The IPOB Rejection Letter

Dear Applicant,

It is with profound regret that we inform you that your winery has not been selected to become a member of In Pursuit of Balance. Our panel of winemakers, and a world famous and widely admired sommelier, tasted the wines submitted from Splooge Estate and decided they did not meet our standards of balance. We urge you to continue to try to achieve balance in your wines because, basically, that crap you sent, like all of the wines not a part of In Pursuit of Balance, is a crime against wine humanity. Please consider getting out of the wine business entirely. Or joining Family Winemakers, essentially the same thing.

In Pursuit of Balance is dedicated to one thing and one thing only. Publicity. But Our Beloved Founders believed that In Pursuit of Publicity wasn’t an especially wise name. Though iPoP would make a cool logo. Our long term goal is to promote the kind of wines we make, not, for the love of God, that disgusting stuff you bottle. Maybe you should start your own organization. Though I’m sure In Pursuit of Splooge is already taken (I’d advise you NOT to Google it), perhaps In Pursuit of Scores might work. At least that was the impression our panel of distinguished and balanced winemakers, and a world famous and widely admired sommelier, received from your samples. What the hell enzyme did you use to extract that Splooge Estate 2013 “Queefer Ranch” Pinot Noir, anyway? Beano®?

We are especially careful at IPOB that all of the wines who claim membership have one important thing in common. A large price tag. This is not because we’re dismissive of inexpensive wines, but rather because Balance is a quality only found in more expensive Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. We don’t look at prices before we judge the wines submitted for IPOB membership, of course. All of our tastings are done blind, which attending any of our events will prove to you. There’s a couple wineries among us that we must have tasted not just blind, but blind drunk; but once you’re in IPOB, you’re in for life. IPOB is the ISIS of wine associations—there is our way, or there is the people we’re going to destroy’s way. But no matter. Your Splooge Estate wines were plenty expensive enough, but our professional wine tasters, led by a world famous and widely admired sommelier, felt that they had the balance of a one-legged hippie with an ear infection. Though he’s a helluva wine judge.

At IPOB, we are grateful every single day for the fact that Our Beloved Founders discovered balance. Oh, sure, balance existed in Nature, much as gravity always existed, and long before that Gravenstein conked Sir Isaac Newton in the cabeza; it just took our own world famous, widely admired, and sure to be knighted one day sommelier, and his Princess, to see it, define it, and explain it to the rest of us. Sadly, their message seems to have escaped those responsible for Splooge Estate. Did you really think you had a chance of becoming an IPOB member winery? With that many Brix you could build Fort Knox.

For future reference, and you might want to pass this along to as many of your misguided friends as you are able, IPOB says that “…a wine is in balance when its diverse components – fruit, acidity, structure and alcohol – coexist in a manner such that should any one aspect overwhelm or be diminished, then the fundamental nature of the wine would be changed.” Yeah, we know, kind of vague and obvious. Think of it like people. Attractive people have certain qualities in common, they fall in a certain range of height, weight, hair and skin quality. If someone is too short, too fat, extremely hirsute, or has a bad case of acne, that someone is just flatout ugly. We all know they’re ugly, even the people who made them know they’re ugly, despite the fact that they love them. As people, we don’t look any further than that. Wine is the same way. And your wines, my friend, were short, fat, hairy and pockmarked. Though we’re sure you love them.

We urge you to not feel too bad about being rejected for IPOB membership. Far better wineries than Splooge Estate have been turned down. Hell, far better wineries than our current membership have been turned down, primarily because we don’t really want members anyone has ever heard of. One of Our Beloved Founders, remember, is a world famous, widely admired, certain to be knighted, winemaker-impersonating sommelier, so he insists on obscurity. And balance. Don’t forget about balance. We are unanimously in pursuit of it, and if we ever catch it, hell, there will be no stopping us. You’d be wise to be on our side if we do.

Membership dues for IPOB are used to conduct tastings in major cities across the United States, and for our efforts on social media to attract 15-year-old girls to our cause. IPOB is the future of wine, and we understand the future will be filled with people our age who are younger now. See, we have foresight. Dues will also be used for projects to be unveiled to the public in the near future. IPOB member wineries will have special stickers on all their wines that say, “Certified Balanced,” and “Without Balance, You’re a Dead Wallenda.” In development is a special “balancalyzer” that measures the balance in any wine you exhale through it. If the wine isn’t an IPOB member’s wine and you breathe into the “balancalyzer,” the device says, in Jon Bonné’s voice, “Put the glass down! This wine is unbalanced.” And he would know.

IPOB does offer, at a nominal fee, a Balance Auditor who can help guide Splooge Estate along the path to membership in IPOB. The IPOB Auditor can tell if a wine is balanced simply by putting his finger into the mouth of the winemaker and holding that finger up to the breeze. At IPOB, we know which way the wind blows, and we’re giving you the finger to prove it.

Sincerely,
IPOB

I don’t mind traces of arsenic in my wine. I’m sure there are worse things in there. Like the alcohol that’s killing me. At least arsenic is vegan. What I mind are all the pointless blog posts about it (yes, including this one), posts that are entirely predictable. Tom Wark’s alarm call that this blip in the wine radar will have dire consequences for the wine business. The wine business can ill afford to have stupid people stop buying wine—remember, stupid people are who marketers rely on. And then there are all the “exposés” about how the plaintiff in the lawsuit is playing an extortion game. Duh. ’Twas ever thus. Suddenly every muttonhead starts regurgitating the same facts he garnered from the reply published by the Wine Institute as if he were an authority on wine chemistry and litigation. Yeah, we know the arsenic limits refer to water, not wine—we read it just like you did. It reinforces the dullness and unoriginality of wine blogs. Well, if the clown wanted to get publicity for his company, he’s succeeded, thanks to the endless chatter about him. He certainly hasn’t done anything illegal, as far as I can tell. Filed a frivolous lawsuit. Pretty much destroyed any good will he might have had in the wine business in California. So the guy is clearly a genius. Suing Trader Joe’s for not listing ingredients on wine? Hell, they list Cabernet Sauvignon on the label, and it doesn’t taste like it. That doesn’t stop people from buying it. What’s the difference?

People who are worried about arsenic in wine are the folks the business doesn’t really need. Though I wonder what the Natural Wine people will say to defend the presence of arsenic in their wines. Arsenic is terroir, after all, pretty much everywhere in the world. So I guess there’s that. I think it’s a little titillating that there’s arsenic in wine. Because wine is all about balance, and perhaps the arsenic is there to counteract the life-extending qualities of resveratrol. Every time you drink a bottle of wine, friends, you die a little, and you live a little longer, too. It’s perfect.

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Most of you probably don’t know that I have a race in the Sport of Kings named for me:

http://www.perthracing.org.au/news-centre/news/2015/03/04/abbeybell-lane-bounces-back-winning-the-hosemasters-handicap

Yes, that’s right, the wonderful people of Australia have named an important sporting event after me. As far as I know, there is no 1WineDoody Stakes anywhere, though if there were, it would make the jockeys feel tall. There’s no Fermentation Derby, no Vornography Stakes, no STEVE! Memorial Handicap (would have to be a Maiden Race). But, yes, my friends, there is the prestigious Hosemaster Handicap.

