ELEVEN
The Most Delicious Women and Dessert Wines I’ve Ever Had Have One Thing in Common
ne of the best assignments I’ve ever had as a booze writer was a piece I did on Savanna Samson. You may be familiar with part of Savanna’s work—probably the part that has to do with her being one of the world’s biggest porn stars. But in recent years she’s begun to explore a different area of passion: winemaking. My assignment? Figure out if she’s the real deal (as a winemaker, that is—her porn credentials are unassailable) and write about the experience. My research for this basically entailed drinking a lot of wine with a gorgeous and notoriously sexually voracious celebrity and talking fermented grape juice. I was a wee bit excited. Kind of like a kid in a candy store. If candy stores had giant, gorgeous tits in the window and a serious case of fuck-me eyes.
And if that weren’t enough, she makes wine. Better yet, she makes good wine. When she first launched her wine project back in 2005, Savanna told me she fully expected to get bent over a barrel by skeptics. But before the purists and prudes could pounce, her debut release, Sogno Uno, received a ringing endorsement from none other than Robert Parker. Parker is the single most influential wine critic in the world, and while he declined to weigh in on her cinematic achievements, he felt that what she was putting in bottles was nothing short of astounding. He gave Sogno Uno a 91. And this man does not mess around when it comes to wine. Scoring above a 90 with him is considered a major achievement.
When I arrived at Savanna’s spacious yet homey New York City apartment, I found her dressed not as a dominatrix and with nary any latex or ten-inch clear heels in sight, but rather barefoot in black sweats with a long-sleeved paisley T-shirt and her hair up in a ponytail. At that moment I realized how small a corner I had unconsciously painted her into. This was no tweaked-out freak of nature. In fact, she looked downright girl-next-door adorable. I felt more churlish than usual (which is saying something) when it dawned on me that this woman, who had been the featured player in so many of my own fantasies, was a real, flesh-and-blood person with a job, a life, an apartment. And a name. Natalie. Natalie is someone’s sister and daughter and girlfriend. She has friends she’s known since high school, most of whom work nine-to-five jobs. And apparently a kid, judging by the toys that were strewn about the place (and not the kind you’d find in her movies).
But just as I was getting used to her being a regular chick, in short order she proceeded to punch me in my mind again, when over a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvée she held forth on the physical logistics of both gangbangs and pop shots. I made a mental note to call my therapist.
Stretched out on an oversized love seat sucking down Champagne like … well, like porn stars, if you must know, Savanna and I chatted about everything from her apparently perfectly normal childhood in upstate New York to her favorite sexual positions both on and off camera. (Note: This is the conversation where I finally, at long last, got confirmation that there are women—at least one anyway—who actually prefer anal.) Then, once the Krug was drained, she let her hair down (literally) and threw on a pair of jeans, and we made our way over to Les Halles, the cozy Park Avenue brasserie where celeb chef Anthony Bourdain worked before his books and TV shows turned him into the Sid Vicious of the culinary world. There, more expensive wine was consumed (on the company dime, of course—thanks, Hef!), and we really got down to the business at hand—discussing the ins and outs of pairing wine with sex.
This is when she started saying things like “When I’m working with a big guy, I like to have a glass of wine of equal stature on set.” But when she followed up with specific details about her favored vintages, it became clear she’d put in a whole lot of time spitting in a bucket (the reader is encouraged to make up their own joke here, and then take a long look in the mirror and ask themselves how much their own jobs have in common with a porn shoot). Turns out a Ridge Monte Bello or Binomio from LaValentina pairs nicely with a well-endowed fellow. Solid choices.
About three vintages later, the talk, perhaps inevitably, turned to girl-on-girl sex. This is when Savanna revealed that sapphic action goes best with Moscato d’Asti, an Italian sparkling wine that’s (appropriately) a kissing cousin of Asti Spumante. It’s a dessert wine: light, feminine, bubbly, and delicately sweet. She told me her favorite bottle is Michele Chiarlo Nivole Moscato d’Asti, adding that “The most delicious women and dessert wines I’ve ever had have one thing in common: They taste like peaches.” For some reason I was suddenly having trouble concentrating. But it was OK. My tape was running, and Savanna was essentially writing the article for me.
