignano Vin Ruspo 2020 ($15, purchased, 12.5%): The Italian Wine Guy has pointed me in the direction of several top-notch Italian roses this summer, including this one. It’s almost pretty – full of berry fruit, sort of rich in the mouth, but also quite fresh. A fine example of this particular Italian style, and just the sort of thing to drink on the porch when the phone is inside the house. Imported by Dallas Terra

• Calcu Pinot Noir Escarlata 2020 ($12, sample, 13%): This Chilean red fits firmly in what passes for pinot noir these days – pleasant and drinkable, even if it isn’t especially varietal. There’s not too much red fruit, some sort of oak thing, and soft tannins. It’s dinner wine with leftovers – meat loan sandwiches, perhaps, and with the phone on mute. Imported by Global Vineyard Importers

• Bouvet Brut Signature NV ($12, purchased, 12%): This French bubbly was outstanding, and not just because I drank it to celebrate a Sunday afternoon bereft of anyone asking about the house. It’s softer than Champagne, since it’s made with chenin blanc. But the bubbles are still tight, there’s a zingy mouth feel, and nicely done lemon apple fruit. Highly recommended. Imported by Kobrand

Photo: “Mr. Housing Bubble” by Beige Alert is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0