It was another long day of wining it for the wenchfest women, and an even longer night Friday. I finally cracked a liter bottle of semillon that I just couldn’t resist buying last week, and with no option but to finish it off or waste it, I did the only sane thing any wineaux would, and drank it down to the last drop.
The wine must have been a wonder drug, because over the course of the evening, I managed to figure out everyone else’s problems, solve some of the mysteries of the universe, and was well on my way to achieving world peace. I was feeling higher than a Tyrannosaurus Rex in stillettos – until I stood up. I had either already become a brain donor, or should have been used as a scientific experiment. I was stumbling about like someone had served me a mad cow cocktail, with a little Tourette’s on the side. After a week of this all-hours drinking cycle topped off by the liter of semillon, I was about two bottles short of full case – literally and figuratively. sssss
If there’s anything I can count on during my trips to South Africa, it is that there will lots of wine, lots of drinking, and that there will be some kind of crazy shit going down. Up until yesterday, I was starting to wonder if I was going to check all three of those boxes. Other than getting electrocuted by a pig fence, things had been so vanilla sane this past week that I was starting to wonder if the Wild Life karma had moved on to new construction.
Then I wandered into yet another winery Thursday morning, and the magic happened. Sitting at the tasting table, I found myself sandwiched next to the senior, on-steroids version of “Asparagus and Biscuits.” For the uninitiated, A&B were the wine snobs who earned a chapter title in “Back to the Wild Life.” You know the type – the self-impressed ones who can’t resist sharing their wine knowledge with everyone in the house. They bring the house down, alright, but not in a good way. In the Wild Life lexicon, all these types are now routinely referred to as “Asparagus and Biscuits.” But after yesterday’s experience, I think we may have to start designating new sub-species.
A&B subject number one was almost iconic: a lock-jawed, teeth-on-edge old stiff who spoke more through his nose than his mouth, and punctuated his sentences by rolling his eyes, breathing deeply, and arching his eyebrows. Listening to his florid descriptions of the aromas and tastes in each sip, I had to wonder if he was doing acid or in need of lithium. He was attempting to impress everyone within ear-and-eye shot of his wine tasting prowess – if only his own mind, he was wine royalty. Of this much I’m sure: his lordship’s salsa had completely slipped off his chips. His mad blurtings were something straight out of a Monty Python skit.
As if the prattling on of the one who crowned himself King wasn’t enough – he had a companion – and I use that term very loosely here – that was beyond ice princess. I’d bet she hadn’t seen sex this side of a battery-operated boy toy in years, if she’d gotten that far. If there was ever a case for a jolly good rogering, this old bit would have been leading its poster child parade. The tell-tale puss frozen on to her face was broken only by her sipping and self-impressed commentary, which involved correcting, or at least editing, her sidekick’s every word. If he noted grassy flavors, she’d tell him whether it was crabgrass or Kentucky bluegrass. If he said it had asparagus on the nose, she would tell him whether it was white or green. You’d have to put your tongue in a blender to come up with some of the shit coming out of her mouth. It’s no wonder the poor guy’s teeth were on edge, much less that he felt the need to drink and fill the remaining airwaves. A few more minutes with this twosome, and I’d have been leading the mad hatter brigade myself. Sanity being the order of my day, I headed out for greener, non-Kentucky bluegrass pastures.
After another full day of winery visits and getting hosed on our Friday master tasting (thanks to the screwup of the scheduler who forgot about being closed on Good Friday), we headed back to Cape Town for our last few days of the wild life tour. All fired up for some fun in the sun at our place in Camps Bay, we finally got the yang for all our glorious ying in wine country over the past week: just as we approached Cape Town, the clouds came rolling in, and it unleashed buckets. The only good news in that was that we still had lots of wine, actually far too much, from our wine country haul, and a beautiful, if only alternately sunny, view of the mountains right behind us and the ocean right in front of us from our deck. You can pretty much figure out where things went from there.
You’d be right to assume the corks started flying; you’d be wrong to presume we got totally rat-faced. We’ve become quite the paced, if not prolonged, tasting types – even highbrowing it occasionally with cheese, figs and that kind of thing. Other than the occasional midnight madness (as noted above) on my part, it’s becoming a rather sedate and dignified routine.
Through it all, I’ve finally found a new line of work. As the designated server, I’ve now got a full-time job. Guess I can no longer call myself a professional slacker. I’m counting on all you wineaux to keep this gig going for me when I’m back in the states.
I was awaken very early this morning – Easter Sunday – by an intense sun coming in the window. Despite the intensely gloomy weather reports, the sun was shining and it looked like we were finally going to get the amazing day we’ve been waiting for. Cape Town weather is like that – you can never tell where it will go next. Out my back windows were the gleaming Twelve Apostle mountains, out my front window were the roaring waves and big boulders of Camps Bay beach. Not wanting to miss on ounce of these sights in all their glory, I headed straight for the deck. And what to my wandering eyes did appear but two sets of legs packed together, protruding out from under the piles of boulders on the beach, and out of nowhere, someone was screaming like a screech owl. Honest to toads‘ tits, the horizontal rumba under the rocks! A+ for creativity, national honor society for shock value.
Not sure how it is, but when I’m in South Africa, craziness seems to follow me wherever I go. Sometimes I feel like an island of sanity in a sea of madness here, and the waves are crashing all around me. Call me crazy, because that fits, too – but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Put that in your Rorscasch pipe and smoke it.
Cheers from Back to the Wild Life’s foreign desk, and Happy Easter!
