What the Cluck?

“Hey, I know that wine!” The helpful guy at Best Buy was looking at the picture I had taken with my new — and confusing — camera.

“Really? You do?” Cluster Cluck was, as far as I knew, a very limited edition, not widely distributed. In fact, the only place that I had seen it was at the Albertson’s market in Paso Robles and that was a few years back.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wrote about it on my blog!”

“Me, too!”  (Well, I hadn’t, but I was going to which is why I’d taken a picture of it.) “What’s your blog?” He gave me his card and I will reference it here for anyone who is interested in seeing his take on this wine: http://SinCityFoodie.com .

“So, do you know the story of Cluster Cluck?” I asked

“Yes, it’s on the back label.”

“Well, not exactly.” In fact, the real story, which I heard through the, ah, grapevine, is that a certain specialty market which often has one-of-a-kind items including wines, had asked a Paso Robles winery to make a table wine for them in both the red and white varieties. The wine buyer from the store tasted the wine, approved of it, and gave the go-ahead. But somewhere along the line (and I find this quite incredible) the wine was named, bottled and labeled without the buyer’s approval. When he saw it, the wine buyer threw up his hands in horror and said, “we can’t put something named ‘Cluster Cluck’ on our shelves!” And so the wine ended up being sold in the local supermarket at a ridiculously low price.

Really? Cluster Cluck? How bad is that? I mean this name is far less offensive than many other wines out there like Fat Bastard — charming don’t you think? How about Menage a Trois or Fourplay? I came across something called Horse’s Ass (can hardly wait to rip the cork out of that one), and would you believe Big Pecker (it had a toucan on the label). Somehow, Cluster Cluck doesn’t seem all that salacious.

And speaking of clucks, a couple of days ago, I stopped at Jack-in-the-Box and got a chicken sandwich. It came in a box that said, “clucking delicious.” Make of that what you will.

Now I can be as prudish as the next person. In fact, probably more so. I object to foul language (but not fowl language) gratuitous violence and sex on TV, but c’mon, there’s clucks all over the place. Mother would dismiss someone who was acting silly as a “dumb cluck.” My friend Vickie from work loves the “clucketos” from Farm Basket.

So Smokey just walked in and I said, “you want some chick-chick?” “You clucking bet,” she said. No, not really. She said, “meow,” but I’m pretty good at interpreting. So it’s chick-chick and cat-beer (that would be milk) for Smokey and some Cluster Cluck for me. Cheers!