Matt Kramer on Bull, and Other Literary Endeavors

Our nation’s dullest form of writing is the writing of wine descriptions. Unless you count USA Today. (I love USA Today’s motto, “We sell it in airports cuz it’s terminally dull.”) Do you actually read wine descriptions, or do you just skim over them like everyone else? Here’s a real wine review lifted from Wine Spectator:

GIANFRANCO FINO Primitivo di Manduria Es 2010 (91 points, $75)
A toasty version, with ample notes of baking spices and mesquite to the rich plum reduction and macerated blackberry fruit. Mouthcoating, featuring a long aftertaste of fruit, spice and tarry mineral. Better than previously reviewed. Drink now through 2015. 1,250 cases made. —Nathan Wesley

And here’s how a normal wine consumer reads it:

GIANFRANCO FINO Primitivo di Mandiblahblah 2010 (91 points, for $75 fucking dollars!)
A toasty version, with ample something or other spices, damn I’m horny, mesquitoes and plum reduction, whatever, macerated blackberry fruit, oh who doesn’t macerate blackberry fruit…mouthcoating, oh man I need a new mouthcoat…long fruit, spice and tarry mineral…wait, did I read that right, tarry mineral?...yup, that’s what it says…what the fuck is a tarry mineral?…I used to own Atari video games… a tarry mineral must be like when James Cagney says, “You dirty copper…”…Better than previously reviewed…man, must have gotten a nasty letter from Advertising. Drink now through…my balls itch.

I read that original description and I have no idea how that Primitivo tastes, though it did make me want to invest in tarry minerals. But it takes a special gift to be able to write hundreds and hundreds of wine descriptions every year. It’s not a gift I want any more than I want to be able to fart “Stars and Stripes Forever.” OK, I actually would like that gift. But then I started thinking (ah, here comes the premise, I knew it was here somewhere), what if wine critics famous for their wine descriptions wrote actual literature? What would that look like? I have a couple of ideas…


ROBERT M. PARKER writing as Mystery Writer ROBERT B. PARKER

In my experience, absolutely the greatest private detective is Spenser. In 2010, generally a cool year, though there was a heat wave the second week of August that made the whole city of Boston smell like a fat guy in a wool suit with hints of marzipan, Spenser was already the greatest private detective in my experience, and every genuine crime fan should get to know this awesome Juicy Fruit gumshoe, with that distinctive note of leather sole.

When his phone rang, a high note tone reminiscent of a tuning fork clanged on the metal plate in James Laube’s head, Spenser answered it in his usual sophisticated and unctuous manner, “Hello.”

Regular readers will know that at this point I introduce a femme fatale, and only one that’s 96+. Long and supple, she is redolent of sandalwood, Asian spices, and lingonberry, with a distinct perfume of Elizabeth Taylor’s newest fragrance, “Rigor Mortis,” the perfume designed to make him stiff. I’d lay her down for 3-5 years.


MATT KRAMER writing as ERNEST HEMINGWAY

It was a hot and dusty day in the arena and the bullfight was about to begin. Robert was alone and he was thinking about what he would tell his friend Marvin about bullfighting. Marvin didn’t understand bullfighting. He was new to bullfighting, and Robert felt Marvin needed his insight.

It’s fine to like what you like, Robert would begin. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. If you like it for the gore, that’s fine, gore is a good place to start. Once you understand gore, how it affects the soil and how it affects your sense of smell, you can move on. If you like the pageantry, I get that. Once I only came for the pageantry, but the pageantry isn’t really the essence of the bullfight and one day you will come to see past it. Only then will you be a real connoisseur of bull. I am proud to say that I am a highly respected connoisseur of bull. Hear me, and one day you will be, too. Maybe you just like little Spanish boys in tight pants. I can see that, but you must also begin to see that there are some fine French boys in tight pants too. We are living in a golden age of boys in tight pants from all over the world.

