By Rich Knopke

When it comes to wine - discerning the nuances of taste, region and anything else outside of the colors of red and white - I have the sense of taste of a mallard duck, a bird with less than 500 taste buds (as compared to a human’s 10,000). 

I will never be mistaken for a sommelier though I did take a wine class years ago so I could learn about wine.  That's what I told people. I really took the class to meet women. I failed on both counts. I met no one and learned nothing.  I did like the crackers they gave between wine tastings. What was that....a Ritz Cracker?  

So when my friend April, who recently opened an organic wine store called Sip…a wine store in North Carolina (http://www.sipawinestore.com), sent me 2 bottles of wine and asked that I write a story about it, I thought she was kidding. I'm not sure I could do the wine industry justice.  It'd be like asking Sarah Palin to write a piece on foreign policy, Kirstie Alley on healthy eating, A-rod on living an ego free life or Lindsay Lohan on clean living. People like us shouldn't be penning on these topics.

After all, I once went in to a wine store years ago and asked "What kind of wine do you have for a guy who drinks beer?"  The owner rightfully looked at me like the wine putz that I am.

I figured the only way to take on the task of writing a good story about the wine would be to find the right crew with which to share it. A group of people who would appreciate the wine. A group of people who would discuss the wine as though it was heaven sent and could poetically describe it, perhaps even in the form of haiku.

It was going to be great and April would be proud of the work that I did in touting her store.  She would love me forever and would be indebted for making people go to her store the way people came to the cornfields of Iowa at the end of Field of Dreams. April, they will come April.  

And then I decided to share it with 9 of my friends on a weekend when we consider Pabst mixed with Whiskey (lovingly called “beerski’s”) to be top shelf drinking. Forget haiku.  I'd settle for one usable non-Neanderthal-like quote. 

We're 10 friends who grew up together with some of us knowing each other as far back as the 3rd grade. We've lost track of the years but we believed this to be the 20th anniversary of an annual camping trip that has devolved to parking 10 cars next to our campsite that comes equipped with running water and outlets for our ipods and speakers. We stopped grilling over the fire years ago and bought a propane mini-camping grill. Some of us play golf on Saturday.  Recently, we (I) even jumped the shark by shedding our (my) rock strewn bed for an amazingly comfortable aero bed.  We considered this roughing it.  

Sure the weekend has changed a bit (we're 2 more years away from a cabin and butlers who pass around hors d'œuvres of cocktail wieners) but it has always been about the gathering of friends, making fun of each other and seeing how many pieces of wood we can pile on to our friend Ken after he's passed out (always first) around the campfire without waking him up.

We opened the bottle of 2007 Three, Old Vine Zinfandel (by Matt Cline) on the second night after a day (and morning and late evening) of drinking, which may or may not have been the best idea (truthfully, no time would have been good).

Schlang, April's husband and one of 2 wines enthusiasts in the group, opens the bottle and has me smell it.  It smells like Pabst I say before realizing I'm holding a can of the beer close to my face.

It's dusk and we're sitting in a circle around a fire.  Stew gets the bottle next.  I ask him for his opinion. "Uh, I'm not sure you should be asking me. I'm starting from a base of Jack." 

The bottle is passed from person to person with similar sentiments. 

“What do you think, Fitz?”  

“I don't know,” he said.  While all 10 of us are beer drinkers, Fitz stands above the rest for his predilection to barley and hops.  Frankly, an “I don’t know” from him was as close to an endorsement as you’ll get. 

Ken hasn’t fallen asleep yet and we wanted to get him a taste early on because we wouldn’t know if he’d still be awake the next time the bottle got to him.  It was 8:15pm.  “I don't know. It's oaky?  It is red.”   

Jabba, “It tastes like Manischewitz.”  It doesn’t.  That much I know. 

Len, “I taste fruits and vegetables.”

It’s not v8 someone blurts out.  It might have been me.  I may not be sober at this point and a week later, I can’t read the scribble that passed for my notes from the weekend. 

Len continues, “It does taste like a red. You want me to pass this around or should I finish it?”  There’s three quarters of a bottle left. 

Ben, “I choose not to offend Schlang.”  I miss the old Ben.  Years ago, when he was hooked on Diet Coke and candy necklaces, he would have offended Schlang. 

Dan is next up.  Outside of Schlang, he’s the only one that knows anything about wine.   He also has a wine fridge.  On that alone he’s a Wine God compared to us.  I expect a good quote.  He goes through all the machinations of what I think a sommelier would do.  He takes a deep and long breath taking in the wine through his nose.  He discerns.  He takes a nice sip, rolls it around the back of his mouth or whatever you’re supposed to do when it gets in your mouth.  And then he passes the bottle off without saying anything. 

Rob, going last, quips, “It tastes like fruit and the mouths of 10 dudes.”

Stew again: “It’s not oaky.  It has less bite than Jack Daniels.”

Len, “It is smooth and silky.”

“It is anti-smooth and silky,” says Jabba.   

“Jabba finds it rough and wooly,” retorts Ben.   

Schlang says that “it's a young wine.”  

“Len likes them young.  Wow, this wine is making me mean,” I respond.

Schlang finishes the bottle and we move back to our beerski’s. 

In 20 years, we’d never brought wine camping.  It was an experience that enhanced our time together with a new avenue of commentary and fun.  That’s what wine is about.  It’s about trying something new with good friends, having lots of laughs and piling wood on top of passed out Ken.  We all loved the wine that April recommended to us even if the taste was different for everyone. 

To some, it tasted fruity and oaky.  To others, perhaps like v8 or Manischewitz.  For those with the taste buds of a mallard duck, we’re not sure what the heck it tasted like but we know it was good.  Even for guys who like their wine to taste like beer.