Life’s Rich Pageant

I must be on every wine retailer email list under the sun—too many to count and the usual suspects, too—K&L, Garagiste and a number of others from around the country.  This, of course, is different than the physical flyers, brochures and catalogs that show up in the good old fashion mailbox, which are also numerous—Kermit Lynch, Crush Wine & Spirits, Sherry-Lehmann, and a host of others.

I read through these emails and catalogs just to see what’s going on and who is selling what—much the same way that I flip through the Pottery Barn catalog even though I’m pretty sure the last time I bought something it was a gift card for a wedding circa 2001. Oh, I’ll occasionally buy from the out-of-state wine guys, (those that will illicitly ship to Indianapolis—you know who you are—my shepherds on the wine underground railroad; my comrades in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” wine army) but more often than not I shop local.  Here’s the rub in this situation, though—the wine shop with the largest, deepest selection in town, a BevMo or a Binny’s by like comparison, is also the shop that I hate going to—I’ve had a couple of customer service issues,  the floor staff talk down to you, and a lot of other reasons that are legitimate, but too long-winded to repeat here.  I still go there when I have to and I curse to myself as I begrudgingly hand over my debit card. 

And, for reasons that I can best describe as self-flagellation, I always read this wine shop’s monthly flyer—mostly to copy-edit the damn thing.  It’s a messy eight or nine-pager written by the owner, replete with bad clip art, typos and other acts of profound language villainy and hackneyed marketing.

Now, I should note that those that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.  I make a decent mockery of the English language—particularly with the use of the possessive, the occasional passive voice and the regrettable use of too many adverbs.  However, one thing I make a deeply concerted effort to do is fact-check.  If I state something as fact, I attribute it, link to it or double-check it if I paraphrase.  It’s a bugaboo I’ve carried since college.  I may occasionally be full of shit, but at least it’s factual.  And, with the Internet, there’s really no reason not to triple check things ... by virtue of my dogmatism, I have an extremely low threshold for fact-checking laziness ... laziness like, oh, I dunno, a certain Indianapolis wine retailer stating that MIKE GRGICH IS DEAD.

For the love of God and all that is Holy, how can you NOT pop a browser to search for “Mike Grgich” and see that he’s not dead??

It’s enough to make you overlook the misspelling of “excited.”  It’s enough to make you overlook the inflated score he gave the Chard—not 89 points, a solid 90 points. 

If you the image below is too small you can download the flyer (here) and scroll down to page 6 to see the kind of wine situation we’re dealing with in the Circle City.  It’s just another circumstance in life’s rich pageant.

Video date:  9/25/09