The bullfight, Robert continued to lecture Marvin in his thoughts, is more than just man against beast. It represents respect and reverence for death. Many times the bull dies, but a matador risks his life as well. But throughout the battle, he champions the bull. As do I. We, the matador and I, pretend to attack the bull, pretend to cut through the bull, but, in truth, we are glorifying bull. Remember, there is no business here without the bull. Therefore, I am the bull.

The corrida was about to begin. Robert was in his usual poor seat. Right behind his stupid column.

Dull Wine Reviews Miraculously Cured!

Do you ever ask yourself who’s the greatest living writer of tasting notes? Isn’t that a bit like wondering who’s the greatest chef of Minute Rice? Who’s the greatest living Madeline Albright impersonator? Who’s the greatest living wine blogger? Tasting notes, name the publication, are dreadful. Devoid of charm, wit, or usefulness, no one seems to know why they exist, like the English monarchy. Is there another subject as fascinating that then becomes as hopelessly dull when written about? Aside from really perky breast implants? And while thousands and thousands of wine reviews, and their accompanying numbers, are printed every month, nobody reads them. They’re like the TV programming guide in the Sunday newspaper. Who reads that? “Monday 8 PM, CHARDONNAY—Larry opens a bottle of white and smells peaches, cream and trouble with his prostate.” (By the way, you should TiVo that episode, damned funny, and very minerally.) But what if (about time this tired old premise appeared) more interesting people than wine writers handled wine reviews? (One more question. Are there less interesting people than wine writers? Yes, that’s rhetorical.) Wouldn’t that mean more people would actually read the review rather than simply take note of the numerical score? And isn’t that the point of a wine review, for the description to be the most important part? No, obviously not. The most important part is the number, and the check for publishing a copy of the label. Come on, it’s just a premise, let’s not get carried away.  But now let’s imagine what wine writing would be like if these famous folks had taken a crack at it.


Herman Melville on Cavit 2011 Pinot Grigio

Call me fish meal. As all men are drawn to the water when they grow grim about the mouth, when their spirits lie dampened like the seat cushions at the old folks home, so I was drawn to this Cavit Pinot Grigio. Say you are out in the woods, it doesn’t matter why, perhaps you’re simply wandering, or maybe you seek a quiet place to pursue your worship of Onan, you can surely rely on every path ending up near water, a brook or rivulet, nay, even a stream—a stream to match that of Onan. You catch a fish to make a meal, your hunger a reminder of the needs of the flesh, your pursuit of a trout a faint echo of the hunt for the Great White Whale, Marvin Dick; you reach for wine, yet yearn for water, the basis of life’s mystery. And here it is, the best of both worlds, Cavit Pinot Grigio, wine that tastes of the very water itself, yet water that lifts the spirits, adds blessed insobriety to your down-turned mouth, and eventually the urge to take a powerful Pequod.


Anaïs Nin on Rhys Vineyards 2010 Pinot Noir

When Rhys first entered her life, she was mesmerized by her purplish robe, what might lay beneath it, her sex, what it might smell like. Rhys was in no hurry, she was a woman who knew her own allure, understood why men wanted to brutally take her, why women wanted to swallow her. And she was more than willing. Many men had known Rhys, tasted her mineral being, had their tongues covered in her wetness while she told them what to do, not to swallow but to spit. Women were less likely to possess her, for while Rhys wanted all men, she only wanted a certain kind of woman. A woman who would appreciate her for her womanly beauty, her perfect balance and poise, her exquisite muskiness, a muskiness like the smell of rain on a hot, limestone soil, a muskiness that only appeared when she was fully open and exposed. So when Rhys first entered her mouth her tongue stood erect, tasting every part of Rhys, the complex mix of a perfect whore, the womanly perfume reminiscent of a bridal bouquet left at the bedside as the best man fucks the bride, the sweet taste of ripe fruit, the whore pretending to be a teenage virgin. Over and over she took Rhys in her mouth, for hours on end. It seemed there was no end to Rhys. And as Rhys’ finish neared, she knew she never wanted it to end. She wanted Rhys in her mouth every day, would gladly give herself to her, become her slave, take her in her mouth anywhere, any time. In a restaurant, she would take her under the table and finish her, not care about the looks on the faces of the other patrons as she took Rhys into her painted lips, her nipples hardening until they resembled fine Portuguese corks. She would take Rhys on a picnic, lie on the bed of warm grass, and let Rhys fill her with her warm, luscious liquid. She needed to be the whore that Rhys was, wanted to be the whore that Rhys was, wanted to be locked in every man’s cellar to be used and consumed with his friends whenever he wanted her. But she lacked Rhys’ depth and finish. She lacked the darkness at Rhys’ sexual core, the very Noir of her.