She proved no less knowledgeable when talk turned to cellaring. Apparently, the life cycle of a wine has much in common with the career of an adult-film star. “Young porn stars can be pretty volatile. They definitely need to be handled with care,” she opined. “Sure, they’re hot shit when they first arrive on the scene, but most aren’t worth keeping around to see what they’ll do a few years down the line. But if you know how to spot them, those rare few that age well end up doing spectacular things.” To illustrate, she cited the career of Cara Lott, a fixture on the porn scene in the early eighties, who made a successful comeback in the aughts headlining MILF flicks. It seems that for porn stars, as with wine, “a little seasoning can be a very good thing.”
My head was swimming. But Savanna was having the time of her life. This was no tragedy case right out of central casting, playing the real-life role of “troubled eighteen-year-old from Iowa with a bus ticket and a dream lands in L.A. and finds out the hard way about how the world works.” Savanna was smart, funny, and in control, and one thing was for sure—this girl knew her wines.
At about this point I tuned in to the two middle-aged women at the table next to us. From their disapproving looks I gathered our conversational topics weren’t quite their cup of rough sex. Savanna noticed too, and decided to have a little fun with them.
“When was the last time you had a big cock up your ass?” she asked loudly.
“Last week,” I replied. “Total pain in the butt.”
“Would you like to stick your cock in my ass?” Savanna asked gamely, causing one of the women to make frantic check-requesting motions at the bewildered, out-of-earshot waiter.
“Are you kidding me?” I replied. “I’m always looking for good stories I can tell my grandkids.” I simultaneously wished Savanna wouldn’t see how much I really would like to actually do this to her, and hoped that she was seriously considering letting me.
Thankfully for my blood pressure, the conversation cooled after the two biddies hustled out, shooting all manner of dirty looks at us as they did so. “Don’t mind them,” Savanna admonished. “They’re just jealous. They can’t handle fun. Or freedom. A good drink and a rousing fuck would sort them right out. They’re living by somebody else’s rules. And once you start doing that, you start dying.” I could feel myself falling in love again. I wondered if Savanna had any interest in relocating to the West Coast.
As I walked her back to her apartment, she reminisced about one of the defining moments in her dual career. “I was once at a porn-industry event where a major director told me he thought I had the best on-screen presence he’d ever seen. Later that night, my then boyfriend tried my wine for the first time. He poured it down my chest while I sat on his face. We ruined a set of my really nice sheets. And it was worth every penny it cost to replace them. You only get to run around the world once; you gotta make it count.”
I was inclined to believe her.
When the Savanna feature appeared in Playboy, it garnered more attention than anything I’d written for the magazine before or since. It got picked up by a number of media outlets and I was interviewed about it on several radio and television programs. I even ended up creating a tasting flight for a local Santa Monica tasting room, Pourtal, that paired wine with Playboy Playmates. No one seemed to mind that I wasn’t actually a capital-E expert on wine. Like Tall Paul taught me: If you can’t be right, be funny. If you can’t be funny, have tits. To be safe, I tried to be funny and have tits. Which is how I ended up comparing the Rocca Family Vineyards Bad Boy Red to Pamela Anderson, and the length of its finish to Tommy Lee’s … well, you’ve seen their home video, right?
Long story short, I almost lost my Playboy column over that one. But the way I see it, the entire experience was an exercise in remembering that wine is supposed to be fun. Once you start learning about wine it’s really easy to get lost in the solemnity and complexity. And the minute you do that, you lose (as does everybody who has to listen to you).
Truth is, wine appreciation is so airy and complicated, you can do a pairing with just about anything and people will buy it. Like porn. But as Savanna taught me, the similarities don’t end there. Just watch …
Porn and Wine: An Evening of Daring Pairing
First up, we have a 1945 Mouton-Rothschild. We’ve paired it with Deep Throat, a 1972 vintage. Gerard Damiano’s most famous film celebrates the life of a woman whose clitoris has migrated to her esophagus, and chronicles all the men (including the inimitable Harry Reems) who help accommodate her unconventional anatomy. The 1945 Mouton-Rothschild is likely to produce similarly orgasmic results in the back of one’s throat. Alas, like women with hirsute nether-regions who can get off by giving head, this stunning, drinkable sixty-five-year-old vintage is a very rare bird (a swallow, perhaps?) indeed.
