Bradley N.
Yelp
Yelpsop's Fables: "The Disco Era Dinosaur"
One sunny Saturday afternoon in April, in anticipation of a sizeable federal income tax return, an aging dinosaur made his way into the Birichino tasting room. He had begun his journey hours earlier, wandering through redwood forests and Pacific coastlines en route to the city of Santa Cruz, which he had last visited something like a million years ago. Things definitely had changed! There was better coffee now. And fewer megalodons. But other than that, not much had really changed. Santa Cruz embraces change slowly, like a continental plate adrift.
But truth be told, the dinosaur was a bit unsure of what to expect. It had been years since he last purchased Birichino wines, usually their Malvasia Bianca or old vine Grenache, from the Half Moon Bay branch of New Leaf Community Market. But he had shifted away from them as dinosaurs are wont to do. He had been to the wine ghettos. He had taken posh vineyard and cave tours in Napa and Sonoma. He had slept in upscale roadhouses in Anderson Valley and listened to hail hammering the ground while camped out for the night outside of Los Olivos on Figueroa Mountain. He had been to Kermit Lynch more times than he could count (dinosaurs are not known for their advanced computational skills). Once arcane concepts like "Walla Walla Valley," "North Yuba AVA," "Juhfark," "Valdiguié," "Skin fermented Ribolla Gialla," "Minerality," and "Brettanomyces" no longer puzzled him (although Terry Theise's wine notes still did). He even knew where Mount Harlan actually was. He drank sparkling wines for Sunday brunch (they went great with Pterodactylus egg frittata) and old vine Carignane for weekday lunch (with Stegosaurus carnitas tacos) and finished the day with well-aged Mourvèdre accompanied by thin slices of Diplodocus prosciutto served with briny olives, Manchego cheese, and rosemary salted Marcona almonds.
So, he decided to give Birichino another go, this time without the commercial crassness of grocery store shelves and shopping carts getting in the way. He went to the source. He went to Church Street. He sat down at the tasting room bar and began to sample the wines. They were fresh, lively, and light on the tongue. They made him feel young again, as if the disco era had never really ended. When the Bee Gees still shattered the silence with their deafening harmonies. When the Bering Land Bridge had not yet sunk beneath the sea and you could wander freely in the shaded depths of Monterey Canyon. When thunder lizards like him roamed the night in search of prey and random adventure.
"These are very special wines," the dinosaur mused to himself. "They don't taste anything like I expected. They remind me of my ancestors, now deep within the ground, buried by layers upon layers of rock, sediment, and soil. I would serve wines like these to my most difficult of friends, like Bianca the Brontosaurus, who never likes to drink California reds. Alex the Archaeopteryx would really love this Chalone Pinot. But then again, he's been around before there even was a Pinnacles National Park, that's how old Alex is. He probably even knew Matthew the Mastadon and Sally the Giant Sloth back in the day, before the Bechthold Vineyard was even planted."
The dinosaur licked his lips, took another sip of old vine Zinfandel, and smiled.
'What's the deal with this Saint George dude?" he asked the tasting room staff. "What's his beef with dragons? I mean, just between you and me, I think he has some seriously unresolved 'lizard issues.' Slaying the dragon? Come on!!! It's 2019. We don't do these sorts of things anymore. Dragons are people too, you know. Don't you even watch Game of Thrones?"
Realizing he had probably had enough, the dinosaur tipped the last bit of his Cinsaut Pét-Nat into the spit bucket. He unsteadily rose to his feet, flicked his gigantic tail in the air, gathered the bottles he had purchased into his ridiculously tiny arms, and moved on.
"Now I've seen everything!" said a brown pelican perched at the bar drinking a full glass of Jurassic Park Vineyard Chenin Blanc while checking his Facebook feed incessantly. "Dinosaurs in the tasting room? What's next? Walruses? Jackalopes?? Republicans ?!! Good thing I don't live here year round!" He drained his glass of wine and swiftly ordered another.
A few blocks away, the dinosaur was lost in his own inner world, humming the lyrics to "The Winner Takes It All" silently in his walnut-sized brain and dreaming of his next big meal. He clutched his wines closer to his cold-blooded body, gazed skyward, and slowly made his way up Chestnut Street to Highway 1, on the long and winding road home.
Moral: When wines are well made with ample amounts of love and human kindness, their appeal will span generations. Fathers, grandmothers, grandchildren, sauropods, and former ABBA roadies inclusive. There is a Birichino wine for each of them, even if they don't yet know it. Just ask a disco era dinosaur.
