The World in a Plastic Cup

Well, thanks to DeWayne-O, I’ve had a chance to actually hold Kindle in my hand and scroll through Part I of my book, A Ruminant on Spudders Crest; A Year of Growing, Making and Enjoying Wine, and it looks pretty dang good. There are some trifling oddities; Tab problems, with indents a little out of whack here and there. But part of the joy of this book is that it’s not exactly ‘in whack’.

So all you Kindlers out there, if you have four bucks rattling around in your pocket, you might want to shell out for the opening salvo of my serialized book, which will be released in four parts through 2009.

Now, how about some whining. Specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot about stemware lately. You know how some wine snoots get all exercised about glasses, how you can’t drink any wine unless it’s in the exact glass to match it. Well, I say phooey on that. And so do the folks at Portland’s Keller Auditorium. LeAnne and I recently caught ‘Wicked’ there, and as we arrived a bit late (traffic!) we hardly had time for a glass of wine before the curtain went up.

We were delighted to discover wine is allowed in the auditorium -with one little caveat. It’s gotta be in a sippy cup. A plastic cup with a snow-cone top and a straw hole. O well, us winos will do anything for a hit. LeAnne had a nice Italian Pinot Grigio, and I a Korbel sparkling wine (can you imagine the howls of laughter at the Riedel company?) Well, we had the last laugh, as we strolled to our seats sucking on straws.

In rapid succession after that, on a four day trip to San Diego, we had more wine out of plastic cups than out of stemware. Beginning on the flight down (Alaska), with the Stone Cellars by Beringer, NV California Chardonnay, $5, and you know, doggone it, it wasn’t bad. The plastic made the wine seem all the more elegant.

Every touristy thing we did in San Diego -zoo, Petco Park, Seaworld, even around the hotel pool- we were confronted with plastic cups. The San Diego Zoo (which is pretty awesome) has a number of eating establishments spread around the sprawling compound, most of which serve wine. We paused between the monkeys and tigers (not literally between them) for a quick pick-me-up in way of a simple Pinot Grigio served in environmentally friendly plastic cups, made from 100% plant material. I‘d like to see the trees they grow them on.

We caught the final exhibition game at Petco Park, between the Padres and Angels. What an excellent baseball stadium, and they serve decent wine. I had enough Merlot to keep me warm on what turned out to be a rather chilly evening. Padres lost, 7-6.

In light of all this, why then is Seaworld so wine unfriendly? Well, it’s owned by the Busch Entertainment Group, so most of the refreshment stands sell only ‘Select Anheuser-Busch beverages’. Which is to say: Bud. No wine. I thought this was California, for crissakes. While we had a great time getting drenched on the Journey to Atlantis and Shipwreck Rapids, we had to search almost all 186 acres to find wine at the Calypso Bay Smokehouse. And then it was Gallo. Nothing says high-falutin’ like Gallo in a plastic cup.

At least the mimosas we had while relaxing around the pool at the wonderful Hotel Solamar were served in plastic Champagne flutes.

Finally, I had a chance on the flight back to PDX to do my own private wine tasting. Because we were stuck in the last row (24), we were also the last to get our select non-Anheuser-Busch beverage service. To save time and trouble I bought two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon and weirdly enough got two different brands. So, by instinct (and profession) I held my own little wine tasting in seat F. With plastic cups.

The Delicato, 2005 California Cabernet Sauvignon, $5, is slightly sweet and has that fake oak -staves, chips, or sawdust- flavor. And while I wouldn’t toss it out the window at 40,000 feet, I wouldn’t let it near my Riedel Bordeaux glass.

The Stone Cellars by Beringer, NV California Cabernet Sauvignon, $5, is by contrast extremely fruity, almost pretty, but with a bit of depth and complexity, and solid tannins. Very glass worthy.

See there, now the whole trip is a write-off. Cha-ching!