From there we move on to a 1992 Screaming Eagle, which we paired with the 1978 megahit Debbie Does Dallas. When the perky, pom-pom waving co-ed played by Bambi Woods made this film an instant classic, we all expected to see much more of her. But despite her immense popularity, the enigmatic Ms. Woods appeared in a grand total of four adult films. Similarly, the Screaming Eagle scored an unheard-of 99 from Robert Parker, yet only 225 cases of the esteemed Oakville cabernet were ever made. As a result, you won’t find a bottle for less than five figures. (But at least you can buy some if you really want to. Ms. Woods is, unfortunately, off the market for good.)
In this portion of the program, we confront a monster, Guigal Côte-Rôtie 1978 la Landonne, Guigal’s first vintage of this cru. We’ve paired this sinfully delicious bottle with The Devil in Miss Jones, in which the irrepressible Georgina Spelvin attempts to “earn” her way into hell by engaging that horny old dog Lucifer in all manner of deviant sexual behavior. The connection between these two legendary vices is tenuous, but it’s a well-established fact that this far into any tasting, most people have stopped paying attention entirely, so one can really say anything one likes. Plus, when you’ve got vintage wine in the glass and golden-age porn on the telly, there’s no sense sweating the details.
Our final combination pairs one of porn’s most delicious vintages, 1972’s Behind the Green Door, with an equally classic bottle of 1973 Chateau Montelena. In the film, the savvy/sleazy Mitchell Brothers (of San Francisco’s O’Farrell Theatre fame) introduce a fresh face to the wank-happy masses. And we do mean fresh—as in 99 and 44/100% pure, just like the Chateau Montelena. Indeed, Marilyn Chambers (formerly Marilyn Ann Briggs) was the Ivory Soap cover girl before she decided to give pornography a whirl. Obviously, the folks at Procter & Gamble were none too pleased. But the ensuing brouhaha helped make Chambers and the film an international sensation, with Green Door going on to gross more than $20 million. In the wine world, the Chateau Montelena created an equally massive and unexpected stir when it won the Judgment of Paris in 1976, helping establish California wine’s bona fides and wresting winemaking hegemony from European producers.
Big Enough’s Not Going to Cut It
A week or so after my article on porn/wine pairings hit newsstands, Playboy flew Savanna out to L.A. so that she and I could appear in a Playboy TV segment in which she got naked and flirty and I tried my best not to appear too flustered. After the taping we went back to her hotel, the Roosevelt on Hollywood Boulevard, and got pissed as farts in the hotel bar. Eventually we wound up in her room. And here’s where I wish to all fucking hell that the story really got good. Only it doesn’t. I’m normally not in the habit of choking on the finish line, but that’s exactly what I did. Instead of making a move, instead of bringing any kind of game whatsoever, I just sat there like a lump on a chair, conducting the following agonizing dialogue in my mind as she stretched out seductively on the bed.
I looked over at Savanna. She was passed out hard. So I left without making a move. Since then we’ve become pretty good friends, but I still can’t help but wonder where I went wrong.
Since no one knows more about porn stars than Randy, I figured who better to turn to for answers. So one bright L.A. morning a few weeks later, I swung by his Van Nuys production facility. I tend to drop in on Randy when I’m having trouble writing; seeing how he lives has a way of inspiring me, because I know that if my inkwell ever dries up, I’m going to end up being his gaffer. I’ve found that reminding myself what that would be like provides extremely effective motivation. Anyway, the place was littered with raunchy magazines, DVDs, a printout of an adult Web site directory, even an issue of YM. A familiar feeling of unease came over me. I could feel my sphincter tightening and my writer’s block loosening. “Hey, Randy, you ever worry about getting too involved with, you know … with your work?” I asked.
