Postcard From Wine Fest
Words Jesse Scaccia
Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
I just bicycled home from Wine Fest at Town Point Park. To give you some idea of what kind of Wine Fest it was for me, I just misspelled the word ‘bicycled’ three times before I got it right.
So that’s where we stand right now.
For those of you who have never been to a Wine Fest, let me put it this way: there’s more of an emphasis on the ‘fest’ than the wine. You get a bracelet that indicates you’re 21. You are given a wine glass. And then you are released into an area where about 30 vineyards conspire to get you drunk off dozens of different wines at once.
I went on Sunday, the second, and final day of the festival. It was cold and windy, with the ground too wet for proper picnicking. There was a congenial atmosphere something like tailgating before a football game. Except at Wine Fest we were all rooting for more wine, and more wine won, and we all celebrated and cheered.
People act a little crazy at Wine Fest. I watched a girl laugh hysterically as she chased a cop on a Segway. Another girl tried to make a snow angel on the cement. On the way home I nearly steered my bike into a giant construction hole near my apartment on Freemason. I swerved at the last minute into a fence and then jumped off next to a porta-potty, so I decided to go inside and use it.
Wow, I thought as I looked around and marveled that society could create something so perfect and sublime, this is amazing.
The following quote more or less sums up the spirit and experience of Wine Fest:
“I don’t even know what was happening at Wine Fest,” my roommate Liz said. “I know I was eating somebody else’s food, and I know I was okay with it.”
And then she snuggled up in bed with three of her friends to take a wine nap.
That’s not to say the wine was bad. It was actually quite good, at least to my beer preferring palatte. I just reached into my pocket and found some crumpled up wine menus. I assume this means that I liked them: North Mountain Vineyard and Winery; Cooper Vineyards; Horton Cellars; and Wintergreen Winery. I had never had chocolate, pear, or warm wine before, and I enjoyed them all. So now I know, which is half the battle.
Here’s a little video I made of people having fun at Wine Fest. It is completely trifling, the opposite of educational, and will embarrass just about everyone involved, so I think you’ll at least sort of enjoy it.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Jesse is the editor in chief of AltDaily, and he's going to take this bio seriously, but not so seriously that he's going to continue in the third person. I've been involved with a bunch of local projects and civic groups in various roles, including: Hampton Roads, The Canvas; Art | Everywhere, Street Performance in Norfolk; Survive Norfolk; Hampton Roads Pride/Out in the Park; Bike Norfolk; re:Vision Norfolk, and such.
I originally came to Norfolk as a Perry Morgan fellow in ODU's creative writing program. Before that I bummed around quite a bit, writing stacks of books that never got published, hitchhiking, couchsurfing, riding the Greyhound up down and back across this country. Some of my favorite jobs and volunteer gigs have included working on organic farms in Ireland; being first mate on an old sail boat in Holland; working at a long-term home for young men in South Africa; being a journalist and high school teacher in New York and California; washing dishes in Yosemite National Park; teaching English in DC and swimming in Florida; and interning at ESPN in Bristol, which was much less cool that you'd want it to be. My career highlights have been having three of my op-eds run in the New York Times, and being the executive producer of a six-part docu-drama on BET. Because school is cool I have three master's degrees (ODU for MFA, NYU for magazine journalism, University of Connecticut for secondary English education). I live in Norfolk because I believe in its potential. Email your ideas or nicely couched criticism to jesse@altdaily.com.
Other posts by Jesse Scaccia.
Other posts by Jesse Scaccia.
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Awesome!
This might be the worst article ever. You sound like a drunk sorority chick writing a blog about something you decided to go to at the last minute because you got free tickets. I’m sure all the vineyards who worked hard for years to make a quality product really appreciate your review of their labor. Maybe next year you can stay home with a nice bottle of Andre, then bike around all drunkenly and pass out in a ditch so that you don’t make it to a computer. Then I won’t have to waste my time reading this junk on Monday, thinking it might be an article with some actual content about a local event.
Cheers, Geof!
Geez, Geof. Harsh. I found this to be an enjoyable read. I don’t drink but it makes me wish I was at the Wine Festival because the writer made it sound so fun.
Geof,
If you want to read articles with actual content, go to PilotOnline.com. This was just a fun little piece from a fun little alternative magazine…sometimes they have serious stuff, most of the time they don’t!
To be able to write period after wine fest is an accomplishment. To write and be entertaining is fantastic.