Of course, it’s the only race where the thoroughbreds run backwards, and the biggest horse’s ass wins.

The Linoleum Project™--Philosophy First, Winemaking Second

Harvest is in full swing here at Splooge Estate, and while our neighbors are bringing in their incredibly boring Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc—the so-called “workhorse” grapes (“workhouse” because their only worth is to get you plowed)—we’re harvesting more important varieties, varieties you haven’t heard of. The best and most obscure are earmarked for The Linoleum Project™. We thought we’d take a moment of your time to explain in a bit more detail the philosophy behind the wines of The Linoleum Project™. Unlike most wines produced, these are not wines aimed at pleasure. These are wines meant to express the ultimate meaninglessness of life, the charade of importance that is human existence—the very things that make you want to drink. Everyone pays lip service to a philosophy of winemaking, but they put the cart before the workhorse. At The Linoleum Project™ we put philosophy first, and winemaking a distant second. We believe in winemaking by philosophy. We are teachers first, winemakers second. We truly believe in the old saw that, “Those who can do, those who Kant philosophize.”

Perhaps the best way to understand our winemaking by philosophy is to understand how each individual wine is made, how philosophy and overthinking combine to make wines that reflect not only their terroir, but each person’s hopelessness in the face of a godless universe. Certainly one can enjoy wines that only express a sense of place, a minerally and precise Grand Cru Chablis, for example. But there is a price to be paid for living an unexamined life. Isn’t it far more rewarding and satisfying to murder an innocent oyster with a blunt knife and then wash it down with a crisp white wine that celebrates not only the oyster’s salinity, but your own feeling that life is worthless, nothing but a snotty slide down eternity’s esophagus? Of course. Welcome to our world.

2014 Gaglioppo
The vineyard that is the source of our Gaglioppo is in the Carneros region of Napa Valley. While many wineries have complained about the unfortunate earthquake that struck the region this year, at The Linoleum Project™ we celebrate it. In truth, our Gaglioppo perfectly reflects its tumultuous terroir. Put your nose in a glass of any vintage. What do you smell? Faults! You might be tempted to think that those faults are the result of poor winemaking. This reflects your usual simpleminded approach to wine, an approach that believes pleasure is wine’s chief goal. Don’t feel bad. Your limited intelligence is how you became one of our mailing list customers. In truth, it’s philosophy that defines our Gaglioppo.

When we reflect upon our own character, it’s our faults that plague us. As Kafka memorably put it, “Wir sind ein Haufen Scheisse.” (“We’re a pile of shit,” which considering his intestinal problems, is a loose translation.) So not only will our 2014 Gaglioppo reflect its origins in Calabria, it will also reflect man’s ultimate unworthiness. We are our faults, and our faults are us. We live our lives trying to embrace our faults. It’s this basic philosophy that informs the wines of The Linoleum Project™. If you love our wines, you must embrace faults. You cannot love yourself if you cannot love our faulty Gaglioppo. This is how wine can enrich your life—through following philosophy instead of cold, hard, unfeeling chemistry.

2014 Ebola Gialla
We very much like the look of our 2014 Ebola Gialla clusters. Ebola Gialla is a very rare variety, thought to be Ribolla Gialla crossed with a fruit bat. Over the past few vintages, our Ebola has done very poorly with the press. James Laube called it, “maybe the worst white wine I’ve ever had that wasn’t Grüner.” Robert Parker thought it “despicable, though it helped me lose some weight.” Jon Bonné says our Ebola is “maybe the finest white wine coming out of Napa Valley, though, in truth, I hate wine.” These quotes are exactly the point of our Ebola.

At The Linoleum Project™ we take a nihilistic approach to our Ebola. Nietzche is our guiding light, and it was his assertion that all values are baseless, that absolutely nothing can be communicated, that nothing is known. This is the precise basis for all scoring systems and wine reviews—indeed the 100 point scale is baseless, and wine descriptions communicate nothing. “Nothing is known” is pretty much the resumé for Neal Martin.  So it seems appropriate as a philosophy of winemaking as well.  We even take it a step further, utilizing the truth of existential nihilism (not just Nihilism Lite)—the certainty that life itself is meaningless. Then isn’t winemaking itself meaningless? Isn’t trying to assign meaning to wine futile and ignorant? Isn’t this apparent when you read wine blogs? Our Ebola reflects the words of Nietzche, “Nihilism is . . . not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one’s shoulder to the plough; one destroys” Starting with your liver.

We encourage you to share a glass of our Ebola at your next meaningless meal with someone you don’t particularly care lives or dies. This is more than likely yourself.

2014 Tannat
Tannat is a variety that has gained some popularity in recent years, perhaps because, like life itself, it’s the same thing backwards or forwards. In France, Tannat is the primary grape in Madiran, and an important component of many wines from Cahors. In terms of philosophy, it may have been tempting to place Descartes before Cahors, or maybe mullah over how mad Iran is. But, fundamentally, at The Linoleum Project™ we hate Tannat. Which is why each vintage we seek it out. We don’t believe in working with varieties we actually enjoy. That would give us pleasure, and pleasure leads to complacency, a quality prevalent in winemaking today. No, we make our Tannat with a focus on anhedonia, and we think that makes it taste better because it is incapable of delivering taste.

In our view, too often we expect pleasure from wine. We reach for a bottle with an expectation of joy and sensual pleasure. Only to be routinely disappointed. We want you to know that our Tannat is made with the philosophy that life is better when you are unable to experience happiness, and that our wine is designed to make sure you do not. In this respect, our Tannat shares much with rating wines on a numerical scale, for isn’t that very scale about anhedonia? Can you consume a wine rated 89 and enjoy it knowing that somewhere someone richer than you, smarter than you, and better looking than you is drinking a wine rated 100? When you drink 89 point wine aren’t you denying yourself pleasure, illustrating your basic self-contempt, but, more importantly, not caring. Not caring because you cannot feel joy anyway? This is our Tannat in a nutshell.

Enjoy it alone, in the darkness of your soul, with a nice venison stew.

AuthenticLand!

Splooge Estates, and our sister winery, The Linoleum Project™, are proud to announce the opening of our newest and most exciting project to date, AuthenticLand! Located in Los Angeles, California, AuthenticLand isn’t just a winery that focuses on Natural, Real, Authentic and Certified Sensitive® wines, AuthenticLand is also Southern California’s latest amusement park! Bring the whole family! While Mom and Dad sample the latest releases from The Linoleum Project™, the kids can experience the thrill of AuthenticLand’s most fearsome roller coaster, Shittin’ Brix! AuthenticLand promises to be all-natural fun for the whole family.

