The idea of a wine tour fills me with images and emotions that make me feel high falootin. So when approached with the idea of staying in a cabin in Washington an getting a wine tour to boot, I was very much down. I like to think that I am the kind of person that knows nothing about wine, but when in the setting of a sophisticated winery that once the owners/wine people saw me, they would know that I was one of them. We would exchange looks of "I like the nose on this one but this 92 syrah is a bit too capricious, wouldn't you agree?". We would then spit our wine into a ceramic urn and cleanse our pallets with 100 dollar bills. Maybe I aim a bit high? Maybe I should think that Chili is the best thing to accompany a nice chardonnay, but I won't get ahead of myself. Our delightful friend Andrew was so nice to set this up for us. I am so grateful and must state that because it was so sweet. He too had other ideas of a wine tour that perhaps did not line up with what occurred, but I doubt he would have traded it in for a "real" wine tour with actual "wine", and neither would I. This my friends was the annual Chehallis wine valley tour. A six stop wine romp. We decided to start the furthest away and work closest to the cabin so that maximum drunkenness could be achieved with minimal drunk driving. We pull up to the address of destination one. In place of a sprawling vineyard was a manicured field. Instead of a chateau, there was a model home. Granted it was the first model home in a growing community of model homes, so in that way it was the best float in the parade. It had a tent in front. You knew this was straight class, alls the ways. The woman who took our I.d and gave us our souvenir glasses was a lovely lady I will name Sherry. She had a beautiful scalp I must say. the way it glistened through her eiffel tower of teased hair was like it had been kissed by angels. Glitter kisses. This was the moment that set the bar for the tour. What this "winery" lacked in taste, sophistication, and sanitation, It gained in punny wines. Who wants a Chianti when you can have a "Key Auntie"? Apricot breeze would have made any arbor mist fan sell their black hills gold for a mere sip. What's that? Tamale pie dip chili thing? I hear they got the same stuff over there in that France. On to destination two. Same house, with same tent in new town. The key to consumers being comfortable is uniformity and berry wines a plenty. Cranberry wine? Sign me up! But this one was the edgy winery-like-thing. It was a "Whinery" except you need to cross out the H cause there's no whining apparently. It served Chili straight outta the crock pot an it hired a band. A band that had writes up like, "They take words and turn them into songs"-chehallis examaner. "One of them has a guitar"-hoboken press. That last one may not be that accurate, they had two guitars. They were called....RAVINWOLF! They channeled their spirit animals, hung up their tye-dye back drops, and "Stevie nick'd" their mic stands. Destination three: Carols place. We drove down a muddy dirt road and made a left into a drive way with a hand carved wood sign on a pine tree that read "Carols place". Carols place should probably become a rehab. Standing in line for our wine, you could see/hear that Carol has already tied one on. She tied it on and then made it drink its Elizabeth Taylors "white diamonds" once it ran out of wine to stay drunk. She is the messiest thing in Washington, and no amount of time spent in the mirror trying to look like Sarah Palin could hide that fact. Her attempt to check our I.Ds (we had stamps by the way) was comical. "So uh...eh....what's the date thats ok?"she says.
"oh...uh....I don't know.....88?" her helper says.
"So...uh....before or uh.....after 88?".
This woman MAKES wine? It was a hard to choose which of these fine wines to imbibe. Do I take the "badass blackberry wine" or the "super spectacular strawberry". Its like asking yourself "do I have caviar or pate?" I chose "Perfectly pleasurable plum", a sound decision, no? It tasted like spiked pedialyte. And when I say spiked I mean someone added food coloring. Someone named Carol. After a stomach-ache we leave and head to destination number 4. This place was alright. No berry wines, and no Carols. Destination 6. We decided to skip 5 because ones mouth can only taste so much splendor/glorified hot fruit in one day. The last stop was the perfect finish. A house that owned 100 acres of christmas trees and a stranded tug boat in the backyard. And Kay. Kay Warner was our wine hero and Cords future sugarmomma. We try their wines and they are good enough to warrant me paying 6 dollars at fred meyer. So Cord asks the old woman standing behind us sneering, why there are so many berry wines around. "Lack of sophistication" she says.
Kay is now our favorite. Our anti-Carol.
then proceeds to tell us that she could have medals and all that shit but she doesn't have the time to ship her wines around, ya know, being in Asia half of the year. "most of those people just add fruit extract and call it wine". You know she was talkin bout Carol. Kay was rich, mean, and didn't give a fuck. But she did give Cord her card. So with luck, he can land a sweet 65 year old woman that can get us into the 3rd annual Chehallis valley wine tour. Fuck Napa.
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