“ANY CHANCE OF CATCHING
A BREAK ON THIS ONE, OFFICER?”
It took me a solid ten hours to get from Sonoma County to the Oregon border. This was partly due to an asshole traffic jam on the 101 and partly due to a migraine that descended on me like an avenging angel. I chalked it up to karmic payment for me not yet being hungover while on a drinking trip. It’s amazing how annoying nature’s wonders can seem when your head feels like an overinflated balloon.
By the time I pulled into Bandon, the light of day was long gone and so was my will to go on. A whiff of the headache was still hanging around like a fart trapped in a seat cushion. My back ached. My ass and lower extremities were completely insensate, except for my right knee, which hurt like a bitch. I’d torn cartilage in it riding a skateboard to brunch a week before I left Venice. Another karmic payback mostly likely, this one for skateboarding over the age of forty.
According to my GPS, my destination, the Bandon Inn, was three hundred feet away. The final stagger of a 415-mile slog that was old after ten. But I was there, and . . . those are police lights. Behind me.
The cop was a dead ringer for Robert Patrick from Terminator 2, only he looked about twenty years younger and twenty times colder. This was clearly payback for not being in ROTC.
“Sir, I need to see your driver’s license and registration, sir,” he said. It was not phrased in the form of a question. As for the “double sir,” well, that’s never a good sign.
“What seems to be the problem, Officer?” I asked, Beaver Cleaver in a Carl Vehicle.
Silence. I grinned nervously, fished out the requested items, and handed them over.
“What brings you to Oregon?” he said finally and sternly, to which I dearly wanted to reply, “I’m here for the none of your fucking business convention.” Having had many unpleasant experiences with Terminator-style cops, however, I knew how they tend to react when citizens exercise their constitutional right to privacy. Instead I told him the truth, that I was researching a book about the most wholesome and beautiful places in this great nation of ours. Bandon, of course, being right there at the top of the list, as I’m sure it is yours, Officer.
He stood there looking at me, expressionless. Right about the time I began to wonder if I’d somehow been frozen in time, he said, “You’re from California?”
“Well, yes, I live there,” I said, not about to get into the whole moving to Nowhere business, “but I actually grew up on the East Co—”
“And you’re a writer?”
“I am,” I replied.
“Well, whaddaya know, so am I. Be right back,” he said, stomping away and climbing into his cruiser.
Within ten minutes of him heading to his car, my headache began to creep back. By twenty minutes it had climbed to full boil. And me within spitting distance of my hotel. (Full disclosure: I cannot actually spit three hundred feet. Yet.) I swear to David Koresh that policeman spent twenty-seven goddamn minutes in his car. What was he doing? Getting scans of my first grade reports from Ms. Lambert? I remember I did struggle with finger painting that year, sir. I hope you can find it in yourself not to hold it against me. At one point I considered jumping out of my car and running at the guy with a tire iron just so he’d shoot me and get it over with.
Finally, all haircut and condescension, Robocop came striding back and silently handed me a ticket. It said I had been doing 46 in a 35-mph zone. A violation that carries with it a $165 fine.
Though I instinctively understood it was futile, I nonetheless tried an appeal to the cop’s sense of civic pride.
“Any chance of catching a break on this one, Officer?” I asked obsequiously. “I promise to write really great things about Bandon in the book.”
Robert Patrick’s doppelgänger stared at me for around the length of an average Phish song. Then he smiled. Warmly, almost. It was creepy as hell.
“How ’bout you do your readers a favor and write ‘don’t speed in Bandon.’ You have yourself a good rest of the evening, sir.”
I did not, in point of fact, have a good rest of the evening.
The hotel had all the warmth and character of an Applebee’s, with Internet slower than Britney Spears doing the Sunday Times crossword. I wish that it didn’t matter, because all I wanted to do was go to bed, wake up, and head to the King Estate Winery in Eugene. Ah, but sleeping would have to wait, because I was on deadline for a column. The weird thing about being a writer is that you actually have to write. No writing, no eating.
To make matters infinitely worse, per my editor’s request, the subject of the column was National Vodka Day. In all likelihood, up until this moment, you have been unaware that there is such a thing as National Vodka Day. But—and this is the superawesome part—THERE TOTALLY IS. Like the annual festivities of Apple Gifting Day (January 1), Something on a Stick Day (March 28), National Gazpacho Day (December 6), and, I shit you not, Petroleum Day (August 28), National Vodka Day is an age-old holiday tradition. Every October fourth, literally tens of adult beverage lovers across this great nation gather to celebrate that blandest of white spirits, mother vodka.