Also, you are a very kind editor.
Thanks for the piece.
-A
ur rite guize. mayb I should b a riter 2. lolz. drinkinz fun e. yall like 2 r33d bout 40z?
“this was just a fun little piece from a fun little alternative magazine”
i actually agree with geoff’s comments earlier. interestingly enough you can have a “fun” story without sacrificing content. basically what it boils down to is this is just a poorly written article that neither benefits the wine festival nor my perception of this “author”. the only saving grace is the included video.
To those criticizing, I’ll take this as a compliment to my other writing, and thank you for holding me to a high standard. I expected some blowback from this–it is much more ‘bloggy’ than how I usually write.
But still, I’m not sure that any other media outlets did a write-up about this event. And in this instance my goal was more to capture the spirit of the event than the who/what/where/how/when. Plus, I know literally nothing about wine, so me talking seriously about it would have been disrespectful to the vineyards, in my opinion.
Anyway, all that said, you really think my writing this piece was a disservice to the Wine Fest? Because I would hate if that were true, because it’s a great event. I didn’t make it seem like a good time? What kind of indication would you like to see on a piece like this to alert you that it’s going to be more light-hearted and fun?
As always: thank you for reading.
And: don’t forget that there’s only two of us that do this, and if you did the math, we get paid about 6 cents an hour. For what it’s worth.
I think- Postcard from Wine Fest- was a pretty good indication.
Well, you did a good job of getting Geof to come back to your site. A little more repeat business and you can charge 7 cents an hour.
Hmmm…I think the fact that this write-up was filed under “blog” should have been more than enough to indicate that there would be more opinion than factual content =) Either way, keep up the goofy blogs, as well as the serious writing! There’s a time and a place for both (at least in my opinion)…
Thanks for your comment, Anna. I’m glad you get what we’re trying to do here.
I didn’t want to make the comment myself, to avoid seeming defensive. But yeah, we tend to file the more journalistic pieces under “features” and the goofy, little one-offs under blogs. Sometimes a more feature-y piece will end up in blogs because it’s a part of a column or because we want to refresh the front page with as many new items as we can every day. But never will you find a fun and obviously unresearched piece like this in the features.
And even there, the pieces we write are never going to be straight reporting. As you said earlier, if that’s the kind of news you’re looking for, go to PilotOnline. We’re not investigative reporters, and we don’t care about cracking stories. That’s what The Pilot is there for.
This is an indie alt web magazine, Geof. If outlets like us don’t have the license to write funny, drunken blogs in our blogs section, then all media might as well just come from old, traditional media conglomerates like VPMC. Oh wait, all the rest of it does.
Wine fest is actually a serious event that people look forward to every year. Gathering with friends and have a good time.
I think that the editors of this “Indie alt website”(how stupid and cheesy that sounds by the way)are missing the point and really making complete asses of themselves. This seems to be the pattern with every article “Jesse” rights. I feel actually less intelligent for having read anything from these amatuar “Editors” publish. Now having read this final piece you have lost one less reader. i am sure many are to follow. Go back to your day jobs waiting tables or what ever you do other than your “INDIE ALT WEBSITE” have I mentioned how stupid that term sounds?
best of luck in your future careers
Did you watch the video, Victoria? Yes, this was a serious event for a lot of people, but for the majority of people it’s just a lot of fun.
More importantly, WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?
Why are you so angry?
What is happening in your life that would make you write such nasty things?
Do you realize I’m a real live person? Was that blog really so offensive to you that you’d feel the desire to insult my profession, my passion, and my business?
Why not just not come back?
And if you actually care about media or this area (or whatever drew you to this site), why not take a few minutes to write a constructive personal letter?
Why why why why why?
And, might I ask, what do you do, and where?
I thought the article was great! I didn’t go to Wine Fest because of the weather, but now I’m much more disappointed to have missed it. Next year, I’ll be more likely to brave cold, mist, or (on a shoestring budget) expensive tickets, if it’s that good of a time in addition to the good time.
I’m with Jesse on the meanness – why? Why would you be so insulting over a random little essay (and I think its title and categorization should have been enough to flag that this was not one of the serious bits)? Hell, why would you insult a person like that, ever?
I find this website to be incredibly refreshing. I don’t always agree with every writer or every article, but that’s the awesome part. There’s boring, generic, inaccessible news all over the Internet. AltDaily is doing us all a service by being an intelligent, personal, public voice in Hampton Roads.