“Whaddaya mean?” Randy replied without looking up from the Hustler he was flipping through.
“Like those undercover narcotics guys who wind up getting hooked on junk,” I said.
Randy shot me a dismissive look. “You stay around this shit long enough, you become immune to it. Shit, I haven’t jerked off to porn in five years.”
I picked up the copy of YM and studied the fresh-faced cover model, outfitted in a diaphanous summer dress. “So what do you jerk off to, Randy? And please don’t say this,” I said, tossing the magazine onto the floor.
“You really want to know?” he asked.
“No. But now I have to know.”
Randy cracked a sinister smile. He was enjoying this. “I wax my candle to infomercials.”
“Come again?”
“Infomercials,” he repeated. “Usually the ones about cleaning products on TV on Sunday morning. You know, with the women all done up like fifties TV.”
Huh. One of the crucial elements to success in journalism is the capacity to accept that people of all walks of life are capable of practically anything. All the same, this development threw me.
“There’s this one they do for the Fuzzy Wuzzy Microfiber Mitt.… Jesus, that babe is a first-class piece of ass. She wears this beige pantsuit from The Limited, sports Jaclyn Smith’s hairdo circa 1977, and has the sexiest ice-blue eyes this side of Carol Alt. I’m telling you, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Microfiber Mitt lady could give a chubby to a Buddhist monk.”
I really didn’t want to think about Randy’s unintended uses for infomercials, let alone his unintended uses for the Fuzzy Wuzzy Microfiber Mitt. But I wasn’t going to begrudge him his good time. He wasn’t hurting anyone, and in a way it was kind of adorable. And it just goes to show that people are freaks all over. Even professional freaks. The sad part is that when you do the math on how much porn is consumed in this country, versus how many people feel comfortable admitting to it, you’re left with the inescapable conclusion that most people are hiding their freaky light under a bushel. Which is why I find certain parts of the porn industry refreshing. Too bad the other parts are so depressing and disturbing. But to the parts where they traffic in honesty and a healthy flowering of human weirdness, I say, right on, sisters. Plus, the nondamaged performers I’ve met are a hell of a lot of fun when you get them out on the town. So if you are lucky enough to find yourself out with a porn star and would like to avoid a tragedy on the scale of my unfortunate strikeout with Savanna Samson, do yourself a favor and remember the following rules.
How to Hang Out with Porn Chicks
It’s common knowledge that porn chicks lose all self-control around pizza deliverymen. Ditto for pool boys, men in uniform, and guys with Tom Selleck mustaches. Should you encounter any of these types while out with a porn chick, you need to whisk her away immediately—or risk losing her for the next twenty-two minutes.
There are a number of factors that determine how quickly an individual will be affected by alcohol, body weight being first and foremost among them. For instance, it takes only two drinks for a 120-pound woman to be considered legally intoxicated, but a 200-pound man requires double that amount to breach a Breathalyzer’s red zone. That’s why whenever I’m drinking with a lady I always size her up to get an idea how much booze she can reasonably throw back without becoming a puddle. Puddles, by definition, being messy and hard to transport to the next bar—let alone my bed. I’ve gotten so good at guessing a woman’s weight (and thus her tolerance), in fact, that my margin of error is around two pounds. But here’s something else I’ve learned: Porn stars throw a bit of a wrench into the equation. That’s because once you take into account such artificial additives as breast implants, collagen injections, tattoo ink, hair extensions, body piercings, and fuck-me pumps, the average porn chick’s net body mass is at least fifteen to twenty pounds less than her gross weight. So keep that in mind, because the line between her blowing you and her blowing chunks can be a thin one, my friend.
If she wants to talk about it, she’ll bring it up. And there’s a good chance she doesn’t want to talk about it. Because guess what everyone who meets her wants to know about? Don’t be just another one of the predictable masses. If you want to know what her work is like, google it after you get home.
Believe it or not, not every porn star you meet is necessarily someone you’re going to want to hang out with. Like in all professions, however, the people at the top of it are doing something noticeably different than the writhing faceless masses below them. For every poised, sophisticated Savanna Samson, there are seventeen thousand dim-witted, drug-addicted train wrecks. This latter group needs love and compassion, not a booze-fueled night on the town followed by an attempt to recreate the therapy breakthrough scene in Deep Throat.
