Splish-Splash

Tomorrow (Saturday) at our weekly tasting (free!!!! frei!!!  libérer!!!) on Saturday from 3-6pm at 132 Front Street in Greenport (subtle hint), we are uncorking a pretty nifty red called Cannonball.

Many of us on the East End are familiar with "cannonballs" what with the war of 1812 history around us, the 4pm Friday LIRR "Cannonball" delivering the swells to the Hamptons and of course with all the opportunities for swimming out here there is the omnipresent "let's get everyone poolside all wet" cannonball - the subject of the wine label.

In diving the cannonball is the antithesis of competitive drives where the purpose is to maximize, rather than minimize, the splash.  We were talking about that with one of our friends today as he liked the label and thought it reminded him of some Saturday Evening Post cover.

He told us a story of his father in turn of the century Vermont jumping off a bridge into a mill pond and making a big splash and having a friend who, when he fell on hard times in the depression, started painting and from memory or something painted the scene, so lifelike and positively "imagination-true" that he waxed nostalgic over it until the day he died.

It was funny and a nicely sentimental story that evolved from a wine label but we like that - it makes our jobs and time go by fast when these short yarns are spun out for us.  We also thought that he wasn't telling the story, those few sentences, to entertain us but because he was just thinking out loud and we happened to be there.  But off he went, smiling, promising to drop in on Saturday and see how the Cannonball was doing and if was making a "splash" with our patrons.

We look forward to that.