If Good Enough for Orson Welles ...

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about wine ...

Wine is not for getting drunk. Should one want to get drunk, there are many more effective and direct ways of doing so through the utilization of the so-called "hard liquors." In fact, much of the ingenuity of the galactic denizens who haven't bothered to do anything their parents would approve of like getting advanced degrees in maths and physics has been spent refining the means and the methods by which one might get drunk through the infusion of various combinations of said liquors. (c.f. Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster) These dalliances are not for wine drinkers. Oh no.


For these rarified, often priviledged individuals, wine is for getting drunk and feeling damn smug about it. Its body, its head, its aroma, its dryness or sweetness, its earthiness (or whatever planet you happen to be on-i-ness) are all components made up to serve the purpose that "taste" serves so adequately in any other consumable. This is because wine is not about the drink but the experience of drinking, an experience that generally says, "I'm better than you. Ha ha."


Unfortunately the reality of the universe is that once you've gone to trouble of carving yourself out an area in which you can feel all nice and smarmy, everyone else wants to be in on the gig. Economic realities being what they are, wine is no different, having been made available to all and sundry despite the several wars that have been fought to maintain its exclusivity.

After much consternation and bloodshed, there was only one thing for it, the invention of the wineshop, a shop that is not so much about one's wine as it is about the experience of shopping for one's wine, a place so art snobbingly snitty that one could purchase his, her, or its blessed juice of the vine without having to cross between the dairy and pet food aisles to do so.


Every once and a while however, one finds an individual whose heart is with the hoi poloi but whose soul is with the grape. The result of this tension is hard to describe, and thus we are forced to turn to those who have taken advanced degrees in physics, which is, after all, what they are there for. Such people tell us that these wineshops behave as particles drawn towards a "snobbish" density to carreen off towards "eccentricity", become refracted by "eclecticism", only to find themselves wandering in an asteroid belt of downright "hippness". Such a place is The Market Street Wineshop, a basement grocery and paradise for the local wine and beer conoisseur where the college student, the professor, the lawyer, the tourist, the mall rat, and downtown working stiff can all meet to greet and raise their spirits. This is where our hero, Clinton Johnston finds himself working one sunny, summer day after having pursued advanced degrees ... but not, of course, in physics.