Out of Africa

What is a winery? Is it a place where people drink wine; where wine is made, sampled and bought? Is a winery a business; an establishment where grapes are crushed and sugar is added and fermentation does its work? Or, is a winery more of an idea; a memory of red autumn valleys and broad, fuzzy dreams of what comes next?

Or is a winery a place for decapitated giraffes?

What is a winery?

To understand what you are about to read, you will first need to understand that my wife and I like to drink wine. It is fun. We don’t know that much about the process—certainly not enough to understand what it is the expert behind the counter is talking about—but we have had enough practice to at least know when to nod our heads or scrunch up our noses.

“This one has a smooth finish.” I will often remark. It is generally enough to get us to the next sample.

As Illinoisans, we have traveled to many wonderful wineries in this state, particularly some choice establishments down south, and have visited wineries as far away as Oregon, Virginia and Ontario. Because of their generally relaxed atmosphere and the fact they give you free samples, we take it upon ourselves to seek out wineries we’ve yet to patronize and take a look.

Thus, one day in the recent past, alleviated momentarily from both the joy and responsibility of child rearing, we looked online and found a winery less than an hour from where we lived and decided to hit the road. Couple time. Husband and wife stuff. Courtship and what not.

The worst “winery” I’ve ever seen.

I will not name the establishment, nor offer any hints as to its geographic locale, not out of respect, but because I hate getting sued, and I certainly don’t want to end up like that poor, half-giraffe.

Giraffe? You ask. What in the world is a giraffe doing in a winery? Good question; one that I cannot entirely answer, but, for the sake of my self-imposed deadline, I will try.

The giraffe, ladies and gentlemen, or, more accurately, what was left of it, made up a sizable portion of this “winery’s” décor, along with a zebra, an alligator, and numerous antlered beasts that belong somewhere in the deer family. The “winery’s” owners, because of their passion for Africa—and I’m familiar with this passion because I read their brochure more than once—had gone to said continent a number of times and brought these animals home with them. Perfectly suited, I suppose the logic went, for stuffed display in their Illinois “winery.”

Now, before I continue with my condescending remarks about these large, dead animals, I’d like to switch gears momentarily and offer some condescending thoughts on the “winery” itself. Notice the word winery has, throughout this essay, been surrounded by quotation marks. This grammatical trope has been put into play in a sly attempt to get you, the reader, to suspect that I, the writer, am not entirely convinced the “winery” in question is actually a winery at all.

Case in point: they do not make wine. Instead, they purchase wine made especially for them by a real winery down south and then put their own labels on the bottles. One such label has a picture of two lions making out, and by making out, I mean something else. Appetizing? Hardly.

Now, having said this, I will admit the wine they did not make, but instead sold with pictures of giant copulating cats on the label, did taste good. We bought a glass and a bottle for later. These purchases, however, had much more to do with the fact that the wine reminded me of some other wine I had somewhere else. It was not because of my passion for Africa, so to speak.

So, is this a winery? It did sell wine. And beer. And hamburgers, hot wings, and space to hold a reception. But is it a winery, the way the sign outside, the advertisement on the Internet, said it was? I suppose that depends. Am I a giant department store when I resell snacks to my 7^th graders on Friday afternoons? Am I a chef when I warm up takeout in the microwave? Who knows?

Is this a winery? What is a winery?

“You have to check out our banquet room.” The bright, young, wine pouring lady told us as we finished a glass and began our exit. “That’s where the giraffe is.”

Ah, yes, back to the giraffe. Now, a giraffe is a sizable creature, even when chopped in half, so I do respect the ingenuity the owners took when situating the remaining animal to look natural in such a strange setting. With a bit of apprehension mingling with the warmth from our drink, we said our goodbyes and ventured toward the banquet hall. And, sure enough, there is was, its magnificent stuffed neck jutting out of the bar, its lifelike mouth munching tenderly on delicious plastic grapes. Clearly this was a winery. I was mistaken.

“We’re never coming back here.” My wife suggested as we left. “How can they call that a winery?”

I shrugged. “They sold wine. That dead giraffe was eating plastic grapes.”

“The zebra looked angry.”

“Well, it was only a couple feet from the alligator. No wonder.”

And thus we left the establishment and its passion for Africa, checked it off our list, and drove back home. Later that week, we opened the bottle but poured with the cats facing away from our glasses. Modesty and what not.

In the end, I suppose, I cannot blame them for calling their otherwise decent business a winery. In a world where loud, angry noise is often called music and wasting money is referred to as legislating, who am I to begrudge a man his winery full of large dead animals? After all, it’s not as if I haven’t been called a “teacher” before with a bit of sarcasm by former students.

So, I leave you with this question: what is a winery? I really don’t know. Ask the giraffe.