When I say age-old, I mean National Vodka Day has an age. That age is six. Waaaaay back to 2009, when someone who was clearly being paid too much by a liquor industry consortium took it upon themselves to invent it. To make it official, another (probably less-well-compensated) person created a just-this-side-of-parody website. To be fair, it’s more professional looking than the websites for National Taco Day (also October 4), National Chicken Wing Day (July 29), and National Grab Some Nuts Day (August 3). Do not confuse that last one with National Scratch Your Nuts Day, which is . . . let me just check my calendar . . . today! And tomorrow. I celebrated yesterday too. What can I say, I’m full of the Scratch Your Nuts spirit!
After several hours of research while holed up in this cancer of a hotel room, I came to the conclusion that nobody knows who’s responsible for establishing National Vodka Day. This conclusion was not, how you say, true. But at that point I had also concluded that I couldn’t get myself to give half a piece of dried-out sheepshit about who started National Vodka Day. Still, as a long-time connoisseur of terrible, terrible things, I’ll gladly raise a toast to the trailblazing sonofabitch who started NVD, as well as the sad, sad employee of www.partyexcuses.com who had to build its website. And you know what? Let’s give the Taco Day guy some too. Nice job, taco guy! I’m going to have both of you over when National Bullshit Holiday Day rolls around (it’s traditionally celebrated the surpenth Trollsday of Craptember).
Now, some of you might be wondering, Why have a National Vodka Day in the first place? or What’s the significance of October fourth? or Does the fact that I’m thinking about calling in sick to work so I can celebrate a fake holiday mean that I’m an alcoholic?
Well, stop with all your wondering! It’s only going to get in the way of the fun. Sure, it’s ridiculous to have a national holiday to celebrate a distilled spirit, especially one that wasn’t even invented here. And yes, fine, according to the National Vodka Day website (which I now use as my browser’s default), the date was chosen at random. I think that’s very festive. But let me make one thing perfectly clear: skipping work on October fourth so you can drink Smirnoff for sixteen hours straight doesn’t mean you’re an alcoholic, it just means you really like tacos. At least, that’s what any halfway resourceful alcoholic is telling himself and his concerned loved ones.
The point is, there is absolutely no point to National Vodka Day other than it being another excuse to drink, like Cinco de Mayo, Arbor Day, and Yom Kippur. But enough justifications. The real question you should be asking is what type of vodka should you celebrate National Taco Day with. And while it might make sense to go with the standby top-shelf brands (Absolut, Stoli, Grey Goose, Ketel One, and their ilk), you know what would really class up those tacos? Flavored vodkas. Luckily the superclassy vodka industry has introduced some real doozies in recent years.
Take Alaska Distillery’s Smoked Salmon Flavored Vodka, for instance. It was designed to be used in Bloody Marys, but don’t let that stop you. Let the beguiling flavor and aroma of fish into your life by drinking it neat. Just promise me you won’t make a Moscow Mule or Greyhound with it. I’d say you could pour it over a bagel, but just try explaining that to your concerned loved ones. Though maybe you could get away with it on Yom Kippur.
But no matter how bad of an idea fish vodka is, it is still flavored with something edible. What about people who want to drink something that should, under no circumstances, ever be swallowed? What about them? I (don’t) hear you ask! My friends, I have you covered. A few years ago I received a sample bottle of Ivanabitch vodka. Ivanabitch is a tobacco-flavored vodka. The only reason I can think that someone would make such a thing is because vodka doesn’t kill you quickly enough. In the name of science (and in honor of Ivanabitch’s glorious name), I actually tried a shot of this marvelous abomination and nearly hurled.
Now you may have seen writers use the term “nearly hurled” before as colorful hyperbole. This literary device indicates that something was disgusting, but the reader is aware that the writer was never actually on the verge of heaving the contents of his stomach across the room.
Not this time, friends. When I say I nearly hurled after downing a shot of Ivanabitch, that is a precise, 100 percent literal description. My body knew I was doing something deeply wrong to it and immediately rebelled. In the end, though, the sensible part of me was overruled by the Irish part of me and I did not paint the walls with my bile. Still, I should make one thing extremely clear if it wasn’t already:
IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF OR YOUR RUG, STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM IVANABITCH TOBACCO-FLAVORED VODKA.
The thing that pissed me off the most about having to write about vodka, though, was vodka is playing dirty. And winning. I mean, shit, vodka has been bullying the entire alcohol market for decades now. You have to specify that you want gin in a martini these days. Even beer sales have been declining in recent years as vodka’s fortunes continue to rise. But it’s the “fun” flavors that really twist my knickers. For ages, if you wanted to drink an intoxicating fruit-flavored liquid, you had to drink schnapps, or hit the clubs on Fire Island in August. And we all had a good time pitying poor harmless little schnapps with its sad bottom-shelf section and dusty bottles and terrible hangovers. But then vodka came and curb-stomped schnapps and stole its turf.