Those of you who love wine may be asking yourselves, Why Los Angeles? Why start a new winery in the Least Natural City in the World, a city where the movies are reel but the tits are fake? Splooge Estate’s Director of Winemaking Seaman Samples explains:

“We’re running out of weird old vineyards in Northern California to exploit. Every damned vineyard planted to Trousseau or Negrette (and if you haven’t had our co-fermented Trousseau and Negrette, you owe yourself a bottle of the The Linoleum Project™ “Trou Gret”—look for John Wayne on the label!), Chenin Blanc or Furmint (come on, haven’t you had our Furmint and Chenin Blanc combination, The Linoleum Project™ Chenin de Fur?—it’s our version of overpriced Night Train!) is overrun with creepy young winemakers looking to make names for themselves by producing Natural Wines from orphan varieties. These young winemakers are all over these orphan varieties like the sex trade on runaways. Pimp ‘em out, slap ‘em in some fancy wrapping, and sell ‘em to mouth-breathing perverts. At Splooge Estate, we saw this coming. We knew there were vineyards in Southern California, and we knew they were old. That’s all we needed to start lining up investors to build AuthenticLand. Are the vineyards any good? They’re old! That’s all you need to sell Authentic wine. If we say they’re great vineyards, well, we can take that to the bank, regardless of whether you can. And, besides, once we’re done with the fruit, hell, it doesn’t really matter how good the vineyard was.”

Once we decided to build yet another winery focused on producing fine wines that express the character of the land, even if that character is primarily pavement (which the first releases capture perfectly, having been fermented in cement eggs—not winemaking cement eggs, but eggs harvested from very old termagants), we then decided to make AuthenticLand a Southern California must-see tourist destination, like Disneyland, Sea World, and Kim Kardashian’s ButtBonanza. (What’s that brown mark on your forehead? Must be Ass Wednesday at ButtBonanza!) At AuthenticLand, there’s our Certified Sensitive® wines for the adults to taste and purchase. Remember, The Linoleum Project™ makes only Certified Sensitive® wines. Leave your critical faculties behind when you taste our wines! Judgment has no place in AuthenticLand, any more than quality control does. Don’t say anything negative about our wines, no matter how bad they taste! They’re right there, right in front of you, and they’re Certified Sensitive®! Have some human feelings, for fuck’s sake, the wines do. They’ve been crushed once, don’t crush them again. Even a dirty look can render them dumb, and ruin them for everyone. Just drink ‘em and praise ‘em, even if you don’t understand their reason to exist. It’s what the “wine critics” do.

While the adults are enjoying the wines, the kids can explore all of AuthenticLand’s worlds. Our aim is to make it both fun and educational for the kids.

FANTASYWORLD!
What reflects the philosophy of Authentic Wines better than Fantasy? Kids will line up to experience “It’s a Small Lot World,” where singing and dancing dolls that bear remarkable resemblances to major wine reviewers (Look, isn’t that Jay McInerney dressed as a little Dutch boy about to put his finger in another dike!) teach the kids that wine made in small lots is better than wine made in big lots by definition! Unless, of course, as Thomas Mathews in his Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit (an exact replica of the one he wears to Wine Spectator Grand Awards!) reminds the kids, they’re major advertisers! “It’s a Small Lot World” is fun for all ages, but don’t let that catchy jingle get caught in your brain for the rest of the day! Mommy and Daddy are drunk in the tasting room, and even Certified Sensitive® can make Daddy belligerent. In 2016, look for the newest FantasyWorld attraction to open. It’s “Alice in Wonderland!” Ride magic earthworms as you follow Alice Feiring down the Rabbit Hole of Self-Delusion, dine with her at the Tea Party and Drink the Kool-Aid table with the Mad Hatter Randall Grahm and the March Hairless Terry Theise! Oh, the fun you’ll have!

TOMORROWORLD!
We know that the great wines of today are Natural, Authentic, Real and Certified Sensitive®, but what will the future bring? We know that orange wines are the best wines, that sulfites cause brain cancer, and indigenous yeast have the highest yeast IQ’s. So what’s next? You’ll get a peek at the future as you tour AuthenticLand’s “Winery of Tomorrow!” Do you love those skin contact “orange” white wines? In the future, Natural Winemakers will make white wine using only the skins! Yes, peeling each Torrontes grape by hand is hard work, but it’s an ancient tradition passed down from Roman prostitutes—who are replaced in the future by wine bloggers. Then the skins are crushed, left unattended while the winemaker is serviced by the wine bloggers (a tradition handed down from today), and when fermentation is done, the resulting wine best expresses its site—it’s really brown and smells like cellar rat butt. And it’s got hardly any alcohol at all! Can’t wait! We don’t want to give all its secrets away, you’ll have to visit AuthenticLand for that, but also look in the “Winery of Tomorrow” for grapes harvested by mouth (“Hands off” is our motto!), wines aged in cactus (climate change will have made oak forests extinct), and corks that say “Shit!” when you put the corkscrew in.

FRONTIERWORLD!
FrontierWorld is all about nostalgia, about the long lost days of winemaking, when wine was intentionally, if wrongheadedly, made to taste good. Your and your family should spend a few minutes in “Great Moments with Mr. Mondavi.” A lifelike robot, think James Laube, that is a perfect rendition of Robert Mondavi talks about his love of fine wine, his love of Napa Valley, and his life dedicated to making wine part of everyday gracious living. It’s pathetic. We know now that the crap Mondavi spent his life promoting isn’t real wine, isn’t authentic wine, that it’s for indiscriminate suckers, and you leave feeling sorry for this California pioneering giant. What an idiot! Fun for the whole family. Spoiler alert! That’s a dummy of Fred Franzia in the background flippin’ ol’ Bob the bird! You and the kids will love FrontierWorld. Mom and Dad, don’t miss the old-fashioned tasting room where you can sample old favorites from the past like Mateus, Blue Nun, Mouton-Cadet, Green Hungarian, and Wente Brothers Blanc de Blancs! Then go back to The Linoleum Estate™ tasting room and, bingo, now the wines taste good!

There’s something for everyone at AuthenticLand. As we always say here at Splooge Estate and The Linoleum Project™, “If it’s taste you’re after, you’re in the wrong place.”

Jay McInerney Splooges "On Wine"

By Jay McInerney

It was Robert Mondavi who first told me about Dick Splooge the last time we dined together at French Laundry in Yountville, the quaint town named for Hall of Famer Robin Yount. Thomas Keller manned the kitchen at his eponymous restaurant himself that night, apparently not trusting his Native American (Sioux) chef to prepare a meal for such an influential and important figure in American wine. Or for Mr. Mondavi either. Mr. Mondavi was accompanied by his wife, the famed Belgian surrealist Magritte. Magritte is a handsome woman, old and wealthy, which I find irresistible, who insisted during dinner that she needed to paint a portrait of me, “If only,” she said, “to illustrate that it is not only your prose that is flat.”

Geographically, the Napa Valley is a mere thirty miles long, and roughly fourteen feet wide. And yet it contains some of the most valuable soil in the wine world. There is the justly famous Rutherford Bench, as well as the lesser-known Oakville Bus Stop. Historically, it was the famous Captain Gustave Niebaum-Coppola (no relation to Sofia, who once asked me to star in a film version of my novel, The Great Gatsby) who discovered the brilliance of wines from the Rutherford Bench, and to this day his legacy is honored when we speak about the greatness of Rutherford Cabernet’s Finnish.

