Rock Bottoms Up! Our Trip to Wally World to Buy Wine

Okay, I admit it. I live a bubble that floats over planet Earth and occasionally touches down only long enough for me to hear the latest ominous forebodings from the Bad News Bears at CNN before I take off once more to find comfort in Grapeland. So that could explain why I never read or heard anything about Wal-Mart's foray into the wonderful world of 'value wine' that had Oprah Winfrey gushing like a school girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. It's name? 'Oak Leaf' – an incredible wine at an even more incredible price…$2.97. Was this the stuff of Urban Legend, I asked myself? Like the legally blind old lady who thought a rat was a chihuahua and put a rhinestone collar around its neck and let it sleep at the foot of her bed? I had to find out. I carefully picked out an outfit I thought would be Wal-Mart appropriate. I chose a t-shirt with a horribly garish sports logo splashed across it and some extra long cargo shorts with too many pockets that were really designed for a much younger someone in a Hip Hop Clearasil commercial. I futilely searched for something with camouflage, but alas, no luck. Surveying myself in the mirror, I thought, something's missing. I know! A bright red baseball cap with an orange neon Nascar insignia on it! Ah… the perfect disguise. I suddenly felt like a secret agent on his latest assignment. Sort of a James Bond of the wine world. OO7 with a license to swill. My exotic foreign destination? Wally World! And oh, what a world it is. All colors, all shapes, all sizes of folks. Many of them Supersized. I suddenly felt like Alice in Wonderland as I headed back to the wine department. Had someone slipped me a tab of LSD? As I dodged screaming crying children and grotesquely overstuffed carts, I couldn't help but wonder… had Oprah Winfrey, herself, the richest woman in the world, gotten out of her stretch limo and personally waded into this sea of humanity just to purchase a bottle of bargain basement booze? Nah. She probably sent Gayle in – "Hey, who's the billionaire in this car, Gayle?" Suddenly I saw it. A display of hundreds of bottles of Oak Leaf, and, yes the price was still two dollars and ninety-seven cents. I reverently picked one up. Nice classy label. It said Napa, California on it. Very impressive. I started throwing bottle after bottle into my cart like a maniac. I believe I paused at 10 and then thought to myself, “ahh, live a little”… and threw in 10 more. That made 20 assorted bottles of wine for $59.40! I was absolutely giddy. And to anyone watching I must have looked like someone who just escaped from a rehab stint gone terribly wrong. Who cares? Who knows me here? I pulled my baseball cap way down over my face and lurched towards the check-out, my bottle filled cart shamelessly clinking and clanking all the way there. Once home, I chilled the white and uncorked the reds and set up my informal wine tasting. First the Chardonnay--(which won the Gold medal at the San Francisco Wine Competition!): Not at all oakey or cloying with a nice crisp finish. Indeed a winner! Next, the Chenin Blanc/Pinot Grigio blend – notes of pear and apples. Delicious, light, bright, & refreshing. I liked it! No… for $2.97, I adored it!! Then, on to the reds. First the cab. Uh oh. A little thin. More like a Pinot. Still good, but not enough structure for a cab. When I stopped thinking of it as a Cabernet, I enjoyed it. Add it to Sangria and shut up! It's only three bucks for God's sake. I saved the Merlot for last. It was delicious! (Awarded top honors at the Hilton Head Wine Fest.) I could see why. It tasted like a much more expensive Merlot. You could actually take this to someone's house! Someone you even liked. Surveying my grapeful bounty, I called a bunch of friends for an impromptu party. It was wonderful not to resent them as they threw back glass after glass after glass. Before I knew it, I was back at Wal-Mart buying case loads more. But still I kept asking myself one question: How can they sell it this cheap? Don't they have to grow the grapes, pick the grapes, crush the grapes, pay for the bottling, labeling, corks, and shipping? Huh?! Oh well, I don't know and I don't care. This former locavore has gone loco. Thank you, Oprah… thank you Wal-Mart… and thank you mysterious, secretive Wine Conglomerate that doesn't even have a web address for giving us Oak Leaf. Wait till you try it, you'll thank them too. Whoever they are. Cheers!

