Good Grape Wine Company

February 28 2007

Judas Priest!  It’s Twisted Oak Winery!

A girlfriend of my wife has very cool parents who graciously let Lindsay and I share a weekend at their beautiful summer home in Glen Arbor, Michigan a year or two back.  In particular, my wife’s friends’ father is an interesting, professorial kind of guy who loves wine and loves shopping at Trader Joe’s for wine bargains.

But, in addition to his love of wine, this guy is a 60 year old marvel who whipped my butt in a long distance bike ride, carries none of the paunch that my 30- something body is morphing into and he has an unending vocabulary filled with cuss words that are not cuss words.  “Frit,” “Judas Priest” and the like are all substitutes for their more vulgar and graphics relatives.

I admired this because, frankly, I wish I didn’t occasionally have a potty mouth—despite my fondness for an occasional and cathartic “F-bomb.”

Because of my fondness for a well-placed “F-bomb” and because I think there’s a 100 word gem of a story somewhere nestled next to a well-timed “Judas Priest” reference,  I’m going to enter the Twisted Oak winery label writing contest.

That’s right.  Creative writer’s who can work their copywriting magic in 100 words or less have a chance at immortality by writing the back label for the Twisted Oak 2006 Sierra Foothills %@#$! – a white Rhone-style blend.  Yes, the wine is called %@#$!

For me, this will be a challenge of the first order. I only get limber at about the 500 word mark.  Nonetheless, I will try as should you.  My back label submission may in fact be exactly one hundred words of non cuss word cuss words.  Fiddlesticks, sugar Jets (shout out to my Mom), jeeze Louise, cheese n rice and others wrapped around a Rhone tie-in.

Regardless, the winner gets a free case of wine and all individuals who enter get a 20% off coupon off their next purchase from the winery.  Nice, but immaterial to the immortality of the back label real estate…!

The deadline is March 16th—more information can be found here and a couple of previous label examples can be found here.

In other Twisted Oak news, I received word from El Jefe (owner Jeff Stai) that they are being introduced into the Indiana market in March.  This is great news!  It’ll be nice to be able to connect the wine blogosphere to a local wine shop, which in Indiana happens all too infrequently. 

Jeff at Twisted Oak is a real good guy and they make some exceptional wine with a very irreverent attitude.  Their sales guy is nicknamed Pimp Daddy, if that gives you any idea.  They do a superb job of mixing fun with super premium wine—kind of like when Ferris Bueller talks to the camera and let’s you in on the joke.  I feel like I’m a part of the club and not watching with detached third-party irony.  I don’t know how they pull it off, but they do. 

He and I talked about doing a little blogging wine event in Indy to commemorate the occasion and, well, one thing leads to another and before you know it you have the premiere foodie blog in Indy, a damn fine wine blog with nice graphics, a Calaveras county winery, a boutique wine shop and the distributor all doing a group massage in the name of vino.  I think some rubber chickens are in the offing …

So, if you’re in Indianapolis, here are the specs:  the Upper Room in Broad Ripple on Thursday, March 15th from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.  Cork and Cracker is co-hosting the tasting with the Upper Room, Crossroad Vintners is the local distributor, and we’ll be drinking the wines of Twisted Oak.

%@#$! yeah. 

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