Drinking It Was the Special Occasion

Nine months after the Red Cross screwed up my arm, they said my blood pressure was too high to donate, so they denied ... I mean, "deferred" me.

The crazy thing is those vultures will continue to have their drones call me begging for donations. Red Cross volunteers, consider yourselves warned - there will be a torrent of swears and ill feeling coming your direction should my digits pop up on your donor list.

But enough about those bloodsuckers. Among the suffocating, relentless bad news, I caught some gasps of goondess.

A old friend dropped an e-mail yesterday with a hazy camera-phone image of a familiar label.

By 8:30, the bottle was empty, the celebration and non-special occasion nearly derailed by a torn cork.

In effect, it changed my day. The Melville Pinot Noir 2006 from California had been uncovered by someone else, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, of all places (it is an attractive little vacation town).

Cold reality splashed in. The Sideways quote followed - to paraphrase, a great bottle of wine doesn't need a special occasion, because it's a special occasion when you drink it.

Due to its dubious familial connections, I saved the bottle for a special occasion, fooling myself into thinking there was any type of special occasion on the horizon. Sometimes, hope is for fools; that's why I end up begging people to take an extra concert ticket so often.

Not drinking the bottle at home by myself was victory enough. Plus, I don't buy $40 wine often (again, the "special" or even "mildly notable occasion" problem).

I didn't pour into a styrofoam cup and down it with fast food, but enjoyed it with Pabst-drinking friends on a South Nashville porch. With 20 weeks of Italian since my last stretch of porch time, I almost forgot how much I missed it.

As for the wine itself, my namesake winery produced the finest pinot noir I ever tasted. It went down spectacularly - give the circumstances, it was the only way it could.