Every spring in our little town, a construction dumpster is placed at the intersection between the courthouse and the middle school and folks haul out their rusted wheelbarrows, brokedown appliances and ephemeral artifacts. It becomes a meeting place for bargain hunters from all walks of life. I've been boosted into it by my husband on many occasions, one year scoring vintage French doors that perfectly fit the opening to our dining room.
This year, from the bowels of the dumpster, I gasped in horror at what I saw. Books! Lots of books. I couldn't rescue them all, so I selected those with the most interesting titles, among them, Wicked Sister, Hostess of the Skyways (and of Ship, Train and Hotel), and In Praise of Wine and Certain Noble Spirits by Alec Waugh. I put the others aside for future reading, but the wine book required immediate attention Excitedly, I showed the book to my husband.
"Why do you want an old book about wine?" he, very reasonably, asked. I don't drink wine and he can't tolerate much alcohol of any kind. When he does have a couple of beers or a few glasses of champagne, he becomes overly affectionate, hugging me too tightly, rubbing my back too vigorously. On New Year's Eve I had to remind him several times – "Don't hurt the pretty lady!"
To avoid being squeezed to death like a classroom hamster, I do most of my social drinking with girlfriends as we celebrate birthdays, promotions and vasectomies. Half of us are beer drinkers. The other half are wine connoisseurs. See how that works? Drinkers versus connoisseurs. It's been over thirty years since Bandit and Snowman hauled 400 cases of Coors from Texarkana to Atlanta in twenty-eight hours and beer lovers are still being lumped in with the rednecks and frat boys. (Although I think Sideways would have been a much better movie if it had been about two men transporting a semi full of pinot noir from Napa to Salt Lake City rather than whatever it was about.)
My early experiences with wine were limited and awful. When the scuppernong grapes ripened, a country relative would present us with a jug of cloying, caustic wine. We'd all get a taste, even the children, and give a deep, breathless shudder. After that seasonal ceremony the bottle was left to molder under the kitchen sink with the other reviled liquors, creme de menthe and Pernod.
In my teens and early twenties I flirted with an arguably better class of wine. At sixteen, my slightly older prom date procured two bottles of Lancer. After prom, we ended up half-dressed and wrestling on his family room sofa, where his mother found us and rousted us from her home with a broom. When he met up with me the next day to return my bra and shoe, he told me his mother was making him choose, that he couldn't live at home any longer if he wished to date me. As I imagined the scene she'd happened upon, her imprurient disapproval – the broom! – I laughed. When he didn't join in, or crack a smile, I soberly told him he'd have many girlfriends over the years but you only get one mother. Next thing I knew, he'd chosen me and moved into a trailer out by the landfill and it took me three long months to gently extricate myself.
I had similarly calamitous experiences with Liebfraumilch and, God help me, Berringer's White Zinfandel. I know it's unfair to swear off an entire species of beverage based upon a handful of unfortunate run-ins with inferior examples, but that's how taste works. Your digestive system has muscle memory, even if your brain has zonked out. Yet I own more than dozen books about wine. As a shorty who is often mistaken for a thirteen-year-old, I am, perhaps, overly sensitive about being seated at the children's table with the beer drinkers. I'd like to be a grown up one day. So I read these books on wine hoping to uncork the mystery, to graduate.
Currently, my alcoholic consumption is confined to beer and cold medicine, and I approached Alec Waugh's In Praise of Wine with these expectations: Alec would say, "My dear, NyQuil isn't a liqueur. I don't care if it is sold with a plastic shotglass."
I'd reply, "Oh conchair moan amy!"
At that point he'd be unable, any longer, to flatten the curl in his lip or politely withdraw the flare of his nostrils. That is to say, I expected a serious treatise on the superiority of wine, clear-cut rules and sternly-worded admonishments delivered in a mocking British accent.
I needn't have worried. Alec, older brother to more esteemed author Evelyn Waugh, was a proper gentleman. The book is filled with alcohol-fueled anecdotes that illustrate his good humor, impeccable manners and an impressive ability to hold his liquor. Alas, the book isn't as illustrative when it comes to the wine itself. He throws off terms like "first growths" and "second growths" and "third growths" as if grape vines have hereditary titles, and for all I know they do. I placed the book on my shelf with the other wine books that have educated but failed to inspire, and – I understand – the task of inspiring a longing where none has existed or where, in fact, a taste aversion has taken root, is an impossible proposition for mere prose.