Like a moth to a flame, that guy. But if you see him, run for the hills, because in all likelihood that deviant bastard’s already fucked her, and who wants to go there? Plus, nothing kills the mood faster than Charlie Sheen.
All glibness aside, though, I had to wonder if this was really the time to start dating a porn star, given how insecure I’ve been lately about my relationships with women. Nothing against them, mind you. Hell, it’s already been established that some folks in the adult-entertainment business rank among my most favorite people. It’s just that dating porn stars is graduate-level relationship territory. You’ve got to be a seriously stable, confident dude to handle it well. And my internal conversation about putting the moves on Savanna was proof enough to me that, exciting though the idea might be, I probably couldn’t handle it.
My shrink is happy with this course of action too, but for different reasons. She somehow has it in her head that dating someone who makes a living having sex on camera wouldn’t constitute a “healthy relationship.” For the record, I think she’s prejudiced. I also think she’s secretly jealous because she’s hopelessly in love with me. I should also note that The Shrink is a stunner from Austria who grew up in the same town as Freud. And I’m sure she’d say my impression of her crush on me is a classic example of projection. It’s also a classic example of what I like to call LLD (Ladies Love Dan). And pointing this out would add defensiveness and overcompensation to my tally sheet behind projection. Sometimes I wonder if therapy isn’t just an elaborate mating ritual.
Speaking of which, I’ve been doing something of an elaborate one with Jen Topping of late. After we reconnected at Mood we started seeing a lot of each other. I don’t know where it’s headed, exactly, but it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this at ease with a woman. I’ve even had inklings that she might have commitment potential. I also made the mistake of admitting this to Randy after I’d had a few beers at a Los Angeles Kings game.
“Jen and I happened to be at the King’s Head the week before my birthday. Turns out it was karaoke night,” I said. The King’s Head is one of my favorite local watering holes in Santa Monica. “We just went for it.”
“You fucked her in the bathroom?” Randy blurted excitedly. “That’s freaking awesome!”
“We sang a duet, you douche.”
“You did karaoke? This is getting disturbing,” Randy said.
“I thought so too, at first, but I kind of think it turned out to be a transformative experience,” I explained. “When we got up there and sang together, it was like we were the only people in the world. I was completely in the moment. I haven’t felt that in a long time.”
“You know, despite the sheer gayness of what you just told me, I also get how nice that would be.”
“Thanks, man.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Huh?”
“What song did you and your new soul mate perform?”
“That’s the best part—we sang ‘We’re an American Band.’ ”
“Grand Funk Railroad?”
“Fuck yes.”
“That’s not a duet.”
“I know—I did the verse, she sang the chorus.”
“OK, you’re absolved. Maybe you’re not gay after all.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.”
I was sharing with Randy here, sure, but I still figured some things were better left unsaid. In particular, I hadn’t been completely forthright with him in regard to my actual “knowing she could be the one even though I seriously doubted such a thing even existed” moment. While the karaoke duet certainly represented a major turning point in my music career as well as in my relationship with Jen, Cupid’s arrow finally lodged itself in the general vicinity of my heart a week later, on my birthday. After dinner at one of my favorite L.A. eateries, Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles, we drove up the coast to Zuma Beach. It was ten p.m. by the time we arrived and the place was deserted. I had a case of Sogno Uno in the trunk (you’re the best, Savanna), so we grabbed a bottle and a blanket and headed down to where we could hear the surf rolling in. I had an opener but no glasses so we passed a bottle that scored a 91 with Robert Parker back and forth, swigging it like it was Boone’s Farm.
The weirdest part was, we weren’t talking. Just staring out at the sea and stars. We were two thirds of our way through the bottle when I thought of something worthy of breaking the silence.