Carl Sagan on Joseph Phelps 2009 Insignia

Every bottle of wine is but one of billions and billions, and each one, from a cosmic perspective, is precious. Well, maybe not Temecula Chardonnay. For every grain of sand on all the beaches on our precious planet, there is, or has been, a bottle of wine to match its number. We do not consider each grain of sand as we walk along the beach, we cannot do that and make sense of the world, we simply consider the beach—is it beautiful, is it warm and comforting, do we find condoms between our toes, do women wear thong bikinis in tribute to cosmic black holes? And so it should be with wine. We do not open every bottle of Joseph Phelps 2009 Insignia, that cannot be done, nor would it be revelatory, though it would piss off the winery, which has some value. No, we open a single bottle, and if it is not corked, that great universal joke, we take it to represent the whole. As though we could pick up a grain of sand, maybe one wedged in our wet bathing suit, under the testicles, that creates a rash, and, by gazing at it, imagine accurately the entire stretch of an unknown beach. This is beyond even the scope of human imagination, and yet we do it with wine every day, hundreds of times a day. Each bottle is precious, $225 of precious, but its meaning for the whole is infinitesimal. Rating it has all the meaning of rating stars or galaxies or those big rock things that fly all over space, whatever those are. DUCK!  That said, this was damned tasty.

George Carlin

Wine. Yeah, Jesus’ first miracle. Just like a stupid son. You give him the gift of miracles and what’s the first thing he does? He uses it to get his friends high. “So who wants Chardonnay?” “Oh, man, Jesus, what if your old man finds out you’re turning water into wine?” “He already knows, you idiots, He’s God.” “God? Yeah, right, and your mother’s a virgin.”

Why didn’t Jesus turn the water into beer? Probably would have been more popular, more what people wanted. That would have been cool. You’d go to church on Sunday, the priest would pop open the sacramental six-pack. “Son, go get me a cold one.” During halftime at the Super Bowl there’d be a commercial featuring the Blood of Christ Clydesdales. “The King of Kings, the King of Beers.”

The Cure for Dull Wine Reviews Once More

Tasting notes are like those online disclaimers we mindlessly sign—nuisances that nobody reads. You go to a winery website, a box pops up that says, “Clicking here acknowledges that you are 21 years old,” and you check it and move on. How is this actually legal? It could say, “Clicking here acknowledges that you like to smell your finger after sex,” and we’d click it whether it was true or not just to get into the site. And no one seems to wonder about the consequences of signing those online forms that every credit card and every bank makes you sign. We scroll to the bottom, check the box, and hope we haven’t signed away our organs to the Russian Mafia. Though I have a big Wurlitzer they can have. I also wonder, if I have a woman check a box that says, “Checking this box acknowledges that you are over 18 and using birth control,” will that pass muster in court? Does it have to be beforehand, or does during count? Hell, I checked her box that said, “Checking this box acknowledges that I have had a vasectomy and have never given my cat a tongue bath.” Well, in my defense, it was half true. Does that make it legal? And, hey, it was only fair. The cat gave me a tongue bath first.

