Sonoma Calling

Connoisseur’s Corner.

There’s always been the temptation to drink and write. For years, I’ve resisted. As much as I’ve enjoyed the drug-infused work of New Journalism junkie Hunter S. Thompson or visiting the literate, moonshined swales of Faulkner’s unpronounceable county in Mississippi, there was the acknowledgement that my own oeuvre was rarely advanced through anything other than coffee, sometimes cigarettes when I was younger and the occasional beer if I’m reviewing a story that I’ve already written. To say I write for beer is true in many respects, but generally the ’twain doesn’t meet in the actual act of writing.

But this story is different. It’s about recalling an experience that can only be described as transporting. To return to that day, I intend to crack a bottle of Sonoma Pride and will proceed to drink this rare elixir throughout this rendition in order to re-introduce an extraordinary California experience, to seek out that maelstrom in reverse, if you will, that transported me upward as if in a land-borne waterspout.

Just how I came across this rare bottle is a story ne’er to be told, or at least held in confidence until this gray beard reaches the bellybutton. There was a redhead, with piercing and knowing Sphinx-like eyes of blue involved – until she called me “Sir” and then, well, anyhow.

I’m being honest as a mockingbird calling like a blue jay when I say that this story will unfold at the crack of the bottle top. It is a tale of terroir and loving, where fear and loathing have been replaced by meticulous crafting.