When Robert Mondavi began his eponymous winery in the heart of Oakville, after an ugly family dispute involving his brother and a camel drove him to leave Charles Krug Winery, where he’d crafted some of the planet’s finest Champagnes—the 1965 Krug remains one of the greatest bottles of sparkling wine that has ever gone up my nose—there weren’t any “cult” wineries yet in the Napa Valley. The potential for wringing money out of the valuable soils of the Napa Valley was virtually unexplored. Foolishly, the winemakers in Napa Valley at the time sold Cabernet Sauvignon for a modest profit, while their French counterparts in Bordeaux were wisely soaking the gullible Brits into paying a lot of money for underripe and overhyped Frog juice. Not even Petrus or Ausone, where I recently spent several nights at the request of the French government (the details of which I am legally sworn never to divulge, except to say I shared a bunk bed with Julian Assange, who snores and has abhorrent nocturnal emissions, called Wikileaks), but, shamefully, Second Growths! I don’t believe I’ve ever consumed a Second Growth, at least not wittingly, but I’ve been told that it’s the equivalent of sleeping with an actress with an “Also Starring” billing—one can only imagine sinking to the level of a Nicolas Cage.

Thomas Keller had just personally served us our third course at French Laundry, a light and ineffable bite whimsically called “DNA en croute,” when the subject of cult Napa Valley wines came up. I had mentioned Bill Harlan, whose wise countenance and ruggedly handsome booty seemed a reflection of my own future, and Robert began to reminisce about his founding of the eponymous Opus One, considered one of the first cult Napa Valley wines, though far too common for my taste. The conversation soon bored me, and I turned it back to a more interesting subject—my own experiences with the legendary cult Cabernet Sauvignons of Napa Valley.

Fortuitously, I had just come from a complete vertical tasting of Harlan Estate, which included some of the greatest wines I’ve ever tasted. I confess that I consider Harlan Estate the greatest winery in California, in no small part because the label looks like money. There was a time when wine writers failed to see the paramount connection of money to great wine. Wines were approached critically from the primitive and resolutely ignorant perspective of quality, and their accurate reflection of “terroir” (a vague and mostly discredited French word that loosely translated means, “dirt poor”). It’s only recently, when a new generation of wine writers has emerged, the most important of whom first published unreadable, autobiographical, eponymous novels, that the undeniable link between the greatness of wine and the wealth of the winery owner has come to be accepted. Now it seems to be all that I write about. Wine knowledge and a sense of wine history have become vestigial when it comes to wine writing, qualifications that are long outdated and completely overvalued, as my WSJ editors will attest. You want greatness in wine? Follow me, and follow the money.

Mr. Mondavi had been talking animatedly for several minutes, tolerable only because it was fascinating speculation about my formidable palate, when he paused and asked me if I’d ever met Dick Splooge. Splooge Estate, the winery now synonymous with both Natural and Cult wines, was still just an inkling in Dick’s prostate at the time, and I confessed I had not heard of Mr. Splooge (though, in a strange coincidence, that had been Raymond Carver’s nickname for me).

“Dick Splooge,” Robert Mondavi told me, as we sampled Mr. Keller’s next course, a delicious ham and melon dish eponymously named “Ass Hat,” “is a visionary the likes of which Napa Valley hasn’t seen since Georges de la Tour.”--an obscure reference to the visionary behind the Tour de France. “I think you should meet him.”

I wouldn’t normally take advice from a washed-up Napa Valley icon, not even James Laube, but something that day told me I should. Maybe it was the Mr. Splooge nickname coincidence, or maybe it was Magritte slipping me the tongue as we kissed good night, I’m not sure. Yet there was something I needed to know first, something critical to whether or not I’d even consider meeting Dick Splooge at his under-construction Splooge Estate.

“How did he make his money?”

A simple question, but the only question that matters in the world of Napa Valley, thirty miles long and roughly forty feet wide. The question most asked in every tasting room in the county. The question that most certainly determines the value of the resulting wines. And the question that certainly determines whether or not I’ll visit a winery, whether I’ll write about it, whether, first and foremost, I can be entertained there in the fashion to which I am accustomed.

“Where did Dick Splooge make his money?” Mr. Mondavi replied. “Just where you’d expect a Splooge to make it.

“Software.”

The Next Winemaker Dinner at Restaurant Gougé

Restaurant Gougé is pleased to announce our upcoming winemaker dinner with Splooge Estate on Tuesday, October 29th. Chef Ptomaine will create a special menu to pair with the Natural, Authentic and Certified Sensitive® wines of Splooge Estate, one of California’s many wineries. Joining us to talk about the wines will be owners Richard and Lotta Splooge, as well as Splooge Estate’s winemaker Seaman Samples.

At Restaurant Gougé, winemaker dinners are not just a way to fill empty seats on a Tuesday night. Don’t be cynical. We have empty seats damn near every night. But that’s because it’s so hard to get reservations. Yes, our phone number is unlisted, and if you try to make a reservation on Open Table, you get a message saying, “There are no reservations available within five hours of your requested time—not the way you dress.” That’s the way we like it. So, no, unlike so many restaurants who have “special” winemaker dinners every two weeks, which makes them about as “special” as One Day Only sales at Macy’s, Restaurant Gougé will only create winemaker dinners when a winery comes along that produces wines that rise to the level of our food. And regular guests of Gougé know that our cuisine is nothing if not risible.

Upon arrival, guests of the Splooge Estate winemaker dinner will be greeted by proprietors Dick and Lotta Splooge with a celebratory glass of their very special The Linoleum Project™ Sparkling Blue Hungarian. Blue Hungarian is a very rare hybrid grape, a cross between Green Hungarian and Zsa Zsa Gabor (so shouldn’t it be “Blew Hungarians?”). Only 29 bottles of Sparkling Blue Hungarian were produced before the rest were confiscated by Homeland Security. Be forewarned, the wines of Splooge Estate, and its sister label The Linoleum Project™, are Natural. There may be some bottle variation, and, with Sparkling Blue Hungarian, there may even be shrapnel. Authentic Sparkling Blue Hungarian is fermented in the bottle, using an ancient, nearly forgotten, process where a small mushroom is placed inside each bottle, and the bacteria and yeast present on the mushroom create the bubbles. This process was known by 17th Century monks as Méthode Champignon. Seaman Samples tells us that he uses very special mushrooms for the process, so, don’t worry, those monkeys flying out of his butt aren’t likely to be real.

