Cant believe it but once again, Hilton Head WineFest is happening this Saturday. It is billed as the largest outdoor wine tasting event on the East Coast and it marks the heralding of Spring in the Carolina Lowcountry.....
I have been a "Fest" purveyor of sorts of the grapey concoction for many years and have poured many a "taste". And to me, that is where the fun came in...watching the taster as they picked up their commemorative glass cleansed with water from one of my crystal pitchers and put it to their lips. The drinker that didn't have a clue about wine but was having fun would simply would "down" the sucker and say "Man this Daufuskie wine sure is good, smile kindly and ask for a refill.... at which time I would fill the glass to the top and say "bottoms up" which they would cheerfully acknowledge and go on their merry way. Now that was my kind of wine taster and quite frankly my kind of guy/gal.
And then there were the wine writers that have received some sort of paper called a master sommelier certificate and are working toward a Certified Wine Educator Degree or whatever. Even more interesting to watch are the Judges of the event that wear these little tags around their neck that simpy say "Judge". When they walk up to the booth they kind of have an "air" about them and even without their wine tags bobbing about I can spot them three booths away. Now they take this taste of "The Dew" from South Carolina's first licensed winery serious, to say the least, but it is in my personality to have some fun with them. Sooo, rather than putting a small taste of wine in the glass I fill-er to the brink. Ya see, this hinders them from the first stage of tasting, swirling the wine in the glass to see if it has what they call "legs". Now if they wanted to see legs they should of stayed home and watched old Tina Turner re-runs. Now this lack of being able to oogle the wines legs throws them all of kilter, but they will prevail in their predetermined task. With fingers placed strategically on the glass's stem they raise "The Dew" to their discretely puckered lips and with distorted faces that remind me of sucking a lemon they gently seem to inhale the poor grape right out of the glass....and then comes the awful sucking swirly sounds that remind me of emptying the bottom of a chocolate milkshake with a straw as they whisk the wine in their jowls....now If this sound were to occur from the human anatomy anywhere else in the public domain they would be surely be arrested for disorderly conduct....And now comes the much awaited comment we have all been waiting for. From the mouth of the sommelier that just "Tasted The Dew" I hear pontificating blurbs such as this....Ahh... this wine has all the flavors of a classic Cabernet Savignon full of zest and clean slate rain....Say what...clean slate rain...now this is where I am holding back folks...you know from one of those belly laughs where you slap your leg...when is the last time you tasted rain runoff that came off a clean slate roof...but the best is yet to come...Ahhh the aroma fills the nose, and sommeliers always seem to have superb ones, and the flavors come in waves like an oncoming Spring tide....flavors that are sweet and tart with herbaceous "notes"...and here is where I though I was at a wine tasting and not a music concert...silly me. So with the job at hand done, they make their way to the next booth looking for those legs they have so surely missed.
Sadly, this year I will not be in my allotted booth to pour a taste of "The Dew".....and yes, I will miss my wine fans that faithfully search out the Silver Dew tent knowing their glass would be filled to the brim. But if you happen to see me laughing hysterically somewhere in the Lowcountry on Saturday for no apparent reason, its not because old LCJoe has gone off his proverbial rocker. Its only because I have visions of a Judge seriously telling me my wine somehow has the tatse and zest of clean slate runoff rain.
See ya on a warm Spring tide.
LowCountry Joe
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