There’s no incentive to read tasting notes. Do I really care if a Cabernet smells like cassis, or tobacco, or Chaz Bono’s chubby? No. It has a score, that’s all I care about. But all the wine rags spend a lot of energy trying to convince you that it’s in your best interest to read the descriptions. Why? They’re boring. Fortune cookies have fewer words, more literary value, and far more truth, but I don’t want to read a hundred of them. No, I like to imagine how famous writers and thinkers might write about wine. Now that sounds like a damned premise, and about damned time.


Rod Serling on Napa Valley Cult Cabernet 

Imagine this is the last Cabernet Sauvignon on Earth and you hold it in your hands. Tomorrow every last bottle of wine made from that valuable grape will vanish except this one, and what you hold will be the ultimate cult wine, the last great vintage of a once proud grape. First Growth Bordeaux vanishes from the Earth, except for the forgeries up for auction at Acker Merrill. Napa Valley is empty, devoid of real life and meaning-- much as it is now. And you get to give the last remaining Cabernet its only rating. Do you give it a number, or (raising lit cigarette to his lips) puffs? You unlock this wine with the wine key of imagination. You’re tasting a wine made of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas, and lots of new French oak. It’s a first release from a new producer, it’s in a very heavy bottle wrapped in tissue, nestled in a flashy wooden box, an ambitious wine with an ambitious price, $195 a bottle. There’s the signpost up ahead, just you and the winery owner, you’ve both crossed over into…The Twilight Zone. 85 Points.


David Mamet

Listen, I have to give a great review to this fucking wine…I mean it…I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stayed in their fucking guest house…Well, I could, but that doesn’t matter…I don’t owe them shit for that…OK, listen, this is great fucking wine and you need to buy it…What?...Just fuckin’ buy it…You owe me, you owe me…I don’t care…you owe me. I don’t give a shit that you can’t afford it…You can’t afford it because you’re an idiot, a fucking idiot…This is going to be a valuable wine some day… I’m trying to do you a goddam favor and all you want to do is skip to the Best Buys…This wine has more fucking fruit than Fashion Week…It’s more intense than Harold Pinter…fucking Harold Pinter, I’m telling you…Don’t you want goddam Pinter in your mouth?...He tastes like fucking chicken… 98 Points, I swear.


Henny Youngman

I went into a wine shop and I said to the guy, “Give me something for steak.” He gave me his dentures.

I told him I wanted a white wine to drink while I was fishing off the dock. “How about a Jura of your piers?” I bought a case closed.

I had dinner at a fancy restaurant. The sommelier was so stiff there was a chalk outline of him on the floor.

After I finished the first bottle of wine, he asked me if I’d like a second. My wife said, “That’s all he usually needs.”

A guy goes into a bar and says, “Man, I’m old. I can’t even remember how many bottles of wine I drank last week.” The bartender tells him to take his pants off and bend over. “You had five bottles of wine.” “How could you tell that?” “You told me yesterday.”


D. H. Lawrence on Dehlinger Pinot Noir

I felt the urgency of the Pinot Noir as it entered me, its turgid fruit clinging to my palate, its feverish intensity urging me to Pommard clone orgasm. 667, I cried, 114, I didn’t care. I didn’t care. Pomegranate! Raspberry! Cola! But my cherry, where was my cherry? Gone, gone forever. I didn’t want it to finish. No, I cried, stay in me, let me feel your length, smell your woody, earthy fragrance, hold you in my mouth until my warmth releases all that you have to offer. When I’m done you linger, you’re gone, you’re gone, but you linger, you linger…

Yet More Cure For Dull Wine Descriptions

Let’s face it, no one reads wine descriptions. The folks who publish them don’t even want you to read them. Oh, they go on and on about how you shouldn’t just rely on the ratings when deciding what wines to purchase, you should also carefully read the descriptions—the descriptions, they say, are more important than the ratings! But they’re so transparently full of crap. The numbers are in this size typeface, and the descriptions are like this. It’s obvious which genuinely matters more to them. However, we should also keep in mind that these reviews are published by men who actually think this is the same size as this.  But the real problem is how universally boring wine reviews are. The turgid prose can’t compete with the excitement that numbers generate. I like to imagine how wine descriptions would read if they were written by great writers instead of guys with thesauruses. So, OK, here we go again…