Like most winemaker dinners the world over, the Splooge Estate dinner isn’t the least bit about pairing wines with food. Food and wine pairing, it is generally recognized, is a fairly stupid pursuit, like jogging, or how they caught O.J. Food is only necessary at a winemaker dinner so that you can drink more. And at home, it’s just an incredible waste of time to try and match that slop you call dinner with a fine wine. In the case of Splooge Estate, their wines are Certified Sensitive®. Let’s say you tried to pair the 2010 Splooge Estate Tempradillo (a very rare variety, much prized by chefs because it brings its own plates) with hamburgers. Are you kidding me? Hamburgers? With a Certified Sensitive® wine?! Do you even have feelings, for Christ’s sake? Do you know what they put in hamburger these days? Cows, and parts of cows that dangle. Meat fucking byproducts. I don’t even know what that is. Really. What are human byproducts? Bougars and pus? You can’t drink a Natural wine with that. That defeats the whole goddam purpose. Splooge Estate does its best to be carbon neutral, and you’re accompanying their wine with food from animals whose burps have turned the planet into Death Valley? Jesus. What a bunch of idiots. And you wonder why we prefer empty seats here at Restaurant Gougé.

So Chef Ptomaine will be serving food with the wines of Splooge Estate without particularly caring if it tastes good with them. It’s a winemaker dinner, that’s how they work. What would be the point of spending countless hours trying to find the perfect match for each wine when we can simply use up the stuff we haven’t been able to sell off the menu? After the first two courses, no one cares anyway. It’s a drunkfest, face it. That’s why you come, isn’t it? Sure seems like it. So what do you want? Wines you haven’t tasted before AND food you haven’t had from us before, too? No, of course not. That makes no sense. Good. Glad we agree.

Don’t worry, we won’t let the Splooges talk very much, and we certainly won’t allow Seaman Samples to drone on and on like he usually does. First of all, he’ll probably show up drunk. Which is fine because at least he’s an Authentic drunk. But, then, if we let him, he’d babble incoherently for hours about all the Natural and Orgasmic and Holistic and Spiritual ways Splooge Estate farms its vineyards. We’ve heard this speech, believe us, it’s out there. Do you really want to hear how they use the cadavers of wine club members who leave them their remains in their wills as insectories while you’re eating your tournedos of beef? Didn’t think so. And, really, who doesn’t sucker their vines in the spring with trained beavers? Who gives a dam?  At Restaurant Gougé, we understand that you have dozens of winemaker dinners to choose from all over the city on any given slow week day. We strive to make ours appear exclusive, and to assure you that you won’t have to listen to a boring winemaker who’s eating up your valuable drinking time.

It’s hard to imagine a more magical evening that the Splooge Estate winemaker dinner at romantic Restaurant Gougé. We’ve rented special glassware just for the occasion, so you’ll want to get here early to find the ones with the fewest hard water stains. The evening begins promptly at 6 PM, but if you’d like to come a little early and beef up on our Happy Hour buffet, that might be a good idea. Don’t tell Splooge Estate, but Sparkling Blue Hungarian is great with Buffalo wings. Put some in your purse, our service tends to be especially slow during winemaker dinners, and you may get hungry between courses, because, well, a microwave is only so big.

Seating is limited, so be sure and grab a chair when the music stops. The Splooge Estate winemaker dinner is a rare chance to taste the wines our sommelier calls, “Heart-pounding, like CPR.” Remember, it’s a winemaker dinner. Please leave your critical faculties at home, where they belong.

10 Things Every Wine Lover Should Know About...Splooge Estate

If their vineyards could talk, they’d bore the crap out of you.

No. 1. The Rarest of Varieties

Splooge Estate is planted to many of the rarest grape varieties in the world. These varieties are so rare that so-called “critics” are simply unqualified to judge them, resulting in meaningless “scores.” Assholes. Among those grapes is Swiss Colombard, a more neutral version of its French cousin. And being more neutral than French Colombard is like being more insipid than Pinot Noir Rosé. Swiss Colombard is notoriously immune to the effects of biodynamic farming, which is why the Splooge Estate Swiss Colombard is named “What’s the Matter, Horn?” The estate is also home to Petite Verge, known for being the saddest grape variety. Though the women on our mailing list can’t seem to get enough Petite Verge. They often ask, “Is it in yet?” Splooge Estate also has the only known plantings of Tempradillo, which we crush by running it over with our cars.

No. 2. The Moon is Our Mistress

At Splooge Estate, careful attention is paid to the lunar calendar. Especially the one with nude biodynamic chicks. (Not women, actual chicks. The nude chicks prepare special biodynamic formulas for the roosters—the famous cock teas.) Splooge Estate pays careful attention to phases of the moon in all of its farming decisions. Science is so last millennia. What makes a wine special is a wine grown according to the dictates of the moon. This makes perfect sense when you consider that the moon has gravity on its side whereas the sun only has light, warmth, and the fact that we’d be dead without it. Plus, the moon is more romantic, and romance sells wine.

No. 3. Wines with Feeling

Many people now make wines that are Authentic. Lots of wineries proclaim that their wines are Honest. Not like those other Lying Bastard wines. But only Splooge Estate’s wines are Certified Sensitive®. Their wines have been proven to have genuine feelings, feelings that can easily be damaged by casually cruel remarks like, “Jesus, this wine smells like stink finger.” It’s important to remember that any Splooge Estate wine you try that isn’t to your satisfaction may be your fault. You may have insulted its integrity, which can throw a Certified Sensitive® wine off, make it smell like it peed its own pants. Splooge Estate wines are not just Natural, Real, Honest and Authentic, indefinable words that you have to trust simply because the winery uses them, Splooge Estate wines also have feelings, and will thank you to keep your stupid wine opinions to yourself.

No. 4. Pricing is Whimsical

The owners of Splooge Estate, Richard and Carlotta Splooge, initially tasted their first vintages against the best $40 wines they could find. “Our wines were clearly equal to the best $40 wines, and mostly superior,” says Lotta, “and we were going to price our wines at $40.” “But then,” Dick chimes in, “we thought, why not taste them alongside wines costing $100! Turns out, they were as good as those wines too. So we were able to justify charging $100. Whew! That was a close one. We nearly undercharged for our wines. Now we’re in the classic Forty Dollar Wine for A Hundred category that all the best California wines are in.”

No. 5. It’s the Farming, Stupid

No expense is spared in farming the Natural, Honest, Authentic, Real, Genuine, Precious, Energetic, Vegan, Licensed Massage Therapist, Empathetic wines of Splooge Estate. Many of the techniques are unique to Splooge. For example, each vine is given a name. Vineyard workers are required to take roll call every morning, ask each vine how it’s feeling. If a vine is not feeling well, it’s given the day off. The naming and personal care of the vines instills self-esteem in the vineyard. It’s widely accepted that vines with low self-esteem produce wines that are often abused, and alcohol abuse is a big problem in this country. If vineyards had more self-esteem, there would be fewer alcohol-related deaths on our highways. Splooge Estate is leading the way in producing wines that find the true balance between low self-esteem and being Certified Sensitive®. In this way, the wines reflect the personalities of Natural Wine's most vocal proponents.

No. 6. Climate Change is Another Name for Opportunity

Lotta Splooge points out, “We could try to sell our wines on quality, but nowadays people just want to know how wine is made, its impact on the environment. So we don’t worry about quality or taste, we worry about the process. At Splooge Estate, Quality is Job Two. Our customers, the folks who insist on Natural Wine, they’ll overlook faults in the wine. What they won’t overlook is insincerity. We spend unspeakable amounts of money on appearing sincere.”