I do keep trying. It was with a sigh that I entered the wine and cheese shop closest to our home. The young man at the register is always too familiar, loose with the endearments (the week before he'd called me "Sunshine"), and a winker. Endearments from strangers are a Southern woman's burden and I don't ordinarily pay them much mind, but unneutered males should not wink. That means if you are Burl Ives, you can wink.
My sigh wasn't necessarily for the cashier, it was for the ordeal ahead of me, wine selection for an upcoming gathering, because I was trying. Once inside, I became dizzy and overwhelmed by the rows of bottles stacked on shelves that towered above me. I wandered, lost, in a bottle green hedge maze. I was rescued by the cashier, who came up behind me and asked, "You need anything, Sweetheart?"
I pointed to a bottle amid all the other look-alike bottles, one way beyond my reach, "Can I have that one?"
"Honey, you can have anything you want!" Then he winked, and something in me broke.
"Anything? Anything I want?" I asked. I didn't think my tone or expression threatening, but he took a cautionary step back and his can-do smile wavered uncertainly. I said, "Well then, Darlin', I want beer. Not wine."
He followed me as I strode purposefully to the beer cooler and at the register, after he'd bagged my selection, he handed it over, saying, "Here you are, Ma'am." He stood straight as a palace guard and, with conscious effort, kept the corners of his eyes symmetrical.
I smiled as I loaded the bags into my car. I felt like a grown up, like I'd finally graduated -- just not in the way I imagined.
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Brunhilde
Mary Stanik
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Comments
rated with hugs
Love your post and the description of the liquor store salesman.. :D
R
goodness, you do know how to make me laugh!
I have alway accepted my lack of sophistication because I just do not like the taste of alcohol. So, I find ways to be pretentious in other areas...:)
Love the description of Mr. Vance on New Year's Eve.~r
This is too precious - as is all your writing - but that line just cracked me up.
♥R
Print this out, and next time you're in that liquor store, say "honeybunch, I made a little something just for you," and wink.
bumblebees, and honeybees.
I picked some early blueberries.
Great read.
Walking, I read `
`
*
Leaning against the Sun - by Emily Dickinson
*
`
I taste of liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such a alcohol!
Inebriated of air am I,
And debauches of of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When the landlord turns the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce the drams.
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to window run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
Now, to be fair, I have, on occasions and over years, donated thousands of books...just not to dumpsters.
Lezlie
Book????
"My dear, NyQuil isn't a liqueur"
Priceless.
My first mass wine consumption experience consisted of a $2 jug of something more suited to paint stripping that forced my friend & I to buy a 6-pack of 7Up to use as a mixer. I also had a Berringer's White Zinfandel phase. I'm not proud. Yet I grew to love good wine.
With your fine sense of food, I would not have guessed that you had an aversion to wine.
Oh, the takeaway from Sideways -- if you serve enough wine to a woman who looks like Virginia Madsen, she'll sleep with a man who looks like Paul Giamatti. We males who fall short on the Cary Grant Handsome Scale grow up believing this myth. We must.
Susie -- This is an especially *nice* dumpster! We find all kinds of good things each year. It's amazing/sad the things people will throw away. I'm glad there are lots of people salvaging the items and making use of them.
Kathy -- I do tend to word tumble. I wish I were better at creating flow rather than merely following it.
Vanessa -- NyQuil is my time-traveling booze of choice. One swig and I'm OUT for ten hours. When I'm sick I just like to outsleep the virus!
Joan -- Oh yeah, there are plenty of ways to be pretentious, and I'm sure I hit plenty of those.
Fusun -- If there's ever a reason to celebrate its a vasectomy!
Greenheron -- You're making me beam to the point where both of my eyes are winky.
Neilpaul -- Thank you for reading and for the compliment!
Candace -- I do have a few go-to wines that I know others like, even if I don't. You mention the spicy foods, and it's strange that I NEVER put it together the fact that beer goes better with those foods (or that overall taste palate). My friend Sue loves French cuisine and wine and hates beer. When I cook for her I have to tone everything waaaaayyy down.
Art -- Sigh. You always make me swoon with your words. My poem would begin: I stink of liquor over brewed...
Jonathan -- I couldn't believe anyone would just throw books away. Our town library thrift store is just across the street! I did pull more from the dumpster and donated them.
Alysa -- It's always nice to meet another wine hater. When I see the pleasure others take in drinking it, I'm envious. I'm positive I'm missing something.