Bin There, Drank That

Have my recycling bins become buckets of shame? The other morning I was stunned by the sound of a tremendous crash outside my door. Since I live on a busy corner, I immediately imagined that four cars had collided at the intersection – all of their windshields shattering simultaneously. Like the rest of my neighbors, I threw open my door, ready to perhaps save some poor soul. But instead of twisted steel and broken glass, to my shock and dismay, I beheld my very own blue recycling bin suspended upside down over a city recycling truck with a huge mountain of my empty broken wine bottles beneath it. Accusing eyes darted quickly in my direction. I smiled sheepishly and quickly made up a not very convincing "I had a party this weekend…bunch of big drinkers". 'Yeah, right' their eyes said back to me as unconvinced doors slammed and windows shut. Damn these under-three-dollars-a-bottle 'value wines'!! They've got me drinking wine like it's water! No, I take that back, I'm drinking wine instead of water (it's cheaper!). Soon I'll be brushing my teeth with it, washing the car with it… and the dog! (I'll bet that'll put an end to her trying to jump outta the sink!) And it got worse; the following week my big strapping macho garbage lady, who I bet wrestles alligators on her day off, had to ask a passing man to grab the other end of my jam-packed bin to help her lift it onto her truck. I don't think she's ever in her life asked a man for anything, not even Santa. Desperate measures were called for. I started coming up with alternate plans to mask my out-of-control value wine usage. What if I put my garbage in my recycling bins and all my empty wine bottles in my giant blue garbage can? Maybe I could also pack the wine bottles with white styrofoam peanuts, so they could cascade out elegantly and quietly into the back of the sanitation truck. I could pretend they were part of an artsy display for the Beaufort Tri-Centennial, you know – perhaps 'Celebrating 300 years of Binge Drinking in Beaufort'! Nah… the Tricentennial Commission would never go for it, no matter how historically accurate it was. Back to the drawing board. I decided a deliciously diabolical plan might be to drive my recycling bins to someone else's house, then once empty, pick them up the next day. But whose house? Who did I know who was on vacation? Or better yet, off at rehab? As I drove past a local church that strictly forbids the drinking of alcoholic beverages, I was sorely tempted to place my bin curbside. But no… I couldn’t pin this guilt-laden mound of grape juice bottles on innocent people. Or could I? No!! Wait a minute. Is that an empty house I spy with a 'For Rent' sign in front of it? I screech to a halt. Lugging my clanky bin out of my car with all my might, then lowering it to the ground, I am forced to chase a runaway bottle as it rolls down the street. I grab it and read the label – "Oh, Tisdale Chardonnay! I remember you… Three bottles for $10 at Bi-Lo! Buy six and get 10% off which makes one bottle free!" You're one of the darn reasons I got into this mess!! Moving right along I quickly do the old 'baby in the hospital' switcheroo and load their innocent empty blue bin into my car. I drive off chuckling to myself while looking back in the rear view mirror at their now booze-stuffed bin: "Wow, what a bunch of drunks live in this neighborhood! If I were you, I'd lower the rent!" Once home, I place a lone, empty plastic Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice bottle in my humble and virtuous booze-free bin and place it prominently next to the curb – four days ahead of time. 'This is the real me, people!' But how long can it last? Did I just hear that Publix has a liter and 1/2 of of Foxhorn Chardonnay on sale for $6.47? Oh well… I tried, Lord! Looks like the best place for my bin is gonna be in the back of my car for now. Wait a minute, I think I remember seeing a 'House for Sale' sign go up on Old Point and the owners drive off in a U-Haul. Hmmm…. Read More Happy Winos Bookmark Email this