No. 7. Other Wines Suck   

Splooge Estate has been the Natural Wine leader in pointing out that Other Wines suck. “It’s not that they mean to suck,” Dick Splooge ejaculates, “it’s just that they don’t know any better. And if we in the Natural Wine community don’t point out that other wines suck plough horse dong, we’re doing them a disservice.”

No. 8. Sulfites? Never Heard of ‘Em!

Splooge Estate has taken the position that adding sulfites at bottling takes all the fun out of wine. “We like bottle variation,” says Lotta Splooge. “Why buy a case of twelve bottles that are the same when you can buy a case of Splooge Estate ‘What’s the Matter, Horn?’ and get twelve completely different experiences? And, as a bonus, when you drink a bottle of Splooge Estate wine you’re helping to repopulate the microbial soup in your intestines! Yes, take it from Hollywood celebrities, Splooge in your intestines is good for you!”

No. 9. Did We Mention, Other Wines All Suck?

There are two kinds of wine. Natural wines that express terroir whether your lousy palate can discern it or not, and which represent all the greatest wines on the planet, and other wines which totally suck. And the best part is, you don’t even have to taste them side by side in a blind tasting to know which is which. Just buy the wines that say they’re Natural. Just like professional baseball players, wine producers don’t lie.

No. 10. What You Drink Says A Lot About Who You Are

In a world that you’ve played your part in ruining for future generations, a world ruined by your greed and consumption of precious resources, do you really want to be seen drinking wines that aren’t like Splooge Estate? Natural and Honest, Real and Sincere, Authentic and Certified Sensitive®? What kind of a monster are you? The nice people at Splooge Estate hope you rot in Hell.

The Linoleum Project™ from Splooge Estate

Splooge Estate is proud to announce its newest, some might say thickest, releases yet under our proud new banner, The Linoleum Project™. Who knows how high the ceiling is for great wines? Many wineries strive to find that out. At Splooge Estate, we thought we’d try to see where the linoleum floor for wine lies, and so we named our quest, The Linoleum Project™. The Linoleum Project™ is designed to showcase wines from unusual grapes grown in unusual places and pretty much just made however the hell we feel like making them. These are wines of Intention, Pretension and Lack of Attention. We think you’ll like them, but, really, Enjoyment is not the idea.  The idea is to take an ancient beverage designed to deliver Pleasure and make it an Intellectual Journey. Frankly, many wine lovers will just be too stupid to understand these wines. Too many wines today are about Hedonism; the wines of Splooge Estate are about Onanism; with The Linoleum Project™, we focus on Masochism. We’re not just after the denial of Pleasure, we want to satisfy the wine lover’s feelings of self-loathing and doubt. Perhaps not that hard to achieve, but no other winery seems to even try.

As you would expect from a Splooge Estate project, the wines of The Linoleum Project™ are Natural, Authentic and Real. To take it even further, the wines of The Linoleum Profect™ are also Certified Sensitive. Certified Sensitive wines are acutely tuned in to what you say and feel about them. We ask that you not talk about their flaws while drinking them. THEY’RE RIGHT THERE, ASSWIPE! They can hear you. How would you like it if one of our Certified Sensitive wines talked about that big red thing you always pick at on your nose? Certified Sensitive wines want you to try to understand them even if you don’t really like them at first—think Neo-Nazi Skinheads. With some time and patience and compassion, you might just discover that you actually do like them, or at least understand them. And that’s the point. Any well-made wine can deliver happiness. A wine from The Linoleum Project™ challenges your brain, your sense of smell, and your ability to forgive yourself for spending fifty bucks on creatively packaged crap. Please remember our motto: You Might Be Too Stupid to Understand Our Wines. Chances are this applies to you.

We started The Linoleum Project™ ten years ago when we stumbled upon an ancient vineyard planted to German Colombard. German Colombard is a rare grape known as a “conquering grape.” It conquered French Colombard and Green Hungarian to become German Colombard. Don’t try to figure this out. It’s grape eugenics performed by a higher grape intelligence. The two grapes were forced to cross breed. In viticultural terms, it’s referred to as a Cluster Fuck. But never mind that, the point is that we discovered these old German Colombard vines, which probably originated around 1939, in an untended vineyard behind an abandoned Best Buy. We knew we had stumbled upon destiny. We tended the vineyard and, in 2003, we harvested a mere 50 pounds of fruit from the six acres of vines. We’d have harvested more but homeless people kept eating them. (We recently planted two acres of German Colombard at the Splooge Estate from seeds we sifted from the homeless people’s excrement. Sadly, the vineyard seems to be afflicted with a rare mold, Hobotrytis.)

The 50 pounds of German Colombard were fermented on their own skins and were not destemmed. Basically, we forgot they were even in the winery. After six months, the grapes were pressed (by the local dry cleaner) and the resulting juice was placed in eleven handmade Whoopee Cushions for extended aging. We did lose one container to an unfortunate birthday prank, but, damn, it was funny. We named the wine POOT, which is the German word for “hopeless,” and is taken from the work of Schopenauer. If you don’t know Schopenauer, You Might Be Too Stupid to Understand Our Wines. The 2003 POOT is now available for purchase to Splooge Estate Ejaculate™ members. There is a 1 bottle limit, and we’d like to assure you that, yes, POOT is the shimmering color of Despair. There were no added sulfites at bottling, and one of the bottles must have a fart whistle in it because one’s missing.

In 2005, a neighboring winery, who knew we were on the lookout for vineyards no one else thought were worth anything, turned us on to an old, head-pruned vineyard that we discovered was 80-year-old Frappato. The vines were not in great shape. They had more suckers than a cult wine mailing list. We decided to let this old and distinguished vineyard, located at 3200’ next to a waterfall popular with suicide victims, express itself without any interference from us. Besides, it was way out in the Boonies and a pain in the ass to get to. We harvested two tons of Frappato from the seventeen acres, most of it from twenty really happy vines.

As part of The Linoleum Project™, we love our Frappato! And, in one of those weird synergies that the Universe provides us if we’d only listen, when you say “Frappato” in a really loud voice, it sounds just like the Whoopee Cushion full of German Colombard did when Susie plopped her big ass on it on her birthday! At The Linoleum Project™ we spend way more time thinking about that kind of stuff than actually making wine.

After harvest, the Frappato was gently crushed, one berry at a time, between the butt cheeks of teenage virgins. This is the traditional way Frappato was made in Sicily a few hundred years ago, though there is not much Frappato left in Sicily, and certainly no teenage virgins. Our cult following for The Linoleum Project™ allows us access to many virgin interns who flock to Splooge for reasons only known to them. The Frappato was aged on the lees from whatever was in the barrel before the Frappato for 60 months. It was pretty good after 16 months, even had the pretty red fruit aromas of Frappato, so we figured after 60 months it would be almost four times better! It’s not, but oh well. And, please, remember that our wines are Certified Sensitive, so keep your opinions to yourself as you drink the wine—Frappato is a notoriously thin-skinned grape, and is Sicilian. You wouldn’t be the first person to die from drinking wine from The Linoleum Project™.