“It’s the part of the movie they leave out,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“This is where they do the montage—running on the beach, toasting at dinner. Then maybe on the blanket looking up at the stars, sure, but for five seconds only, then it’s on to unloading antiques from a vintage VW Beetle and one person drops their end and stubs their toe or some shit. But they never just leave the camera rolling, showing people looking up at the stars for thirty minutes. They leave out the long quiet part.”
Jen didn’t reply for a few minutes.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said. “Close your eyes.”
I did as instructed and heard Jen rustling around in her bag. I wondered what she was up to. Some birthday thing, I suppose. That’s sweet. So, what, an iPod? Cologne? Was she taking off her clothes? Then I heard the flick of a cigarette lighter and soft cursing (it was windy). Fireworks, maybe? Were we about to get stoned?
“Open them,” she said.
So I did. And there was no weed or Roman candles or Obsession by Calvin Klein, and Jen still had her clothes on. But by God, did she look beautiful. She started to sing “Happy Birthday,” and with each note I felt myself hurtling faster and faster through the void toward a place I’d rarely visited before. And though I’d always feared this particular unknown in the same way professional athletes tremble at the idea of random drug tests, I wasn’t afraid anymore. In fact, I was pretty sure I was ready.
“I hope you like chocolate,” I heard her saying as, unbelievably, a tear rolled down my cheek. It reached my chin and dangled there for a while, like it wasn’t familiar with the route, unsure where it was supposed to go next or how in the world to get there. Hanging on. Hanging on. Hanging on. And then it finally fell and plummeted through the air. It landed on the frosting of the tiny round cake Jen was holding and nearly extinguished the flame on the gold-flaked, D-shaped candle, the kind you get at kids’ party stores. Hell, the candle was almost as big as the cake.
“Is that from an Easy-Bake Oven?” I asked, my voice cracking ever so slightly.
“Not just any Easy-Bake Oven,” she said. “This was made in an original model Easy-Bake Oven from 1963. After you told me that story about your first love I knew I had to get you one.”
“How’d you find it?” I asked.
“eBay. And don’t ask what it cost, because you’ll feel like you owe me, and I don’t want you to feel like you owe me … even though you definitely do owe me!”
“I know I do,” I said, as I leaned in for a kiss. Then we both took our clothes off, and there were fireworks of a different sort, and it was really kind of amazing.… At least until we really got going and were rudely reminded that having sex on a beach sounds awesome, until the reality sets in that sand ranks up there with feces, Bengay, and Lady Gaga atop the list of stuff you don’t want anywhere near your genitals, ever.
“Christ, it felt like you were giving me a Screaming Seagull back there,” Jen said in the car, as I drove hastily toward my place so we could pick up where we left off.
This was a new one to me. She explained that it’s a dubious sex maneuver that calls for a guy to pull his dick out while having sex on a beach, lay it in the sand, then resume fucking.
“There’s really such a thing as that, eh? No shit?” I said.
“No shit at all, actually,” she continued without missing a beat. “You want shit involved, you gotta go with the Dirty Sanchez or Cleveland Steamer.”
“You ready to give that a try?” I kidded (at least I think I was kidding).
She flashed a mischievous smile but said nothing.
Which is about when I thought that, yeah, maybe finding The One is possible after all.
“Slip of the Tongue”
CREATED BY JOSH DURR
1 3/4 oz. Brugal Extra Viejo
1 oz. Dolin Vermouth de Chambery Blanc
3/4 oz. fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
3/4 oz. fresh-squeezed orange juice
1–2 dashes Kübler absinthe (as a dash is subjective, this should measure 1/8 oz.)
Grapefruit zest, for garnish
Add all ingredients in a mixing glass with quality ice. Shake well with a Boston shaker, then double-strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a large zest of grapefruit using a channel knife.
“When I started to think of a concoction that was going to capture the essence of this chapter, I knew I had to create something that was a breath of fresh air. Given the influence of the Dominican Republic and Brugal rum, of course we could start there. When I think of rum I immediately think of a perfectly made daiquiri and its simple allure. Yet when I think of refreshing, my mind drifts to the Corpse Reviver #2. So with both of these influences I created the Slip of the Tongue, a bright and refreshing cocktail that will brighten the mood of even the most royally screwed imbiber.”