Originally, I was hoping for a quiet final two weeks at my current job. There are a couple of projects that I want to finish out, but otherwise, my plan was to spend the time getting things in order for my replacement. My predecessor put together an incredibly helpful document before she left. It outlined all of the projects that she was working on before she left and one what projects were likely to come up over my first year, along with commentary on how my boss felt about each project. It was invaluable, and I was hoping to create a similar one before I go. So far, though, I haven’t even had a chance to think about it. Tuesday, for example, was packed with back-to-back meetings, emergency emails, and phone calls that needed to be returned. I ended up staying late again, and by the time I finally left, I was exhausted. That said, I wasn’t too tired to enjoy the couple of little kids wearing Halloween costumes on the Metro. Their ghoulishness reminded me that I had two bottles of wine that I specifically bought for Halloween waiting for me when I got home. While I try to pretend that I’m not a sucker for a good wine label, over the weekend, I couldn’t resist buying wine that I thought fit with the spirit of holiday, and Tuesday was the perfect night to start getting into the mood.

The 2006 Cardinal Zin (wine group, snooth) was a medium ruby color with flecks of garnet, particularly on the rim. On the nose, there were aromas of black cherry, blackberry, and dried tea leaves. In the mouth, there were blackberry, sour cherry, smoke, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger flavors, with a hint of burnt match on the finish. The wine had low tannins and very high acidity.