Ayn Rand on Raveneau Chablis

There are great wines and there are horrid wines, but it is everything in between that is evil. To drink wines that are great is a duty, but the man who drinks crap at least knows it is crap. It is the man who drinks wines in between, he is the banal knave who ignores the truth, who pretends that there are no standards, no absolutes in wine, who believes that 89 Point wines have a right to exist, the uneducated Neanderthal, and it is he who destroys himself and the wine business. He is evil. I drink wine for myself, and I drink wine for you, but I would never ask that you drink wine for me. I live only for my own pleasure, and I have the batteries to prove it. And what is a man but a vessel for pleasure? A Love Boat cruising the wine-dark sea, a nightly party in his pants, his tiny Gopher in charge? There is only existence and non-existence, First Class and Coach, original and extra crispy, First Growth Bordeaux and Argentinean Malbec, which is for suckers, for the tasteless, for the Gaucho Marks. Go, drink the great wines, they were made for you! I liked the zesty acidity of this lovely white.

J. D. Salinger on Cakebread Cabernet

You probably want me to tell you all about this wine, how it smells and such. But here’s the thing, it doesn’t really matter. Knowing how this wine smells won’t make you happy, and it won’t make you know more about wine either. It’ll just make you wish you were dead and a lot of people were drinking the wine and talking about you, saying nice things like, “Oh, he could sure describe a wine,” or “I’ll bet his mother was the reason he wet the bed until he was forty.” I could say that this wine smells like cassis and tobacco, and you’d believe me. But you should know that I’m a liar, I’m a big liar, I lie more than winery marketing directors. I don’t even know what cassis is, and I don’t think anyone else does either. It’s just a word they say to make you feel like you’re not as smart as they are. I want to puke every time I read that word. It’s like terroir, which is another stupid word that wine writers use. I mean, this wine has terroir and cassis, and when I was tasting it that was all I could think about. I like a wine that when it’s really good you want to call up the winemaker, tell him how much you like the terroir and cassis in his wine, and then you could meet him for dinner and he’d talk about how he got the terroir in there. But this never happens. Mostly you just call them and they wish you’d shut the fuck up and die. Like it’s your fault they made 85 point wine.

Richard Pryor on Burgundy

I don’ unnerstand people who drink wine that costs more than the clothes they're wearin’. Who spends more money on a bottle of wine than on your damn underwear? Like, “I got to have that new fuckin’ Pinot Noir so I’ll just keep wearin’ these old skanky ass, skidmarked Jockey shorts until I can feel the Mistral up my butt.” You take off the pants of any damn wine connoisseur and now you got some bouquet. “Ooh, man, what is that damned ester I’m smellin’? That your ugly Aunt Esther, wears the Depends? Or is your hundred-dollar Pinot all barnyard and shit?” You don’ see no winos doin’ that. No, man, winos, they got some self-respect, don’ go drinkin’ no wine that costs more than the ratty clothes they’re wearin’. They get expensive wine like that they gonna sell it and get somethin’ really good—like heroin. Some ’88 Clos de Smack. This Burgundy shit ain’t that good. Ain’t never going to set your ass on fire!

Lewis Carroll

“The time has come,” the Wall Street said,

“to talk of many things:

“Of screws--and cork--and sealing wax--

“of all that money brings--

“Of why the Zin is boiling hot--

“and all the crap Jay slings.”

“But wait a bit,” the Losers cried,

            “Before we go to school;

“For some of us are clearly dupes,

            “And each of us a fool.

“We drink our wines from Riedel glass

            “So morons think we’re cool.”