There is birthday-cake-flavored vodka now. And whither schnapps?
When vodka came for gin I said nothing because it was not summer. Then when vodka came for beer I said nothing because I was on this whole gluten-free thing. Now it’s come for schnapps though, and even though I don’t drink that shit, I’ll be good and goddamned if I’m not going to stick up for it in its hour of need.
See, vodka is not supposed to be fun. Vodka was invented as a way of grimly making yourself as intoxicated as possible while cursing the tsar. You want “fun”? Go see schnapps.
Just two months and change after National Vodka Day comes October 16, also known as National Liqueur Day. Next time it rolls around, I implore you to get on down to your local liquor purveyor and ask him for his finest bottle of DeKuyper Buttershots. It tastes like two butterscotches fucking in your mouth. And while you’re there stock up on Banana, Watermelon, Bubblegum, and Whipped Cream schnapps. Then check into the hospital and get a head start on your type 2 diabetes treatments.
I’M HAPPY TO REPORT THAT the rest of the time spent in Oregon did not resemble my experience in Bandon. For instance, I had a wonderful time at the King Estate Winery in Eugene, where a young man named Tom DeVaul gave me a tour of the facilities and tasted me through the entire portfolio of Oregon’s largest wine producer.
Tom’s official job title at King Estate is “wine educator.” I saw this for what it was, an opportunity for me to not look stupid on the rest of the trip. So I picked his brain a little about the basics of wine production. And because I am a PROFESSIONAL REPORTER, I even wrote several of the terms down. I did not, for some mysterious reason, write down what any of the stuff he told me meant (see also, me tasting through the entire portfolio of Oregon’s largest wine producer). But to be honest, a lot of this stuff is pretty straightforward. And I made up the rest. This is the strategy that got me where I am today. I’ll be damned if I compromise my ideals to some fascist notion of accuracy.
WINE PRODUCTION BASICS EXPLAINED
BLENDING
The act of mixing the wine.
BOTTLING
The act of putting the wine in a glass container.
COLD STABILIZATION
I think this is what they do to Coors Light to make it taste like corn-fed water.
COLDPLAY
The act behind such hits as “Yellow” and “Clocks.”
DESTEMMING
The savage neutering of grapes. Don’t think they won’t come for you.
FILTERING
Filtering. I could do this in my sleep.
FINING
Making fun of people who look like Larry from the Three Stooges.
LEES
Place to get a shirt dry cleaned after you spill wine on it.
MACERATION
Pleasuring yourself to thoughts of Pinot Noir.
PRESSING
Trying too hard. See also the Lees and Larry jokes.
PUMP-OVER
Doing it missionary style.
RACKING
An area you can hold on to while doing it missionary style.
RIDDLING
Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?
SKIN CONTACT
That thing the HR Department called you in about.
SOLERA
Either the title of a George Clooney movie, or something you put on pasta.
That night I dined alone at King Estate’s elegantly rustic restaurant, feasting on ahi poke, duck galette, gnocchi parisienne, and striped bass. It was amazing. And the wines they selected for me were exquisite as well, from the crisp Paradox Pinot Gris to the light, bright, and earthy Croft Pinot Noir.
Best part of the evening, though, hands down, was the server. Lovely young woman. An actual ray of sunshine. I’ll call her Clothilde. (Because I can’t recall her real name and would have had to change it anyway.) She’d recently graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in some kind of fancy business. And she was hoping to go into farming. I think. Or . . . pharmaceuticals? Regardless, she was lovely and sweet and unassuming—a combination not often found in L.A. By my third glass of Pinot Noir I was laying it all on the line. I told her I wished I lived in Eugene. That I longed to be amongst people like her. Real people with real lives who wanted nothing more than to till the land . . . or sell Cialis to farmers. Either way, she was too kind to correct me.
“You know what? I think I’ll move here when I’m done with this trip,” I said, drunk enough to almost mean it.
