FREE WINE BLOG V: The St Louis of California Wine Products

This is not to be confused with a Free Wine Blog/A Wine Blog That Is Free. The wine is free, but the blog is going to cost you. Don’t worry, I’ll send you an invoice. Yes, by reading this disclaimer, you have already agreed to pay me. This also shouldn’t be confused with Shitty Wine Blog, which is the far superior blog I am lampooning. If you want better writing about terrible wine, go to that blog and disregard this one. Brittany actually knows what she’s talking about when it comes to kitsch beveraging. 
Dear BFD Denizens,

Joey Z here, Founder™ and Creative Director® of Baseball For DinnerⓈⓊⓅ. I know I haven’t been around here much in the last fifteen years or so, but trust, I’m still in charge, if you know what I mean. I’ve been shooting a documentary in the Kingdom of Bhutan after being granted the illustrious opportunity to attend the royal wedding ceremony of the fifteenth granddaughter of King Jingme Khesar Namgyel; but I digress, that is a tale for another time. I am now back at home, safe and sound, in Buenos Aires, and have just received via certified post a bottle of the finest libation from Editor-in-Chief, El Cozo: A Chateau Diana California Merlot Wine Product. It is my honor and privilege to imbibe this sweet ambrosia and provide, as best I can, a thorough analysis of this experience. Slainte! (That’s European for “Try the Monte Cristo!”)

Now, I am no wine aficionado, nor do I possess the most scrutinizing palate. I have been known to express my opinion about many a red wine with “I only wish it was colder”. But by no means am I some sort of rube, some country bumpkin who doesn’t know a thing or two about the Finer Things™. I went to college, and I am in my thirties. My father owns two canoes and I have a FICO score above 400. I am already in the 90th percentile of men. Additionally, Chateau Diana sounds like a place I could spend some time. I happen to know a Diana of the Californian persuasion who I find to be a very favorable lady, especially with wine, and who I would drink up any day of the week. I predict that this delectable wine product will possess a robust bouquet of nostalgia with hints of Hóngshuāngxǐ and the subtle lingering aftertaste of bitter remorse for my lost youth. Can’t wait!

I’ve washed and buffed my favorite stainless steel wine product tumbler and dressed it with two tap water ice cubes, which will help the wine product breathe. We’ll need some Chateauing music, so we’ll begin at the top of Stryper’s “popular” list on Spotify. This is most preferable red wine product-drinking music, as it will help to embolden the patented Blood Product of Christ flavor found in all adult grape liquids without skimping on cold, hard rock.

Mouth-Feels

• My immediate reaction after one sip: there is a lot of wine product in this bottle. Does this exercise require drinking the contents in its entirety? Our humble Editor-in-Chief assures me that the answer is an unequivocal Yes.
• As I take a closer look at the label, I realize that this wine product is 6% ABV. Six percent?! What is this wine product for, exactly? No decent Catholic would allow this in their tabernacle. Blood of Christ? More like King of Kings Lite. On the upside, the ice cubes help.
• The back label declares that it “possesses aromas of died herbs and ripe raspberries.”

  Okay. I’d say it’s more akin to a Welch’s Grape sangria. I wish I had some gum, or perhaps a mentholated cough drop.

• With every laborious gulp, I weep on behalf of all this world’s mortal souls. My stomach is unsettled and a headache draws nigh. That’s a mouth feel, right? I need more ice.

Earth-Feels

This is bunker wine product, plain and simple. After 90 days in a subterranean shelter, this beverage would still taste like regret, but at least it would be a poignant reminder of the horrors of the old world; a biting taste of man’s hubris from the Before Time. Yes; life is better in the bunker after all. We have all the Chef Boyardee, Stryper tapes, backlogged issues of Better Homes & Gardens and wine product we’ll ever need. The lights they may flicker, but our faith in our subterranean chateau will burn bright for the ages. At least, until the wine product runs out. I wish this bottle would run out. I need to turn off this Stryper. I think it might be what’s making me feel sick. Cue up the Nelly!

Experience-Feels

Hip-hop is getting all vaporwaved out. There are multiple layers of samples on this track. I’ve never heard this Nelly song, but it has 77 million plays. The opening line is instantly recognizable as that indiscernible opening line from Kid Ink’s “Promise”, and the song samples some synth calypso rendition of Sexual Healing. Oh, wait. It’s overtly a cover of sexual healing. But the song’s called “The Fix”. Let’s check this shit out on Genius.

Okay, so that first line is “Yo, mustard on the beat, ho”. Cools, I can diggy with it. Oh, that’s cuz DJ Mustard mixed this ish. Said word, sons. Dat ish trill fleeked afff, probably. I’m not sure. Ah, Ride Wit Me, here we go, this some ish I know.

The experience of this wine product horseshit is pure pain. I felt great all day and now I don’t feel good at all. I feel like I just drank several ounces of iodine, or maybe hydrogen peroxide. I think I need some activated charcoal tablets. The bottle is about halfway gone. The Nelly helps a bit. It reminds me of being 19, an age when wine product went down much easier. I want to stop. I feel sad. Whew. Okay. Grow up, Zook. Mind over matter.

Let’s take an experience-feels break while I choke down another tumbler load and take a gander at the ingredients. Yes, this bottle of wine product has an ingredients list:

CALIFORNIA TABLE WINE, WATER, SUGAR, CONCENTRATED JUICE, NATURAL FRUIT FLAVORS, CITRIC ACID AND CARBON DIOXIDE

I just uttered an audible “Auurghh” as I polished off the bottom of another tumbler of this garbage. Coze, you are a scumbag. I hope a seagull shits in your eye. I’ve heard of suffering in the name of journalism, but this is beyond the pale. I am now reading a book from my avant-garde bookshelf called “The Art of Worms”. Time for more ice!

According to Genius, Nelly is going down my street in a Range Rover (read: expensive), street sweeper, AKA an Armsel Striker revolving cylinder 12-gauge shotgun (read: illegal), cocked, ready to “let it go”. Nelly is a poser. You want some real country grammar? I’m a country boy, sons. Lemme spit some legit shit, no fakery:

(To the tune of Country Grammar)
I’m drivin’ country roads, baby, in my Silverado
Fifteen hunnid Remmy underneath the topper, son
Bird shot all I got, cuz that’s all I need
Top out at a hunnid when I aim to speed
[Repeat verse]

You can find me in RC drivin my Chevy
Bed of my truck heavy, haulin salt
This weather, it ain’t my fault
Gotta get out the house
Cuz Mom’s bustin’ Joey Z’s chops
Check the clock
It’s 4:20 on the dot
Hit the spot, call Scott
“Yo Watt, got any pot?”
He say he don’t
How bout tomorrow? He say he won’t

Nevermind, I suck at rapping. I’ll leave it to the professionals, like Young Wayne and Mark Wahlberg. Two more tumblers of wine product should finish off this curse.

[15 minutes later]

The Takedown

 

Chateau Diana California Merlot wine product belongs on a shelf directly between an exploding golf ball and a hand buzzer. It should be relegated to a short list of unamusing gag devices that no one enjoys or appreciates. I can picture the ad for this despicable concoction in the Johnson Smith catalog:

Funny Gag Wine Product
Trick your friends!
Imitation California Merlot goes down like motor oil and comes back up like malt vinegar!
Leave your rivals doubled over in gastric pain!
Putrid taste leaves enemies gagging for hours!
Non-intoxicating. 35¢ per bottle 

I need to go lay down. Coze, I am going to poison you.

– Joey Z