the cardigans: i need some fine wine

on saturday, at exactly twelve noon, this 13 passenger Executive Shuttle showed up outside of henri’s house.

no, it was not searching for the local marriot. nor was it full of senior citizens on a tour of austin (”next up! drafthouse henri’s house!!! if we’re lucky, we’ll see him outside, dumping diet coke cans in the recycling bin!”).

do you know why it came?

to take pants world on a magical mystical winery tour!!!!!!

I KNOW!!!! it was the coolest thing EVER!!!!!

eleven of my favorite people climbed on board with me for a day of vineyards, wine and the enjoyment of each other’s most pleasurable company.

there’s meredith and matt, the houston superstars, with the backseat hooligans: josh, dustin and john.

here’s a picture i took at the end of the day of meredith with our most ADORABLE driver, jerry. I LOVE JERRY. he was totally chill and let us play our music loud and also happened to be a SPEED DEMON of a driver.

i told jerry that it would be great if he could just be my personal driver and then all of my friends could hang out with me all of the time, sort of like “entourage” but without the actual hollywood parts (although i would SO do a movie with mandy moore). i said that my life would improve by at least 80% if he were an every day part of it. he just smiled.

on the ride up, i introduced everyone by saying their full name and telling a little story about them. eric told me that he was surprised i didn’t make everyone nametags… but believe me, I THOUGHT ABOUT IT. i also considered making everyone play some sort of road trip game, but everyone hit it off so well that party games weren’t necessary. it made me SO HAPPY to see people i adore discovering the awesomeness in each other. friend match-making is an extremely gratifying profession, let me tell you.

after about an hour and a half of driving, we arrived at our first winery, becker vineyards, just outside of fredericksburg. here is the group shot that i made everyone take:

look how excited we are!!!! we are ready to get upons some wine!! it’s like a freaking christmas card!!! happy holidays from pants world!!

i have to say, it feels pretty cool to descend from an Executive Shuttle into a tasting room with eleven of the coolest people you know. i could just tell that all of the old people hanging out on the porch totally wanted to be us. at least, i think that’s what they were feeling.

anyway, i elected to take the tour, which only lasted about ten minutes and consisted of walking past a LOT of barrels.

when i came back, i told meredith what i had learned, including the fact that, after the winery has used a barrel for about ten years, they will sell it to the public for $50. meredith’s eyes widened as she replied, “$50?! awesome!! wait… are they full?”

meredith’s always got her eyes on the prize.

out on the porch, we tried all kinds of wine, and by kinds i mean colors. that is how i classify wine (besides my favorite kind, which is “inexpensive”). here is part of the becker spread:

i know those little crackers look like goldfish, but they’re not. unfortunately.

it’s easy to feel classy when you’re standing on a porch, sipping wine and engaging in scintillating conversation. just ask erica and amber:

even though it was a cloudy day, i really enjoyed the weather. it looked like a fall day, even though it felt, oh, a bit summery (hey! seasons! i’m really sorry about the whole global warming thing. PLEASE COME BACK!).

while we sipped on our wine, jerry sat under a tree with a paper.

HOW PRECIOUS IS HE?!!

when we had tried pretty much everything becker had to offer, we hopped back on the bus and indulged in a little snacking.

FYI, josh hates dumb food.

here’s the group shot from our second stop, grape creek vineyards. we were supposed to do a boy band pose. i mean, i thought we were.

and yes, that IS my boy band pose. a fist and a jazz hand. i think it represents both the masculine and fru-fru dimensions of boy bandness, and i stand by that decision.

the best part of the day wasn’t the wine or the lovely vineyards– it was the chance to goof off for a whole afternoon with people who are incredibly good at goofing off. like meredith and erica.

grape creek just opened a brand new facility, and it is really nice inside. the main room has that “new home” smell of paint and wood, which i really wish they would market as the next home fragrance spray. if i could walk into that smell at my apartment every day, i honestly would believe that it was suddenly new again. which would be exciting!

anyway, here’s the tasting counter.

apparently, the taster guy was quite a CHARACTER. jodi came over to report to me the following statement made by the taster guy, after a lady quickly finished off her sample: “well now! how’d you get yr tongue down there so fast?”

here is jodi, immediately after telling me of said quote:

she also tagged it as “extremely blog-worthy,” and thus, you are reading about it.