“You should. You’d love it here,” she said. And her big green eyes sparkled. I mean, shit, they actually glimmered and lit up the room. I have the words ocular aurora written in my notebook from that night. Yes, goddamnit, I would love living in Eugene. It’s a fine place. There’s the university and this winery and . . . there was Clothilde. I mean, let’s face it, I wasn’t about to enroll in school or become a winemaker, so she was my primary motivation for relocating. But that was just fine because she was perfect. Resplendent, innocent, and pure. Girls like her don’t come along very often. At least, not anymore. They used to, though. All the time, actually. Back when I wasn’t so acutely aware of my own mortality and was consequently in no rush to settle down. Before I found out that the dreams, aspirations, and expectations I’d been carrying around since childhood have been beaten, heaped into a pile, laced with C4, and blown to actual fuck. You know, the good ol’ days.
Holy shit, it’s happening, I thought, as I watched perfect Clothilde with her perfect hands and feet and calves and neck make their way back to the kitchen. I’m having a stupid textbook goddamn midlife crisis. This is what it looks like. A single fortysomething man, alone in a restaurant far from home, trying to impress a woman half his age with idle boasts and cheap come-ons.
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I glanced down and saw something that made my blood run cold. I was wearing a hoodie. A Stüssy hoodie I bought at . . . Macy’s. It was on me. It was all over me. Once I made the connection the signs became more and more obvious. The sudden impulse to pack up and go. The weight loss. The new wardrobe. My thoughts of going to Bonnaroo and/or Coachella. The package of Just For Men I had made sure to pack when I left L.A.
Now, now, I told myself. A lot of guys, maybe even all guys, go through midlife crises. But aren’t they supposed to feel kind of . . . good? (So long as you can keep yourself from realizing you’re having one, of course.) I mean the underlying feelings are uncomfortable, sure. But the whole point is that you’re sort of not in touch with the actual feelings and are instead channeling them through your various desperate attempts to return to a state of adolescence. And man, are desperate attempts at recapturing adolescence fun. I mean shit, who doesn’t want to go to Bonnaroo? (Me.) Or run around in a zippy little roadster with a twentysomething blonde and do a bunch of blow? Sure getting old sucks, but some things never get old, right?
It dawned on me that I was having the shittiest midlife crisis in history. Where was my twentysomething blonde? Where was my sweet little roadster? And for the love of all fuck, where the hell was all my blow? Last time I checked, it was just me and Carl Vehicle riding down highway after highway, paying too much for gas, grumbling about my achy knee, and fantasizing about settling down with Clothilde and squeezing out a few puppies.
Which is when it all clicked. I wasn’t having a midlife crisis. This was the dying gasp of my adolescence. After overstaying its welcome and running up a truly hideous bar tab. And sure, when your adolescence lasts into your forties, it’s a crisis. Just not the fun, blondes-roadsters-and-blow kind.
When I performed a quick survey of my life through this lens, it started making a whole lot more sense. It’s simple. I’ve managed to maintain my arrested development long enough that other guys my age had started to have midlife crises, causing them to start acting like me again. Only I’m done now. They’re coming back to Bonnaroo in their forties to find me just finally packing up my tent. I mean seriously. Clothilde here was no twentysomething roadster-riding hottie. Sure she was gorgeous, but this woman wasn’t coked-out party trash; she was high-quality breeding stock. The kind of strong, capable woman you can build a family around. And probably far too smart to get involved with a mess like me.
There was, however, an upside to all this. If my math was right, at this rate I would hit my actual midlife crisis sometime in my eighties. Huh. Something to look forward to, I guess. As a side benefit, I think it also means that I’m going to live to 160. From eighty to a hundred it’s going to be nothing but party trash in little coupes with the top down and kilos of coke blown up my ass, Stevie Nicks style.
That is if I can still get out of bed. Because frankly, the mileage is starting to show on me a little. In the months leading up to the trip, I was in a great deal of discomfort as a result of a back injury. I sustained this injury while yawning. If a yawn could precipitate back spasms, what would happen if I sneezed? Probably just a giant brainsplosion out my nose.
But the creeping doubt? The questions? Is this all there is? Who am I, really? What’s the point of it all? Do you think that bear is friendly? Who farted? They had to go. I didn’t get this far by thinking things through. I had to clear my head of any misgivings about who I was, what I was doing and why. Just keep moving, Deep breaths. Don’t panic. Like a wise man once said, “Be the ball, Danny.” Be. The. Ball.
The restaurant manager came up and introduced himself. Young guy. Confident. Looked like he’d been working out.
“Would you like to try some of our Domaine Pinot Noir?” he asked.
“I think you know I would,” I said. I was feeling toasty by now. And this whole “have the best winemakers in the country treat you to their product” thing was feeling pretty good.
After he filled my glass, I asked him if he knew that National Vodka Day was coming up.
“I did not know that. In fact I did not know there was a National Vodka Day.”
“You’re not alone,” I replied. “But I really think it could catch on. You know, with the kids.”
