Like the Magi of Matthew 2:1-12, your esteemed critics have returned to Bowdoin bearing gifts from their distant homelands. From the maritime reaches of Silicon Valley, Will Danforth brings forth two tokens of the future. The first, the “VinOair,” is a plastic spigot that instantaneously aerates the wine through vacuum-tube technology. The second, the Cork Pops “Auto-Corker,” guarantees forceful wine stopper ejection via compressed air.
The introduction of such technological marvels raises serious ethical quandaries about the veracity of our expert appraisals going forward. Like Icarus, now we too soar at the boundaries of human potential. Have we transgressed against the laws of God, man and our editors through artificial aeration? At the dawn of this new year, does our use of these devices portend a millenarian shift for our column?
Perhaps these questions are best left to the philosophers; we have wine to drink.
From the rolling hills of the Southern Piedmont, Martin brings a relic of our nation’s winemaking past: Duplin Winery’s Scuppernong. Derived from the muscadine, one of the only grapes native to North America and the alleged favorite of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the Scuppernong makes our tasting feel like yet another chapter in the perennial struggle between tradition and modernity.
Despite the historical import of the Scuppernong to Martin’s home of North Carolina, his public school education failed to enlighten him about his state’s viticultural heritage. He hoped that North Carolina’s best could hold its own against wines tried in previous installments with provenance in Will’s home state of California.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Scuppernong reinforces widely held stereotypes about the pace of life in the South. The wine imparted a flavor reminiscent of sweet-sticky molasses as it slid slowly down our throats. Quoth James Jelin ’16, “This is incredibly sugary. Please don’t make me drink the rest of this [glass].” Indeed, each quaff left our mouths coated with a cloying residue that made us feel as though we were rapidly developing dental cavities. It was as if a six-year-old child had imagineered his understanding of wine into existence.
Nonetheless, our journalistic integrity dictated that we, as well as James Jelin, finish the Scuppernong. Given the historical success of this variety, the wine’s viscous and saccharine nature left us confused as to how anyone could finish more than a minute sampling. As we sacrificed ourselves on the altar of our column, we sought elucidation as to the wine’s enigmatic appeal from the bottle’s label. Though the seagull and lighthouse graphics may have been composed of Microsoft clip art, we found them oddly comforting. With outstretched wings, the bird ruptured the frame of its rectangular sticker, offering us the promise that, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, we too could ascend to a higher plane of existence if we just kept flying.
Enlightened by our journey, we finally concluded that the Scuppernong was nothing more than an inexpensive and disappointing alternative to port or sherry. We can only hope to avoid a renaissance of this anachronistic offering in our lifetimes.