Mrs. Scatter’s day of whine and roses
Report from the wine-tasting front:
Yes, the large, smelly boys bickered in the backseat.
No, we won’t take them again.
Yes, we will lock them in the dungeon next time.
Yes, the dungeon has an escape hatch.
Yes, I typed that to avoid the scrutiny of child protective services.
Yes, in the valley, the people at the next picnic table ate watermelon and Twinkies.
Yes, we spotted Twinkies again at Eyrie Vineyards.
Yes, Benjamin Franklin came up three times on the trip.
No, I can’t explain these mysterious patterns.
Yes, we left the large, smelly boys in the van while we sipped wine.
Yes, we left the windows cracked.
Yes, I typed that to avoid the scrutiny of child protective services.
Yes, the 2007 Eyrie Chardonnay Reserve is worth the drive.
Yes, only time will tell how the 2007 pinot noirs measure up.
No, my wine palate is not sophisticated enough to predict squat.
Yes, we heard a lovely story from Jason Lett, winemaker of Eyrie Vineyards since the 2005 vintage and son of Eyrie founder and Oregon winemaking legend David Lett, who died last October:
Jason was in a Portland wine store when the guy told him he had a bunch of wines he needed to unload. They turned out to be a cache of Sokol Blosser wines from the mid-1980s, including the legendary 1985 vintage. He took them all and took them to Susan Sokol Blosser, who nearly cried because much of Sokol Blosser’s wine library had been depleted.
No, a wine library isn’t where you get a special card to check out what you want.
Yes, it is a catalog of sorts of a winemaker’s wines.
No, it isn’t available to the public and doesn’t come with large, solid lions on the front steps.
Yes, tasting the 2002, 2003 and 2004 vintages of Eyrie pinor noir was worth the drive.
Yes, those are the last vintages that David Lett … um … made?
Yes, a trio of those wines in a special box will set you back $210.
No, Mr. Scatter should not be in charge of buying wine.
No, Mrs. Scatter should not be in charge of buying wine.
No, funeral homes should not have Welcome signs (truly sighted).
Yes, herewith, a prized behind-the-scenes peek at an in-depth editing discussion between Mr. and Mrs. Scatter:
Mr. Scatter: Are you sure you don’t want to say “stinky?”
Mrs. Scatter: No, I like, “smelly.”
Mr. Scatter: You do like “smelly,” don’t you?
– Laura Grimes
May 25th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Mr. Scatter hastens to add that he did NOT spend $210 for three commemorative bottles of pinot noir, much as he might have liked to. Nor, for all her bombast, did Mrs. Scatter. The smelly boys in the dungeon do need to be fed, after all. (I write that for the benefit of child protective services.)
May 25th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Did Mr. Scatter just say “bombast?”
May 25th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Mr. & Mrs S. —
Does this meant that Mrs. Scatter has officially become the 4th leg of the three-legged Art Scatter stool? We hope so!
MORE!
May 25th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Oh, but that sounds so official, and I have commitment issues, remember? Like George Clooney? Only different?
May 25th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Tell you what, if I’m around next Memorial Day (by which I mean if I’m not traveling, not if I’m not dead, though you never know) you can drop off the large smelly, or stinky, depending on your vocabulary preference (I like smelly better than stinky myself) boys at my house, where I will improve their minds with back to back showings of two different versions of Swan Lake so they’re catatonic when you get back, in exchange for a couple of bottles of wine of whatever vintage from whatever vineyard you choose, provided they um have a good nose.
(My but this is fun)
May 26th, 2009 at 7:50 am
We have to wait a year? In all that I picked out “catatonic.”
May 26th, 2009 at 8:39 am
thought you would!
May 26th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Martha, would you take a household of ‘em? I’m loving the idea of mine being exposed as well to Swan Lake and me to the wine.
May 26th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I’m totally doing that Swan Lake trick when I need the house cleared. Sounds like an effective and organic form of pest control. I wonder whether it works on sugar ants.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Not on your Nellie, Ms. Reality! And for very real pest control Miss Laura, I would suggest three performances in a row of The Nutcracker, especially for sugar ants, since it’s about a little girl on a Christmas Eve sugar high. There are sugar aunts in the cast, also sugar uncles and sugar daddies and mommies.
Ah, the intellectual rigor on Art Scatter the last couple of days is truly impressive.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:09 am
Ms. Scatter, I *love* your posts! Keep ‘em coming, please. (No offense intended, Mr. Scatter–it’s not a zero-sum equation.)
May 29th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Mr. Scatter heartily concurs. No zero sums here!
May 29th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Thanks, David! The check’s in the mail.
June 12th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
[...] large smelly boys were paroled from a nine-month sentence in the Portland public school system, and Mrs. Scatter and I had a longstanding deal to whisk them to the Oregon coast to the four-way-split shared [...]