Many of us would consider ALL white zinfandel to be a wine "product"--or even a wine by-product. Still, that's a pretty poor choice on David's part. If you're going to go low-end, you gotta go all the way to the bottom--Blue Hawaii Boone's Farm. And you must drink it rapidly, from the bottle, and after each chug you must pass the bottle to someone else and yell "Cannonball coming!"

Don't mock the screwcap though--a lot of decent wineries are starting to use them, as they actually create a better, longer lasting seal than the traditional cork--a 250 year old technology that replaced the original rag-shoved-in-the-end-of-the-bottle.

Hey - there you are! I forgot that you are the ultimate oenophile. I recently read about the respectability of the screw top but I am not quite ready to embrace it myself. I might, however, embrace some Blue Hawaii Boone's Farm.

Reminds me of high school!

Cannonball coming!

Yeah, I got a little busy at work there, had to go incognito for a while. But I'm back, and I'm frequently inebriated again, so look out--cannonball coming!

Hey, WineBob!

Tonight I was picking up a bottle of Moscato. Why is it that sweet wines like a Gerwitztraminer or a Moscato have those different shaped bottles? Do you know?

Anyway, on my way out, I saw the "Wild Vines" Blackberry Merlot Product. It looked like it would be good for breakfast. I resisted the urge.

The options are exciting when you live in a "damp" city.

As far as I know, it's pretty much just a matter of tradition. Gewurtztraminers, Rieslings and other German varietals tend to come in those tall, slender bottles--so even the ones made in the US tend to come in the same kind of bottle, again probably just out of tradition. Burgundy and Bordeaux each have their own distinct bottle shape as well, which can wreak havoc on a wine cellar...I've heard that the Bordeaux bottle is supposed to be better equipped to catch sediment, as those wines are more likely to have sediment in them...but that may be an old wives' tale. Bottle shape is pretty much just a marketing tool though.

I had blackberry brandy and chocolate ice cream for breakfast once when I was a kid, staying with my uncle. At the time I thought it was really cool. Now that I'm an adult, and realize that this particular uncle (nicknamed "Uncle Rambo" for his ridiculous Vietnam war stories) has been married four times and arrested twice, I can appreciate why this was not the breakfast of champions it appeared to be at the time.

That's as close as I'll ever come to drinking a Wild Vines Blackberry Merlot Wine Product, though. If you're gonna drink awful crap, might as well make it Boone's Farm. Cannonball coming!

Oh and here is an article on the disappearing wine cork, from "Professor Bainbridge on Wine". Midway down is a reference to my entry on "The Little Pink Box".