Nat Defrauds

Photo from Nat Defrauds--source unknown

Dear Splooge Estate,

I’m a gi-normous fan of Splooge Estate, but, then, who doesn’t love Splooge? I wanted to introduce myself to you, and tell you about all the benefits of joining me on “Nat Defrauds,” my award-winning website. Together, we can move a lot of Splooge.

I’ve been in the news lately, and not just from my lawsuit against those inflatable love doll manufacturers who blatantly stole my patented hair style for their own uses. Sadly, there have also been slanderous untruths published in online wine forums about Nat Defrauds, but that’s the price I pay for being one of the world’s most important wine personalities. I want you to know the charges stem from simple jealousy. Some wine writers will say that they stand on the shoulders of giants like Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker. Not me. I wipe my feet on them.

Nat Defrauds is the most important wine website on the Internet, and I am the foremost wine authority in Canada, and probably the world, if you don’t count the other countries. If you don’t believe me, here are a few quotes that easily could have been written by famous wine writers if they could get over their envy and speak from their cold, dead hearts so I wouldn’t have to fake them:

“Nat is not only one of the great palates in the wine business, she has fabulous tits.”—Hugh Johnson, author of “The Story of Wine—A Tribute to Nat MacLean”

“I urge everyone to carefully read everything Nat has to say about wine. She’s the foremost authority on the subject, and should win every award, especially for her fabulous hooters.”—Jancis Robinson, author of “Vines, Grapes, Wines and Nat”

“The 100-Point-Scale was Nat’s idea…I learned almost everything I know about wine at Nat’s feet…though her boobs are even nicer.”—Robert Parker, author of “The World’s Great Wine Estates and What They Owe to Nat.”

I’m almost embarrassed to repeat those quotes, but you can see for yourself that they’re real. And notice that I gave full attribution, though my jealous wine critics claim I’m not that good at it.

Now that you know who I am, I know you’ll want me to talk about your wonderful Splooge Estate wines on Nat Defrauds! Let me tell you a little bit more about my site, and how it’s designed to show your wines in the brightest light.

My site has a gi-normous data base of my wine reviews. I have some of the finest wine reviewers in the world writing for my site, and they all work for me for FREE! That’s how loved and respected I am. (“Nat is the most loved and respected wine writer alive, and what knockers!”—Eric Asimov, author of “How to Love Wine, and Nat’s Knockers”) I collect their reviews from the special Nat Defrauds Cloud that Google has designed specially for me, cut and paste them on my site, and, Bingo, eh (as we Canadians say), the most authoritative collection of wine reviews on the planet! I do make certain to give credit where credit is due, though. Each review is clearly initialed so that my subscribers know the source. I’ve created what I think is a perfect system—really, the initials are so obvious to anyone who knows anything about wine! Here are some examples:

FB/FD—Fat Boy with Flatulent Dog (So obvious it’s a Wine Advocate review)
TOMW—Tired Old Master of Wine (Sorry, Jancis, somebody has to say it)
RAD—Rabid Australian Dingo (My love handle for James Halliday)

I’m all about transparency! (“Nat Defrauds is all about transparency—you should see her gazongas in lingerie!”—Paul Lukacs, author of “Inventing Wine—How Nat Did It”) I’m not sure how any of my subscribers could be confused about who writes the reviews on my website, except, of course, that they’re mostly Canadian.

I know you’re very anxious at this point to see Splooge Estate wines featured on Nat Defrauds. And that’s why I’m writing. Yes, I could purchase your wines and review them in a very objective manner, but what good would that do either of us? I’ve made it much simpler for a fine winery such as Splooge Estate to get reviewed on Nat Defrauds. It’s easy as 1-2-3.

1. Go to my website, www.natdefrauds.fuckethics.ca, and become a subscriber. It’s only $2/month, far less than you’d pay for buying a meal for a sommelier, or the price of entering a worthless wine competition. Make sure and leave a valid credit card number! Fair warning: I hate people who use stolen credit card numbers—stealing numbers is just wrong. Unless it’s from chumps like BurgHound!

2. Send me your fabulous Splooge Estate wines. DO NOT SKIP #1! Of course, the only way to get my shipping address is by subscribing, it’s behind the pay wall, which is also where I store my integrity.

3. Get ready for your website to light up with hits and orders from my 128,000 subscribers. (“Nat Defaults has 128,000 subscribers!”—Marvin Shanken, editor of Wine Spectator, and Nat Aficionado”) When the Best Wine Writer in the World says put some Splooge in your mouth, people eat it up!

I look forward to hearing from you right after I see that your subscription to Nat Defrauds has been activated. Don’t confuse this with pay to play. It’s entirely ethical. Ask yourself this, if it weren’t ethical would the Best Wine Writer in the World be able to do it? If it weren’t ethical could it even be on the Internet? Send me the money and the wine and let me worry about what’s ethical.

And please feel free to forward this informative and entertaining letter to any of your friends and fellow winery owners. There’s only so much time in the day for the Greatest Wine Writer Who Ever Lived, and there’s one of you born every minute.

Splooge Estate: The Fall Release Newsletter

Is there anything more satisfying than a new release of Splooge? Not as far as we can tell. We know how eagerly our Ejaculate™ members await their Fall releases. Don’t hold back! Your Splooge is on its way! You’ll find out more about the new wines below, but first we have a Harvest Report and News!

2012 Harvest

This looks to be a near perfect Harvest for the natural wines of Splooge Estate. Many wineries make false or disingenuous claims concerning how naturally their wines are made, utilizing marketing doublespeak like “sustainable,” “green,” or “LonelyAliceBait.” But no winery anywhere makes wines as naturally as Splooge Estate. We take extraordinary steps to insure that our wines taste and smell as though they made themselves right in the vineyard without any unnatural acts taking place at the property. Except for the sheep, but they were asking for it. And what goes better with Splooge than mutton?

We believe 2012 is our finest vintage to date. But we don’t really know, we just believe that. At Splooge Estate we allow our vines to do as they please, trusting that they know best, part of our philosophy that stems from admiration of Mother Nature’s wisdom as well as our being incapable of actually farming or making wine. Most wineries ruin their wines in late winter, before the new vintage even begins, with the cruelty of pruning. Authentic Natural Wines are made from grapevines that are never touched by man. Pruning is barbaric. At Splooge Estate, we don’t Lorena Bobbitt our vines any more than we carve our initials into them, a practice common at Harlan Estate. The same for goes for suckering, which makes the vines feel unattractive, as if you were popping their zits. No “ne pus ultra” wines at Splooge Estate.

Harvest began on September 7^th, or thereabouts. Time is yet another of man’s constructs that harms wine. Why is it always about when? When to Harvest, When to Drink, When to Suspend Disbelief? We don’t care about When. Or How. Or Why. We make Natural Wines, we don’t need to care. At Splooge Estate, we also don’t believe in the silly notion of Fruit, Root, Flower and Seed Days, or that the Moon influences our wines. The Moon is 240,000 miles away! Our bank is seven miles away. It has far more influence. And is equally lifeless.

