Thirsty Charlatans

By C. Denasaman

Mike, Natalie and I were bored! It was a cold, wet dreary weekend in Northern California and we were bored and fed up. On a whim, we decided to jump into Mike’s little Red and Black Mini car and headed up to Sonoma to socialise and do some wine tasting. We drove across San Francisco Bay shrouded in rain mist and fog, through the iconic arches of the Golden Gate Bridge and on to the Los Carneros wine region.

The Los Carneros Region is between the Mayacamas Mountains to the North and San Pablo Bay (an offshoot of San Francisco Bay) to the South and encompasses parts of both Napa and Sonoma. The region has cool nights, warm days and gets a lot of wind and fog from San Pablo Bay making it quite a different climate for growing grapes than the warmer regions of Napa and Sonoma to the North. The climate particularly favours the Burgundy grapes of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, which seem to like a bit of fog.

We eventually stopped at a small winery, where the owner was the grower, wine maker and bartender. We tasted the wine and had a pleasant chat with the owner, who shared the story of his winery and the local wine region. The Pinot Noir wine was quite interesting, being a light wine with quite a bit of acidity and spicy redcurrant and cherry flavours. I was less impressed with the Chardonnay which was one dimensional, with lemony acidity and the Syrah wines which had a predominant flavour of white pepper but not much else.

After we’d tasted all the different wines, I wandered away to talk to another group who had just bought a bottle of wine, leaving Natalie and Mike to continue talking with the owner. The group was a joint pre-wedding hen and stag party, who were doing the rounds of Sonoma Valley wineries. I listened attentively to the story of how the bride and groom to be met while subtly trying to get them to share the bottle they had just bought.

While I was talking to the hen and stag party and enjoying the glass of wine they gave me, my attention kept being drawn to the conversation that Mike was having with the winery owner. I was experiencing the cocktail party phenomenon, named by the cognitive psychologist Colin Cherry. The cocktail party phenomenon is a curious cognitive effect where my attention kept switching to Mike’s conversation even though I wasn’t consciously listening to it and was actively engaged in another conversation with a member of the hen and stag party. I couldn’t quite make out Mike’s conversation but I had an uncomfortable sensation that it related to me.

After a while the winery owner came over, pulled me aside and thanked me for taking the time to visit his winery. He added that it was an honour that someone of my status had decided to come along to sample his wines. Slightly confused and not knowing what to say I glanced over the shoulder of the winery owner at Mike, who had a very innocent look on his face. The owner then presented me with a bottle of his best wine, saying that he hoped his simple wine was acceptable to me, that he wouldn’t spend too long talking to me, and that my secret was safe with him. He then made his excuses and left me nonplussed holding a bottle of wine.

It turned out that Mike had told the winery owner, in his deadpan way, that I was a member of the British Aristocracy currently working with NASA and that he was my bodyguard. He said that I had a great love of wine (which is true) and that we were travelling around Sonoma incognito tasting wine. He said he had confided in the winery owner so that he would be alert in case he saw anyone suspicious lurking around the winery. He added for good measure that he shouldn’t discuss this with anyone else because of security considerations.

Unfortunately, the hen and stag party whose wine I was drinking had overheard parts of my conversation with the winery owner and were utterly convinced that I was someone of great importance, despite my protestations to the contrary, which they just thought were part of our security measures. In a comical Monty Python-esq way the more I denied that I was the Messiah the more they believed it to be true. They insisted that Mike, Natalie and I join them at their pre-wedding dinner that night in nearby Sonoma and refused to take no for an answer.

Dinner was a riotous affair as the wine flowed and our merry hosts tried to guess who I was and why I was important enough to have a bodyguard. Mike masterfully told them just enough information to pique their interest, but not enough to satisfy them. Their theories ranged from actors, to astronauts, to writers (ahem) but no one seemed to twig that we were really just a couple of thirsty charlatans. Later that evening we said goodbye to our hosts and politely deflected their insistence that we attend the wedding the next day.

Passing back through San Francisco we decided to stop for a drink at a rather fashionable restaurant/bar in Washington Square. Since we were in wine tasting mode, we ordered a number of different wines which we compared side by side offering our commentary on their various strengths and weaknesses to anyone who would listen. Followed by a gin tasting, to work out the best gin to go into a Martini that someone else at the bar was ordering. We were great favourites in the bar with people buying us drinks and avidly participating in our fun, including Natalie who was only drinking cola.

During dinner with the hen and stag party I had picked up a flower from a vase on the table and put it in the button hole of my jacket. At one point during the evening, I solemnly removed the flower from my jacket and presented it with much theatre to the attractive female bartender who was serving us, being sure to mention that I had a wife to ensure that my gesture was understood as one of nobility rather than amour. She was somewhat embarrassed, blushing rather red, but also very impressed at my gentlemanly gesture, particularly when Mike quietly whispered into her ear his earlier fabricated story about me being a member of the British Aristocracy. In contrast, the sober Natalie, further along the bar just slowly shook her head.

The bar eventually emptied and the bar staff cleared up around us, gently trying to persuade us that it was time to leave, which we ignored. Then with a sudden sobering realization of how much our night of revelry would cost in an upmarket establishment like this, we tentatively asked for our bill. Only to find that the female bartender to whom I’d presented the flower, and who was also the bar manager, had taken care of our bill because of my status and because we were so much fun!

As a footnote, this happy jaunt was followed by a number of other very social evenings in that bar in Washington Square, and we got to know the female bartender to whom I’d given the flower very well. Every time I went to the bar I was very careful to make sure that I talked about my wife and daughter to ensure that there was no misunderstanding and she would nod in a knowing kind of way. On leaving we were always surprised at the quality of the service and how cheap the drinks were, despite it being an upmarket trendy bar/restaurant.

Then, one fateful night I actually took my wife to introduce her to the female bartender and show her the bar that she’d heard so much about. To say that our reception was frosty was an understatement. A polar bear on a cold day in the Antarctic would have been warmer. And when the bill came, it was nearly $50 for three small beers and a cola. Mike’s word still haunt me today “Dude, what have you done. You’ve killed the Golden Goose!”

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