Wine not approved by God

Have you ever seen those books entitled Conversations with God? They come in parts I, II, & III and are written by a man I'm sure is very nice and thinks God, or some sort of force he calls God, has spoken to him and chosen him as one of his marketing people. I actually have a couple of these books and I like the idea - I've got a faith, but I don't go to church. God knows where I am and He's ok with that. Recovering Catholic, people.. 12-step program. I'm not saying this guy is crazy or anything.. but I'm not preaching either.. My whole point, which I'm sure you're waiting for me to get to - sigh - is, in one of these books, God, for lack of a better term that's what I'll call Him, tells the author - and I'm so summarizing here cuz I haven't picked up the book in ages since I think I've given up on the possibility of sainthood and plan on burning away happily in Hell, that he didn't make the human body able to consume alcohol. Don't blame me - it says so in the book so it must be true - according to this god who's talking to the author anyway. I don't recall that God says specifically if alcohol is bad or a sin or what.. I think He just says he didn't create the human body for the purpose to consume such things.

Well.. THAT sucks.

My argument against such an idea would be if God didn't agree with the consumption of alcohol, why give us free will to come up with such a great idea to make it in the first place? OR, better yet..He could've prevented the whole grapes and hops stuff from even existing. I mean, He is God.. right? And if there was no wine, there'd be no 'cup of the blood of Christ' to sip from at any Catholic church service on Sundays.. and if you weren't raised Catholic, you have no appreciation for this tiny little bit of fun hypocrisy the under-21 set get to have IN CHURCH. I know it's only a sip of wine..but when your 10 it's very cool.

So can you imagine if there was no wine?? Well, there'd be no bit of fun for the 10-year-olds near the end of church to look forward to.. AND since it's supposed to be symbolic for the blood of Christ, I mean, who knows.. they'd probably have you drink actual blood or something literal like that. I'm doubting there are many fans of that idea and all the other religions would see an influx in their memberships I'm sure as the masses (no pun intended) ran screaming from Catholicism and the new pope and his peeps would have some serious damage control on their hands...

What I'm saying is sure, this guy could've talked to God and all he wrote in his book could be true.. I just lean to 'not so much' on the just-say-no-to-wine part.. And amen to that! Because Lord - if it's wrong, I don't want to be right..

We started out early on Saturday morning in Oakland - ok, rephrase - I started out early cuz my morning regimen takes a fucking long time. I know people.. it's ridiculous.. I KNOW..but it can't be helped. So after all the men finished their whole 10 minutes in and out, we were off to my favorite little spot for breakfast called Picante where they have THE BEST COFFEE EVER. Seriously. It's called cafe de olla and it tastes like Christmas with all its cinnamon, brown sugar, and clove-y goodness.. I could bathe in it... it's like an ORGASM in a cup.. not kidding..

Ok ok, enough with the coffee..

We sped off in the jeep and had a little less miserable ride because it was starting to warm up and we were well out of the city limits of foggy and cold San Fran. Plus, I took a little 'olla' to go.. mmmm..Thank you Jesus for that!

Driving.. driving.. driving.. toll bridge.. God I'm bored.. and I'm deaf.. driving.. and we're there.. sorta. We pass the race track we'd be heading to the next day and continue past that to find the first winery we would hit. We, of course, didn't have any clue which one.. just sorta drove til the mood struck us. I gotta say, I was mostly struck by how beautful the area was.. herons flying around, lush hills due to the late rains recently and wow, did it ever smell good out there. You can see the view from the first winery of which I can't remember the name here. I mean.. can't you just smell the green and the flowers and the clean? Ugh.. LOVE it! And the first tastings started with champagnes and I thought once I win the lottery, I'm just going to spend the rest of my life doing this.. that and going to Picante for coffee.. I mean seriously, it's SO good!

At some point early in the drive, we see this. This is a real tree people. Covered in... yeah, no clue what. Whatever it is is greenish-blue and ball-like. We couldn't get close enough to see exactly and there was only one tree like it. Isn't it freaky cool tho? We called it the Dr. Seuss tree cuz, well, I'm sure you can see why. And we had no idea what this signified at all.. we just thought it was cool, hence the stopping on the side of the road and the taking of pictures.

Then SD couldn't stop.. he just kept driving and driving.. I think he really wanted to find somewhere good, God love him.. but I mean, as most wineries closed by 5 or 5:30, we needed to get crackin' cuz by then it was close to 2. So I tell him the next winery no matter what is where we're stopping and he agreed. Gotta love the power of the sisterly threats..

The very next one was St. Francis (Again - if the saints were drinking wine, do you really think God didn't want us to have it? I'm very confused..). See SD and Dad headed into the winery here. And oh yeah, St. Francis himself here (See? He drank and the animals STILL loved him!). The place was so beautiful. The wines..well, the words being thrown around to describe them were 'astringent' and 'acidic' and 'sucks', which is a technical term if you haven't done much wine tasting, but wow did the girl helping us have whiter-than-white teeth. I noticed that much. I'm betting they all get a whitening discount or something.. I should've asked. Damn.

After that, we started picking places by name. SD decided Blackstone Winery was the next one and of all the places we hit, even the group tasting at the races the next day, this was everyone's favorite. AND the tasting was FREE, well, except for the reserves we had - which were fucking amazing. I mean, yum! So we bought an obscene amount of wine for an obscene amount of money and really, that was ok with us. I think it was especially ok for the guy doing the tasting - Mr. Butt-Rock Guy of Sonoma. He was very cool.. but so Metallica-rocks kind of guy it was just funny to us. But hell, we were drunk so who knew what was really funny by then.

*Note for everyone ready to comment on the drinking AND driving - uh.. we WEREN'T doing that. SD was designated and was very careful not to taste too much. Ok? So don't even start!*

I have to say now, AM and I were not doing well. I'm such a lightweight and AM has the tolerance of a 12-year-old girl anyway, but in his defense, we hadn't eaten since 11am. I had to convince SD to stop at the market or else AM, since he was sitting behind me, would be graced with a not so friendly regurgitated cafe de olla and the rest of my breakfast.. We grabbed some chevre and some tasty water crackers and proceeded to our next stop, munching away.

Chateau St. Jean, another place named after a SAINT people.. was the most picturesque place outside of Italy - and I'm just guessing cuz I've only seen Italy in the movies cuz I'm a dolt and have no money ok.. cut me some slack. I know beautiful tho and this and this are..ugh.. beau-tee. Right? Right.. so shut up. I know what I'm talking about. The wines? Oh yeah.. eh.. pffft.

Lots of time has passed now and most places are closing. So we hit one last one on the way out called Stone Creek Winery. Unfortunately, it doesn't really exist anymore. They sold it to some bigger winery and I don't remember the name cuz I was too busy tasting the other wines and loving, LOVING the champagne! Only small amounts of this Stone Creek champagne are left we were told so we all had to get some. It was lovely, especially at $18 a bottle. I also discovered a very sexy chocolate merlot sauce I couldn't fucking resist. Mmm.. made me think dirty..

By the time we got home, I really was dirty and oh, FREEZING. More thoughts of jumping into canyons of fire and that sort of thing during the drive in the jeep and planning Survivor-like alliances with AM for next year when we fucking RENT A CAR! Or just get so blitzed-out-of-our-minds drunk we pass out and don't notice.

Other than that, the wine tasting was really fun and a huge success! We didn't drive drunk, we didn't make fools of ourselves - ok AM did when he brought the cheese and crackers INTO Chateau St. Jean and was eating right out of the brown bag - and ok, I had some too - so even if God didn't really approve maybe St. Francis will put a good word in for me..