The Guy's Guide to Wine
By Mark Criden
I was in the middle of a gang war when a wine tasting broke out.
My pal Howard and I recently planned to atone for Native American subjugation in the time-honored manner of leaving a financial offering at the Seneca Niagara Casino. (Slogan: The only waterfalls that count roll down your cheek every time the dealer draws twenty-one.) Howard and I make this hajj every few months, usually first grabbing a bite at some pasta joint in the Falls. After that night’s carbo-loading, we stepped out onto Pine Avenue into a hail of bullets.
Diving into an open doorway, we landed with a thud against the concrete floor of the local liquor warehouse. The lights were out, but we could still make out the four jamokes whose Uzis were now trained on us. “Who the hell are you?” asked the one we later learned was called Bendis.
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Illustration by Jean-Pierre Thimot.
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Howard knew I was about to ask the same question and smacked me in the back of the head. Then he shoved me into the corner and crouched down beside me just as a hand grenade bounced into the room. Bendis grabbed it and tossed it back across the street. “Back to Bombay, you freaks,” he screamed.
Bendis turned and looked at me hard. “You only got—what?—1,200 words,” he said, “So I’ll have ta mix exposition into my dialogue.” The other guys shrugged and turned back to the window. “You got the narrative, man,” said the one called Kirkman, emptying a clip at the storefront across the street.
The return volley nicked Bendis and he spat out several teeth before eyeing us again. “Me, Kirkman, Ennis, and Brubaker here got this little insurance business going on this block o’ Pine. You wanna do business here, you pay us for protection, ya know what I mean?”
Sure I knew what he meant. I mean, I watch The Sopranos.
“Last month, these nancies across the street opened this Yoga Studio …”
“Hatha Vinyasa, if ya wanna be accurate …” Ennis added helpfully.
“Shut your damn gob,” Bendis shouted. “I don’t care where they stick their friggin’ heads; they’re nancies all the same. Anyways, me and the boys go ’round and say they gotta pay up, and whaddya know, these big boys from the old country come out from the back o’ the store and tell us to get the hell out.”
“Call ’emselves the Down Dawgs,” said Ennis, reloading.
“I got the damn narrative. Anyways, these big Dawgs, they pull out Glocks and tell us to get our damn asses out and if they ever see us again, we’re gonna be in corpse pose for good. And then Brubaker there pulls out his Magnum and says ‘Your suffering is your benefit, asshole,’ but before he can get a bead, those Down Dawgs raise theirs and we jump out and across the street where we are now.”
“Friggin’ yoga,” spits Brubaker.
“Friggin’ nancies,” spits Ennis.
I was getting riled. “You got a problem with yoga, bud? Lots of guys do yoga …”
Once again, instinct—or was it Bendis’ right fist?—put me on my ass. “Nancy guys do yoga, ya jerk. Real guys don’t do yoga. Real guys—guys with balls, guys that watch football, guys that ride bikes—don’t watch ballet, they don’t eat quiche, they don’t drink wine, they don’t do yoga, they …”
Hold it. What did he say? Real men don’t drink wine? I had had enough. I got to my feet and smacked Bendis hard across the chest. His Uzi burped as he fell backwards. I kicked it out of his hand, whipped out my pocket corkscrew, and rested it against his temple. The other three trained their guns on me.
“Unless you want me to open him like an Australian merlot, you’re going to listen to what I have to say,” I said. “You bastards think the only thing a real man drinks is beer and whiskey.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” agreed Kirkman.
“Sometimes I go for a vodka martini on the rocks with a twist,” Ennis offered.
“Well, real men drink wine, too.”
Another grenade rolled into the room; Brubaker tossed it back across the street where it exploded loudly. “Rabbit Pose, ya jerks,” he roared.
Bendis may have been short, bald, and sweaty, but damn if he wasn’t defiant. “You’re nuts. The whole wine thing is for girly-men. Real men don’t want none o’ that.”
“Real men know that wine’s as great a drink as ale or scotch. Real men don’t need to adopt some alpha male pose to hide their extra Y chromosomes.”
“Ah, you’re just jealous,” Brubaker snorted.
I pushed the tip of the corkscrew a little against Bendis’ left temple. He was sweating profusely. “I’ll tell ya what it is, mate,” he whimpered. “It’s too damn complicated, too involved, too damn compulsive.”