Dianaani -- I had two years of French. Can't you tell??
Sophieh -- Glad I made you laugh! I do love a happy ending, and I love even more finding them unexpectedly.
Moist -- Totally agree. I've broken so many wine glasses with my clumsy handling that now I have tumbler-style wine glasses that are heftier than stemware.
L -- Hee! If the wine had actual fruits and nuts in it, I might be more interested!
Linda -- You're welcome. With your sophisticated palate, I'm betting you know your wines. It's so lost on me.
Lea -- I'm currently writing a book on wine. This is the first and last chapter!
Matt -- Once I sell the pilot I'm going to need a chicken wrangler. Don't ask why we need chickens, we just do.
Trilogy -- NyQuil is definitely better than creme de menthe and almost as tasty as many other liqueurs I've tried.
Anyone who thinks beer is less "grownup" than wine needs to go to Belgium and taste their wonderful beers, which are just as complex as a good wine. I'll take one of those or a Guinness over wine any day.
So many good lines I can't pick a favorite... I'll just raise a glass in your honor!
Stim -- Ah, a fellow Berringer's White Zinfandel victim. We need to file a class action lawsuit. I hated -- HATED -- Sideways. I think Paul Giamatti's actually far more physically appealing than the character he played who was dopey, whiny, morally corrupt and an alcoholic. No amount of "conventionally handsome" could make those traits attractive.
hugs, me -- Why thank you so much, Dear Heart, Doll Baby, Sugar. (There used to be an older lady who worked the McDonald's drive-thru and when she handed me my Diet Coke she'd say, "He-uh you go Shu-gah!" and I would sometimes go there just to hear her say it.)
Blue in Tx -- I'm always game. I keep thinking that one day I WILL get it. I'll taste the perfect wine that will turn things around. If you lived close enough, I'd let you try!
Bella, I'll say what I've said for years, "The best drink, is the drink you like the best." Still, someday I'd like to clink glasses. Cheers.
R
Kudos on the French doors and the book haul. A little Dumpster diving never hurt anybody...well, not if you do it right.
Dumpster diving? Nope. It's urban archaeology.
Loved this!
Did you suffer spasms of guilt as you "gently extricated" yourself?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo
"Oh conchair moan amy!" This was beyond great and I'm so glad I stumbled upon it!
*wink*
Scarlett -- I knew you'd have something to say. I wish I had your understanding of it! Cheers!
littlewillie -- I knew enough not to dabble in anything called "Southern Comfort" -- such a title is bound to be ironic. Now you know.
Maurene -- I DID get to sip Strawberry Hill one time! My dad had just had a vasectomy (I didn't know what that meant then) and was sitting on an ice pack as we headed toward my grandmother's house. He was sipping from the bottle and getting a little giddy and allowed my brother and I a sip. I thought it was DIVINE!!!
Linnnn -- Urban archeology. I like the way you think.
Clay -- The broom was overkill, I think. If she had merely clapped her hands he would have dismounted!
Chrissie -- Oh yeah. I still feel guilty. Especially after I heard he'd entered the priesthood. I didn't mean to drive him to God.
Christine -- Thanks for reading!
Lunchlady -- I have to think someone told that young man his winking was sexy. Otherwise...
Catherine -- I know Scarlett wrote a piece about ice wine. I do love ice so if anything could make me love wine, it would be the addition of ice, either in theory or practice.
Jeremiah -- Well I certainly wanted to stomp on him!
Franish -- I've heard of restaurants that are paying attention to beer, they just haven't appeared in our area yet. I keep waiting for the trend to migrate.
Algis -- I did actually think about it....I love that song!
Trig -- I want to travel to France but since that's exactly the way I'd pronounce that phrase, I'm afraid I'd be beaten to death with a baguette by a beret-wearing mime.
I am enjoying this immensely! Your words, more than my wine :)
Maria -- You lucky duck! Born with a wino palate. (What do they call beer people? Beeros?)
Dirndl -- I promise to never again publish while you are away. (I'm hoping you are drinking wine and will forget my promise.)
Gabby -- Triaminic is the effete NyQuil! I always knew you were a classy broad.
Geezer -- They do seem to have more attitude than other sales clerks. I'm sure they see a wide spectrum of people and I'll bet they have some STORIES!
Algis -- I thought I'd be a cowgirl. I still think I'll be a cowgirl.