Hi guys! Our latest wine tasting adventure took us out of CoCo County to get our passports stamped a bit west in Alameda County.
It was our second year attending the Alameda Meals On Wheels Wine Tasting Fundraiser. And, planned to perfection by Kathy (exercise at the gym, our annual trip to the only IKEA in the East Bay), we were able to arrive at Rock Wall Winery’s barrel room, the event’s venue, just after post time.
We had a blast last year, and this year was just as memorable, if not for slightly different reasons: mostly good, mind you.
The cavernous space is tricked out with perimeter tables offering vino from producers small and large, local and farther-afield-Cali, interspersed with tasty offerings from restaurants based from Oakland to Walnut Creek. It’s a great graze-and gulp vibe, but the thang is to be cool. Sure, we saw some exponentially bad tasting room behavior one would find only this side of a Napa bachelorette party, but for the most part, ‘twas cool.
Yeah, I thought that the pours were skimpy, but no one was keeping score if one (or one’s partner) went back for another shot of high-test.
The “silent auction” tables comprised the core of the floor. You write your name and contact info beside your bid, then check back periodically to see who wrote their name on a line, i.e. higher bid than yours. We love it, but Kath got pissed: Written bids end at a certain time, and the same turkey vultures that we find in CoCo swoop in to Alameda at 3:59 p.m. to write in the final twenty-five dollar bump.
Bitterly, I can only say, “Enjoy your $325 water crackers with Earl Grey sachets, mofo.” But, of course, that comes from a place of love.
We are sitting out on a former US Naval base tarmac, under an event tent, sharing a table with a retired Brooklyn firefighter, doing recognizance for two more pours. An outrageous big band, “3 O’Clock Jump,” is hitting on all valves and reeds. And kids, sans footwear, are throwing their stuffed animals around.
How can this get more goofily wonderful? Well, at a break, I chatted with 3 O'Clock’s bandleader to ask him if what finally twigged in my head, that the opening hardcore brass-heavy theme was from “The Naked Gun.” He was delighted. It ain’t Lalo Schifrin; it’s Ira Newborn. Imdb does nobody justice.
Daddy knew that, and this was the swinginest opening to any set; how did these charts get into anybody’s gig bag? That’s all I ask.
Kathy and I chill, do the wine recog. I bask in the glow that has our tablemates loving my purple argyle socks.
Our tablemates split. We do, too.
PS: As we walk to the Lisa Marie, we see cops cruising the lot, then handcuffing someone.
PPS: McGruff, what’s up? I have never seen this before, though, I must admit, I cannot understand why cops are not stationed outside of wine tasting rooms. But here was a charity event, with piss-ass pours, and this is where the hammer comes down?
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