“It seems a shame,” the Wall Street said,

            “To play you such a trick.

“To taunt you with the wines we drink,

            “And lay it on so thick.”

But this was scarcely true,

            Because they’d hired such a prick.

The Dullness of Wine Reviews Cured AGAIN!

Is there duller reading material than wine descriptions? Sure, there’s PARADE magazine, and everything on Zester, that goes without saying. But wine descriptions read with all the grace and wit of credit card privacy agreements. Wine writers always claim that they slave over their descriptions, but this rings about as true as insurance company commercials that now always feature geckos with accents, sexualized women who transform into fetish dolls, and lying, out-of-real-work actors. If only the insurance were as simple as the morons who sell the stuff. In an effort to, perhaps, jazz up wine descriptions, I’ll have another go at how I think famous, and actually talented, writers would tackle them.

e. e. cummings on Guigal Côte Rôtie (91 Pts)

meatlese,

plums (your pen-

dulous

breasts) the

Côtebottle Blonde

and the Côteheywood

Hail! Brune.

White

mixedup with

blackness—Seal’ed with

a Klum—Viognier

aromatic

systematic

she’s a dynamite sen-

sation

smooth and

Bedouin, baby--

in tents!

You Côte

my ton-

guebuds

with your

plumbuds.

Hard.

The Guigally

and my

happystick.

Tennessee Williams on Kistler Chardonnay (84 Pts)

Warm and hot, like your lover’s breath on a sultry summer evening, the smell of something tropical taking you to a past you can only faintly remember. Perhaps you were with a friend or a kind stranger, your pain tied to that empty bottle of wine on the bedstand, your failure still limp in your hand, reminding you that the wine finished poorly too after that big buildup, the whispered longing followed by the inevitable mendacity of love, and the empty promise of fame. There is no wine here, just a memory of wine, and beyond memory only death. Echoes of a cat on a hot tin roof, and what you wouldn’t give for a hot pussy instead. And if you had wanted a wine to smell of summer and smoke, you’d have bought an 08 Mendocino Pinot.

Rodney Dangerfield on Cameron Hughes Pinot Noir (88 Pts)

My wife wanted to taste this wine after sex. So I opened it as soon as she got home. I had to ask her if she had an ah-so. She wouldn’t stop starin’ at me. But she’s no prize, my wife, she’s ugly. Oh, I’m telling you, she’s ugly. She loves wines from Walla Walla—she thinks they’re named after her eyes. When she watches tennis, her head never moves. If her tongue could reach my fly she’d be an iguana. When she goes to a blind tasting everybody else puts on blindfolds. I asked her how the sex was. She said it was great, except why didn’t I tell her she needed a pedicure? I don’t get no respect, I tell ya. I asked my wife what she thought of this wine. “It’s great,” she tells me, “and tomorrow night after sex I’ll probably get a case.” Yeah, of the clap.

Charles Bukowski on Headbanger Zinfandel (98 Pts)

I loved this wine. I hit a guy over the head with it in a dark bar after he tried to look up the skirt of the woman I was trying to impress. It was in a paper bag, so I fucked him up blind. Turned out to be Headbanger Zin. Yeah, it did. It coldcocked the asshole and there was still some left in the broken bottom half of the bottle. In the punt. I love punts, I sucked this punt like it was the last fucking punt on Earth, and it was good, until I passed out while the woman took me in her mouth seven or eight times. I think I tasted blackberries and cigarette butt. She tasted last night. We both loved the length. When I woke up the punt was gone. So was the bottle. This wine is great, and I give it 98 points. I love its punt.

James Joyce on Alban Syrah (93 Pts)

The bruiseblue fruit sings to the pitfruit, perhaps peach, maybe arm, and the tongue hears the siren call of the daughters of Terpsichore, indeed a Solidchore of darklyblue dances on the lengua with little bite, and just the bitterness of those who have embraced Mistress Alcohol because you only liver once. And what is liver but the opposite of deader? And, I ask you, kind Syrah, that most Sereine of grapes, Shiraz I’m standing here, can you, Francly, call me a Cab?