The Mean Glass

Ah…the joy of wine! In its warm fuzzy afterglow, how different the world looks and sounds. Is that my neighbor’s ear-shattering leaf blower I hear?! Not after several glasses of Louis Latour 2006 Vire Clesse. More like the gentle buzz of a thousand honey bees. What’s that I see in my yard?! Did some trashy passerby toss his empty crushed Budweiser can into my azaleas? Another glass of my delicious Louis Latour and suddenly I see it more as a chic aluminum ‘object-de-garden-art’ by renowned German sculptor Anhauser Busch. And as for myself, all my flaws and imperfections seem to melt away (especially after several more snootfuls). It must be obvious to anyone with eyes, Monsieur Latour tells me, that I am at the ‘top of my game’, the ‘peak of my intellectual powers’ and the very embodiment of ‘worldly wisdom’. Obvious to anyone but Lanier, who has the nerve to say to me: “You’re slurring, I think you oughta slow down on the vino.”
“WHAT?! What did you just shay?!” I ask, fuming with the kind of righteous overreaction that only a drunk can muster.
“I’m just saying I think you might wanna give it a rest,” says Lanier, quietly.
Well, that timid suggestion is all it takes for The Mean Glass to come banging on my door, demanding satisfaction. “YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS?” I hiss. “YOU’RE A CONTROL FREAK!” This to someone who, only minutes before, I saw as near to perfect as a human can be.
Ask any married couple, and they’ll tell you. When the Mean Glass hits, RUN!! Sometimes it’s you, sometimes it’s them, and no one ever knows just what might set it off. Our friend Kathy reported to us one of her recent Mean Glass moments. She and her British husband were having a lovely evening, when he sweetly suggested that she “Ease up on the Pinot Grigio.” Her response? “YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS? YOU’RE ENGLISH! F---- YOU AND F---- YOUR COUNTRY!”
“Not exactly the high point of our marriage,” says Kathy, sheepishly.
“YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS?!” remains the universal battle cry of the Mean Glass and is almost always followed by the nonsensical insult. Once when Lanier politely implied, after a boozy night out on the town, that I didn’t really need to open a new bottle of wine at midnight, I aristocratically tossed out at him “YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS? YOU ARE SOOOO MIDDLE CLASS!” Totally overlooking the fact that I’m the son of a Long Island butcher and his Sicilian fishwife and Lanier’s the direct descendant of Sir Nicholas Lanier, ‘Master of the King’s Music’ to King Charles II.
The Mean Glass doesn’t care whom it says what to. Basically its evil plan is to drive your loved one as far away as possible so the road is clear for a return trip to Wineville… without them sticking their big fat nose in your wine glass. But are you really mad at them? Nah. Deep down you know you love them and you feel safe enough to let off a little steam, saying to them what you couldn’t say to your boss, your mother in law, that pain-in-the-butt client, or any number of petty tyrants who walk all over your world all day long. So next time when you gently ask your mate: “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” and they answer out of the blue: “LET’S GET A DIVORCE, SELL EVERYTHING AND SPLIT IT DOWN THE MIDDLE!”… know it’s really just their way of saying: “I want another glass of wine (no matter how many I’ve already had!)”.
The Mean Glass is, of course, not to be confused with The Horny Glass which one usually hits late in a raucous cocktail party or late night at a restaurant that's turned into a bar. Our friend Liza says she always knows when it hits because "I'm suddenly attracted to every man in the room EXCEPT my husband." Usually that leads to some guilty confession the next morning. "Honey, last night when I was out with the girls I ended up kissing some guy at the bar and I just wanted you to hear about it from me first. It meant absolutely nothing." And it didn't, because it wasn't really you. It was The Horny Glass that had momentarily taken possession of your lips. Blessedly, you often don’t remember who or what the Horny Glass told you to do. Which means it doesn’t count!
Not to be forgotten is The Weepy Glass, which can occur about 2 1/2 hours into a joy-filled wine party. When this strikes, it's best to just sneak away from the hapless 'Weepy Glass' victim as there is no amount of logic or common sense that will make this person stop crying. They just need to get that emotional lump out of their throat and will awake happy and refreshed in the morning without any help from you. Some people use the Weepy Glass as a way to deal with problems without paying a shrink. We all have that special tearjerker of a tune that we play over and over again once we’ve had the Weepy Glass (mine’s ‘Moon River’). My cousin Carol says she once woke up at dawn on the floor in front of her CD player with her arm outstretched and her finger still touching the button; she had obviously replayed Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie En Rose’ till she (ahem) 'fell asleep' next to her empty, overturned wine bottle. "It was humiliating, to say the least, but I’d finally cried my divorce out and felt better than I had in months!" confesses Carol. “And I don’t even understand a word of French!”.
So whether it’s the bad boy Mean Glass, the oversexed Horny Glass, or the old self pitying ‘swallow and wallow’ Weepy Glass that decides to spend the night; just remember…they’ll be gone and forgotten in the morning. Hopefully, most of all, by the person you may or may not still be married to!

Cheers!