then i had to stop and think about whether or not i use my tongue when i’m drinking wine. i mean, sure, i *taste* it, but does it aid me in sippage? hmm. maybe wikipedia will know.

we got back on the shuttle for a quick ride to our last winery of the day, torre di pietra. i like this vineyard cos it sort of sounds like my last name! and also they feature super fun labels on their bottles.

here’s owen, doing a celebrity exit from the shuttle:

brit and linds, take note! it is, in fact, possible to exit a vehicle without flashing yr lady parts to the world.

as eric demonstrates, it’s like, duh.

torre di pietra features a fantastic patio area, which we planned to make great, great use of:

you can tell that after two and a half hours of drinking wine, we have become connoisseurs. i mean, just LOOK at the serious expression on john’s face and matt’s studious approach to the tasting menu. these guys mean business pants!

after carefully selecting our wines, we settled into the aforementioned patio to soak in the last hour of our afternoon. honestly, is there any better way to spend a saturday in the fall?

henri bought a tasty (!) bottle of port. it rocked a fancy tango headdress.

of course by the end, things got a little silly.

our well-groomed, respectable demeanor that you saw in our first group photo was now reduced to this:

actually, i was trying to get a shot of everyone jumping, but obviously it didn’t work out. then i decided to do a series of pictures of owen demonstrating the various stages of the act of jumping:

step one: prepare for lift-off

step two: reach for the stars!

step three: try… just… a… little… bit… HARDER

step four: SUCCESS!

does anyone know how to make animated gifs?

anyway

the picture bandit (aka henri) made a surprise appearance as i attempted to capture the elegance of josh and dustin:

fortunately, the picture bandit was baniSHED before he could interrupt some sweet, sweet sassiness:

back on the shuttle and headed home, things got a little cray cray.

here’s josh, threatening me with a square of swiss cheese. or perhaps he’s touting its qualities while speaking in a gangster voice. “you think you wanna piece of dis cheese? huh? do ya, kid?” either way, i love cheese.

at some point, the reclining leather chairs gave birth to henri’s head. DISTURB, MUCH?

and you knew it had to happen… there was even a little pole dancing, courtesy of matt:

i really hope jerry kept his eyes on the road.

i also like this picture that meredith took… it’s like i’m reaching out to my mirror friend and pleading with her to go back to the vineyard, where life is eternally beautiful and full of tasty beverages and lovely people.

when you get back from a day full of wine, there’s only one thing to do.

and that one thing, of course, is beowulf in 3-D.

(talena joined us for the movie)

apparently, john had to turn up his collar in order to fully experience the AWESOMENESS that is this movie. in fact, it’s so spectacular that i might write about it later this week.

suffice it to say, this was pretty much the best day ever.*

*i know i say that a lot, but i mean it every time. just like how i say “i love you guys!” during group events. on saturday, i said it after the first vineyard, leading matt to totally score in the betting pool. but yeah, I MEAN IT.

LINKS

CUTEST THING EVER! kids made up their own laptop interfaces. uh, could i get the “rily werd games” button on my work computer? kthanx!

children laptop interfaces rily werd games

r. kelly’s publicist quit, and BWE gave her the ode she deserves.

disney is now aggressively marketing their princess image to grown women, including wedding dresses inspired by cinderella, belle, etc. etc. but guess what, disney? i don’t need yr products for validation of my special preciousness, cos my freaking NAME means princess. so there.

mindy kaling finally wrote about the writer’s strike on her blog. i will now take this opportunity to indulge in an “office” quote: “hey hey! you you! i don’t like yr boyfriend! cos cos! he he! really sucks at ping pong!”

i KNEW there was a reason why i didn’t want to see the bee movie.
oooh oooh ooh the trailer for “the other boleyn girl” is finally up!! i cannot WAIT to watch scarjo and natalie portman try to out-dazzle, out-back-stab and out-maneuver each other.

and now for the clip of the day, care of BWE:

CC Insider points us towards this Orangina commercial, which we’re guessing only runs in Europe for a few reasons: 1. It’s almost two minutes long; 2. Octopus Boobs; 3. Zebra Strippers; 4. A bear who might also be a rapist; 5. It’s for Orangina (delicious, certainly, but when do you ever see a commercial for that “not quite juice, not quite soda” in the States?; and 6. It makes absolutely no f**king sense at all whatsoever. Thank you, Europe, for CGI-ing boobs to the gentle creatures of the forest.