“We carry a number of fine vodkas. Would you like to see a list?”
It’s a wine trip, dance with the one who brung ya. “Maybe later.”
“Okay, Mr. Dunn. Just let me know,” he said. “Are you enjoying everything so far?”
“You know, I really am,” I said. “Some things more than others.”
“Oh really? What’s been your favorite?”
“Well, to be honest, no offense to the menu and it’s all been pretty tasty, but Clothilde is probably the most delicious thing in here.” Oh man, I am a lovable scamp, aren’t I?
“Excuse me?” he said.
“Her,” I said, jerking my thumb toward the kitchen. “The waitress.”
He smiled, exuding calm understanding. “Oh. Yes. She is gorgeous.”
“You said a mouthful, buddy,” I said, being the ball. “What’s her story?”
“Grew up here. Went to UO. Majored in pharma-ing. Been working here a couple of years, ever since we opened. We got engaged last year,” he said.
“Oh,” I said.
And then he didn’t say anything. Just smiled. So I smiled back, took a sip of wine, and waited to die. Please. Now. I thought the cop in Bandon was comfortable with silences, but this young man had him beat. I found myself wishing I’d taken him up on that vodka offer.
After a solid seventeen-year silence, he spoke.
“How was the gnocchi parisienne?”
“My favorite,” I said. “I’m thinking of proposing.”
AFTER EUGENE, I HEADED NORTH to spend four glorious days visiting wineries across the lush Willamette Valley, Oregon’s largest and most celebrated AVA (American Viticultural Area—a federally recognized growing region). It’s a wonderful place. Undoubtedly one of the finest wine-producing regions in all the world. IN ALL THE WORLD, I say! More often than not, the juice harvested there is rhapsodic, poetic. Indeed, if ever I have tasted The Wild Swans at Coole in a bottle, I surely did so there on that broad plain between the Oregon coast and the Cascade Range. I have not, however, ever read The Wild Swans at Coole. But I hear it’s lovely.
I’ll be covering the area more thoroughly in my follow-up to this tome, which will be titled American Wino 2: The Quickening, or American Wino 2: I Know Where You Drove Last Summer, or American Wino 2: Breaking Training, or American Wino 2: Mall Cop. But for now, though, I’ll leave you with four things that make the Willamette Valley special.
THE SOIL
The Willamette Valley is filthy with great dirt, from some of the deepest deposits of fertile alluvial soil on the planet to fine and nutrient rich loess to volcanic Jory that imbues the region’s Pinot Noir with its signature spiciness. Soil, I should point out, is key to the process known as growing stuff, which in turn is one of the main components of winemaking. Indeed, in the absence of grown stuff—in this case, grapes—wine tends to lack structure and complexity.
THE PEOPLE
Willamette is home to some of the top winemakers in the United States, among them Ken Wright of Ken Wright Cellars, Tony Soter of Soter Vineyards, Laurent Montalieu of Solena Estate, Alex Sokol Blosser of Sokol Blosser, Véronique Drouhin-Boss of Domaine Drouhin, Josh Bergström of Bergström Wines, Rollin Soles of Rocco Wines, Patrick Reuter of Dominio IV, David Adelsheim of Adelsheim Vineyard, and Jason Lett of The Eyrie Vineyards.
THE WINERIES
There are over three hundred wineries in the Willamette Valley, and a great many of them boast gorgeous tasting rooms and outdoor patios with spectacular views. Among the best to visit are Domaine Serene, Penner-Ash, Stoller Family Estate, Ponzi Vineyards, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Winter’s Hill Vineyard, and Marks Ridge Winery.
THE CLIMATE
There are three gaps in the Coast Range that allow cool air to flow from the Pacific Ocean into the Willamette Valley. One is called the Van Duzer Corridor, and the other two are unnamed. Well, at least they were unnamed as of this writing. I’ve got calls in to Nike chairman Phil Knight and the folks over at AshleyMadison.com. Branding, my friends. It’s all about branding. Which reminds me, this list is brought to you by . . .
This National Vodka Day, enjoy the world’s first Mega-Ultra-Jeans-Creamium Vodka, made from the fermented mash of hand-harvested caviar, distilled thirty-seven times in Lalique crystal pot stills before being filtered through the tiny toes and fingers of the offspring of royalty. From there, PlatinuLuxEgant travels first class to Rome, where each individual bottle is hand-numbered in gold and blessed by the pope. PlatinuLuxEgant Mega-Ultra-Jeans-Creamium Vodka, the only vodka known to humankind that is guaranteed to make you cream in your jeans. Every time.