Cul de Cuvée: 16 October 2021

A bluntly-curated selection of absolutely random recent bits from around the wine and drink world.

I've re-rediscovered me

Proving that drinking can lead to new discoveries, a drunken man found himself while helping friends look for said self. If this sounds familiar it's because self-discovery search parties are now about as common as gender reveal parties, except with less wanton destruction. And yes, we should all blame new-fangled technology, especially Instagram.

Snooki's new sips

Former Jersey Shore star and walking car accident, Snooki, has released her own wine brand. As we all know at this point, world peace can go fuck itself as what we really need are more celeb wines. In related news, New Jersey is the 12th largest wine drinking state in the US. Is it because of Cougar juice?

All hail our new boar overlords

Proving that boars aren't just righteous vineyard pests eating your grapes, the barefoot chanteuse, Shakira had her handbag stolen by boars in a park above Barcelona which had her mobile. She was apparently able to retrieve the handbag from said boar incursion. Via an alleged follow-up interview with Shakira over coffee and a McFlurry at the McDonald's in el Raval, she stated that the boars had indeed "made use" of the mobile. While admirable given their lack of opposable thumbs, she was unable to say anything further as per her lawyer's advice due to the monkey selfie incident.

The sky is (not really) falling!

Yes, it's time for another hit of world wine shortage articles because as was previously noted, production in Bourgogne will be way down this year and that's where all wine in the world is produced except when it's not. Naturally, by the end of that article, the author admits that plenty of wine is still out there. Why? Because we've been here before with bait-y headlines that predicted a wine shortage back in 2017 and as we all remember, we had a very hard time getting our hands on wine for... never.

The racoons have your dumpsters now

A couple of enterprising chaps with the most awesome name of "Two Racoons Winery" have released their first "vintage" make from fresh, dumpster-to-table food waste. Excellent initiative but it begs the question as to whether Château Chunder can be revived as a brand?

Natural without natural

In what is part of a growing trend, a new natural but not natural wine bar will be opening up in the freeway-exit-chic town of El Cerrito in the San Francisco Bay Area. It will feature "not-too-funky natural wines", "one warm dish", corkage at "$15 or $20" and alleged opening hours of "at like point some point during the day. Sure, why not?".

Watch yer back, Georgia

In the constant competition to see who can "out cradle" one another, the Israelis have discovered the largest historic winery to date. While a mere 1,500 years old, it produced something like two million liters of wine a year, enough to supply all the needs of Snooki's new wine label if current trends hold true and we don't run out of wine by next Thursday.