“Can you count to ten, buddy?” I asked. Bendis looked at Kirkman, who shrugged. “’Cause I got ten rules,” I told him. “Ten rules for men drinking wine. Think you can remember ten, asshole?”
Bendis nodded. I moved the corkscrew from his head, reached into an open box, and pulled out a bottle. The cork came out swiftly. I passed the bottle around, and spelled out Man’s Ten Wine Drinking Commandments:
1. No white wines. Men are nervous about wine the same way they’re nervous about dating; they don’t want to look stupid. Men need clear signals, and nothing’s easier than cutting your anxiety in half. If someone asks why you keep passing on the Chard, just repeat the old saw that The First Duty of a Wine Is to Be Red. No one has ever known what this means, but you’ll look smart saying it, which is a real bonus.
2. No sparkling wines. Unless you’re down with the Nick Fury look, give sparkling wines a wide berth. If you’re an amateur, there’s no way of telling where that cork is going to hit when it explodes from the bottle. Besides, saying “bubbly” is one of the surest ways to get you clocked at the gin mill.
3. No Merlot. These are reds and not reds. Most examples of Merlot have the complexity of Juicy Fruit; the label is usually more attractive than the wine. It’s the red wine for people who don’t like red wine. You’re a guy; you like red wine. No Merlot.
4. No Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir, the red grape of Burgundy, makes a sophisticated, elegant wine that, at its best, combines great intensity of flavor and aroma with a medium weight. Wine lovers spend decades debating the relative merits of vineyards ten feet apart. Skip Pinot Noir; it’s too bloody complicated.
5. No collecting. I know that men can be supremely compulsive; many men’s lifetime accumulations of baseball cards, coins, stamps, records, wine, cars, and guns make collectors of Hummel Figurines look relaxed. But anal is not an anagram for manly, and believe me, you do not want to suggest that when it comes to wine cellars, yours is bigger.
6. No pairing. Eat what you like; drink what you like. Do not get caught with an aroma wheel or pocket chart stressing you over what wine goes best with both your Pasta Roulade with San Marzano Tomato Sauce and your date’s Monkfish, Avocado, and Beurre Blanc. (Hint: None.)
7. No numbers. This means no vintages, no prices, and no scores. Numbers are for the neurotic. Sure some vintages—that is, growing seasons—are better than others. But asking a winemaker what’s his favorite vintage is like asking who his favorite child is; each has a different appeal. Unless you’re going to ignore Rule 5 you won’t care about cellar worthiness. Price? Does a gentleman tell? And scores? Do you really care if one wine got an 88 and one got an 89? All you have to remember is the two-point scoring system. One point if you can get it down; two points if you can keep it down.
8. Keep it to yourself. There’s no bore like a wine bore. When you pop a cork, take a sniff, take a gulp, and move on. Waxing rhapsodic about the creosote in the bouquet is bound to get you smacked around in the duck blind. Remember the first rule of Fight Club.
9. The following are the only wines to drink: From California: Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon. From France: Côtes du Rhone from the Southern Rhone and Hermitage from the Northern Rhone. From Italy: Barbera and Nebbiolo, which makes Barolo and Barbaresco. Each one of these will probably produce a gutsy, manly glass that’ll make you wonder why you stayed away so long.
10. Keep it simple. If you forget the first nine rules, just remember to take it easy. No one on your bowling team is going to give a damn about how the grapes were grown, how the wine was made, how rainy it was during the growing season, what the blend is, or how long you had to be on the mailing list to snag your allocation. Wine is delicious, thirst quenching, and a powerful alcohol-delivery system. That’s all they want to know.
As I finished my tutorial, we looked up and saw the Down Dawgs in the doorway, in rapt attention. The head Dawg held out a bottle as a peace offering. Bendis took it, and then held it out for me to see. This dumb son of a bitch brought a Merlot to a gunfight.
Tensions were rising, but to save the day I reached into an open carton and pulled out a half-bottle of zinfandel. “Say hello to my little friend,” I said.
Mark Criden, a non-profit executive, is the former chair of the Buffalo Branch of the IWFS. You can reach him at mcriden@yahoo.com.
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