The first grapes we harvested in 2012 are Cabernet Sauvignon. We expect to begin harvesting our Pinot Noir in a few weeks. The Cabernet vines are closest to the winery and, therefore, are always picked first. There is some thought among the Splooge Estate brain trust that we should be picking the Pinot Noir before the Cabernet, but, it remains financially unviable to move the winery. The Cabernet was brought in very gently. Our Nigerian crew was hired specifically to carry the baskets of Cabernet into the winery balanced on their heads, virtually undisturbed by any of the sort of damaging back and forth motion an ATV might deliver. The Nigerians are also a very tall people, which gives our wines higher acidity.

The grapes were destemmed, an exhausting process involving tweezers. Modern, environmentally destructive wineries use a mechanical device called, cleverly, a destemmer, which places the grapes in a cage and beats them with a paddle. Not only does this damage the grapes, it’s against the Geneva Convention, or it was until Obama took office. Once liberated from their stems, the grapes are gently placed into our Splooge Estate cement eggs to ferment. Our cement eggs are purely natural, and are actually fossilized dinosaur eggs. The Cabernet egg for the 2012 was harvested from Joan Rivers’.

Splooge Estate News

As you know, Splooge Estate does not submit its wines for review in major wine publications. We only submit to Wine Enthusiast. But we are happy to announce that our 2009 Splooge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon “The Wet Spot” won a Double Gold at the Esalen International Natural Wine Competition! Judges at this prestigious competition are nude when judging, which only adds to their objectivity, endurance and ability to detect off-aromas. If you don’t personally know any wine judges, we respectfully beg you to NEVER LOOK AT THE COMPETITION PHOTOS. Only the Chardonnays entered are flabbier. And the judges apparently never talk about length.

Splooge Estate was honored by a visit from wine writer Alice Feiring. Alice is publishing a brand new newsletter devoted to natural wines. Her first article, which focuses on white wines, is entitled “Feiring Blancs.” Appropriately, she spends a lot of time on Splooge. We think it’s about time. 

The Natural Wines of Splooge Estate

Thank you for joining Ejaculate™, the Wine Club here at Splooge Estate and Winery. You’ll be receiving your first load in the next few weeks, but I wanted to thank you for joining, and outline the many benefits of your Ejaculate™ membership. As you know, Splooge Estate is an organic estate and all of our wines are natural wines. We take every precaution to insure that every Splooge is as natural and as satisfying as it can be. It just tastes better that way.

We’re happy that you’ve joined Ejaculate™ at the highest level, the Mother Load. Four times a year you’ll be receiving a Mother Load of our natural wines. We know you’ll enjoy tasting each and every Ejaculate™ selection, but, rest assured, should you feel that a Splooge is not to your taste, just spit it out and we will happily replace it. That’s our Splooge guarantee.

Your June Mother Load will consist of the three latest Splooge releases:

2011 Splooge “Spray of Pink” Rosé of Pinot Noir

Our natural pink wine is produced from our estate Pinot Noir grapes that are harvested by hand, not using any sharp tools that might harm the stems. Harvesting with grape knives is cruel and painful for grapes. Splooge grapes are harvested by gently twisting each cluster until it gently falls into the fur-lined harvesting basket. Our Rosé is carefully bled from our finest lots of Pinot Noir and then fermented at very cold temperatures using local nuns who sit on the barrels. Serve it chilled with our local bivalves. A recipe for “Splooge’s Famous Cloister Oysters” is included with your Mother Load shipment. For all we care, you can go shuck yourself.

2010 Splooge Estate Pinot Noir “Dos Huevos Vineyard”

We know that you expect your Splooge to be handled with the greatest care. We never use pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides in our vineyards. In fact, we basically ignore our vineyards altogether in order to make the most natural wine possible. We do occasionally walk through the vineyard waving pruning shears, but that’s just to let the vines know we mean business. Our vines are intimidated naturally, not by modern methods that harm them psychologically, like pruning and leaf-pulling or suckering. Ever been suckered? Yes, you have. You joined a wine club.

2010 Splooge Rouge

Splooge grows five different red grape varieties. Well, last time we checked it was five. We don’t really look that often, that’s unnatural. Each of the five (?) varieties is harvested individually. Most are gently twisted from the vines, but we let the Zinfandel fall to the ground when it’s ready. We’ve found that the Zinfandel vines are most comfortable when they decide when their fruit is ready. The grapes are gently picked up, placed in canvas bags from Whole Foods (this makes the grapes feel self-important), and then placed in our specially designed bamboo fermenting bins. Our Splooge Rouge is for when you just feel like Splooging after a long day at work.

Your Ejaculate™ membership has many benefits:

Free Tour of the Splooge Estate (normally $30/person)

One of Splooge Estate Tasting Room Jerkoffs™ will take you and up to five guests on a walking tour of Splooge Estate, explaining the natural way we grow and produce wine. Because we are natural wine producers, this is a clothing optional tour, so wear plenty of sunscreen and put a muzzle on your friendly dog. Along the way you’ll visit our world-famous compost heap, where we not only make our own compost, but we use the internal heat generated to bake our famous Splooge bread! Depending upon what’s available in the garden, your friendly Jerkoff™ may instruct you in how to eat an all-natural shit sandwich! At Splooge Estate, as part of our commitment to nature, we also cultivate rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes help control the rodent population, as well as helping to supply the compost heap with local winery dogs. Except in the winter months, you’re likely to see many of our Splooge Snakes. Just don’t get bit on yours!

Discounts at our many Splooge Events

Our Splooge Estate Events are all about having fun naturally. We put on many events over the course of a vintage, and as a Mother Load Splooger, you are given a sizeable discount. We know that our Sploogers enjoy many strokes, and we deliver! Events change in any given year, but there are certain events, the ones that are the most popular with our Ejaculate™ Members, that are held annually. Don’t miss the Splooge Native Yeast Festival in August! The featured entertainer is Miss Sugar, a local ecdysiast, and guests are encouraged to dress as their favorite yeast and try to convert Miss Sugar to alcohol. Miss Sugar loves the native yeasts and converts easily. Those who are cultured she can barely stand. Needless to say, there’s plenty of Splooge on hand for everyone to enjoy. You’ll also want to save the date in May for our “Unnatural Wines Suck” Celebration. Compare our latest Splooge Estate releases to wines that are not naturally made and discover the difference for yourself. Our neighbors’ wines might taste better, they might have less bottle variation, but our natural wines are wines as God intended them to be—punishment for your sins.

And, finally, our natural wines’ finest benefit

The smugness of knowing you’re full of Splooge

Natural wines are simply better. Natural wonders are better than other wonders, right? Natural foods are better than other foods—only the disenfranchised and poor eat foods that aren’t natural—coincidence? I don’t think so. The only wines that have any meaning are natural wines. Just ask the people who make them. Wine is not made to be enjoyed. Every wine you consume is a political statement, no more, no less. And your membership in Ejaculate™ proves that above all you value everything else over taste.