The Dullness of Wine Reviews Cured!

Is there anything more boring to read than wine reviews? OK, besides Jonathan Franzen. If wine itself were as boring as the average wine description, we’d all be drinking Nyquil to get high. Which makes a helluva Grasshopper, by the way. Wine critics assign numbers to give us a quick impression of how much they like or don’t like a wine, and then somehow manage to write a description to accompany it that is actually duller to read than the number. How the hell can you be duller than “89?”  Yet Wine Spectator does it dozens of times each issue. And the descriptions are all interchangeable. If the descriptions got scrambled before the magazine went to press, how would anyone know? They don’t match the wines they belong to in the first place, what does it matter? And nobody, but the winemaker, reads them. Until they appear on a shelf talker at BevMo and then it’s the better alternative to speaking to one of the clowns that works there.

What if actual writers had been writing wine reviews all along? Aha! The damned premise finally appears. And none too soon.

Dorothy Parker on Zonin Prosecco (79 pts)

I was hoping the bubbles

Would subsume my troubles

But, alas, this Prosecco

Is frizzante dreck-o.

You’re better off drinking

A four dollar Chardonnay

Than mass produced urine

From Valdobbiadene.

Men seldom make passes

At introduced gasses.

Edgar Allan Poe on Chateau Montus 2009 Madiran (94 pts)

It’s the darkness of Tannat I’m attracted to, the impenetrable and consuming blackness that reflects the human heart. It speaks of death, and pairs nicely with venison. The Tannat is evil with power, drenched in tongue-torturing tannins. It curls up in your mouth like Cerberus, preventing your palate from escaping its Hell. Will it age? The question is, will you? I’d give the wine six years in the cellar. Your death will come much sooner. You’ll both rest in a cold, damp place for a long time. One of you will be alive when you go in.

Raymond Chandler on Mount Eden 2007 Estate Chardonnay (95 pts)

You know the kind of wine I’m talking about. It’s the third bottle you’ve opened that night, and the first sip of it has you staring at your wife’s neck while you fondle the knife on your waiter’s corkscrew. The night is warm, and through your open windows you can hear the sound of the drunks gathered at the local wine bar. You promise yourself you’ll open your wife’s neck like a Master Sommelier, never setting her down on the tablecloth, if you hear the word “minerality” one more time from those brix dicks. And you’re drinking the kind of wine that makes you want to hear it. It’s a moment too late before you realize the words you just heard were “Min...nesota oak.” Damned wine geeks, now you’ll have to start dating again. Pair with oysters, but be careful with the knife.

Lenny Bruce on 2009 Bryant Family Cabernet Sauvignon (6 pts.)

I mean, who drinks this shit? You spend a year growing the Cabernet up on some fucking mountain in Napa Valley, pay a bunch of Mexicans to pick it, then spend another two years waiting for it to be ready. You know, I’m thinking, why does everything we get high on come from Mexicans? It’s like they’re a whole race of drug fairies. And why wait three years for a bottle of wine? Shit, you can get high on horse in a couple of minutes, and it’s cheaper than this stick-up-your-ass Cabernet. What do you eat with it? Your own vomit. What else?

William Faulkner on Lodi Zinfandel (82 pts)

I see it too now, the blood color, warm like the night, and I can smell it as well, the smell of the old barn burning, the barn where he’s hiding. That matchstick aroma, like the fulvous sulfur of our preacher’s Hell there to blacken us for eternity as it burns our sins into our skin, surrounding me now. I want to walk into the woods to escape, but I don’t know the terroir, it’s invisible to me, and apparently to the winemaker as well. Matchstick or not, I raise the liquid to my lips. I drink, and it transubstantiates, not into our Lord and Saviour, but into Oreo cookies, white surrounded by black. I remember who’s hiding in the barn.