Merlot Hosts a Tasting of "Lilly Tao's Blush"

Greetings Voignier and kind readers,

This report comes as we finished another largely successful boxed wine tasting here are the Boat Basin, where 290 guests sampled several new boxed blends produced by our friend and former classmate, Christopher Bloache of Vermont, who was also in attendance with his common law wife, Anita. Anita wasted no time becoming the life of the party, and then making something of a spectacle of herself when she layed out her boxed wine business strategy to a group of prominent wine writers, who had also had a bit too much of Christopher's excellent boxed wines. What followed surprised even Merlot.

As Anita, who may be considered a most liberated woman, explained how she planned to finance and produce a pornographic video for wide release over the internet, featuring their first born daughter, Lilly Tao. Her plan, she explained, was to use "viral marketing" to build awareness for their new boxed wine to be branded, "Lilly Tao Blush". Whether it was Anita's spilling the beans, or out of disagreement with this use of Lilly Tao, to market Lilly Tao blush, we can only speculate about Christopher's motives for what happened next. Personally, we believe the latter to be the case. Christopher, it seems, wasted no time for his part, going "ape shit", as one wine critic put it after the events of the evening in a statement to the police. He explained that Anita told he and a group of other critics how she admired the way Paris Hilton had brought attention to her family's international chain of hotels and casinos, and thought it could work for the Bloache's boxed wine business.

Perhaps Anita felt more than a little entitled to chart their business plan and to make the marketing decisions for their boxed wine largely because it was her 600 acre farm where Christopher had come to live and find his new sobriety, after several years living on the streets of Amsterdam, playing guitar for beer money. It was Anita who met Christopher when he had "hit bottom", and shepherded him through the first of several 12 step programs while living at her family's Malibu beach house, and on her Vermont farm, which she subsequently inherited from her father, who was Editor-in Chief of a prominent publishing house. Soon they married (in a non-western, legally ineffective ceremony), had three daughters, and began producing premium Cheeses. Anita makes it a point to let listeners know that they are not, in fact, legally married, and that she "pays Chirstopher's salary in ass". And now, it was Anita that decided to enter the Bloache family farm into the boxed wine business, and it was Anita's idea to donate a part of the proceeds from the sale of their boxed wine to collect funds for the election of Hillary Clinton in two years..

Anita, as it turns out, was a former Greatful Dead groupie who told several wine critics that Paris Hilton's X rated video/films as something "liberating and empowering to women", and the "ultimate branding op." Anita continued that she has spent a great deal of her youth sleeping with many celebrities, authors, and personages who, she felt, had "enriched her life immeasurably," and that she is a firm believer in "fucking one's way to the top, Monica notwithstanding".

Midway through explaining her rather randy marketing theories, if you will, to several leading wine writers, who were in a position to get their product noticed in short order, or not at all, Christopher, stepped in. He had been drinking (something he has not done in over 17 years) had been listening to Anita's theories and revelations. At one point, he asserted himself forcefully, and began by demanding, with his booming voice that Anita "shut the fuck up", and "cut the groupie bullshit", which in turn made her quite angry for her part. Sad to say, their arguing ended with Christopher walking off our water craft escorted and handcuffed by two of New York's finest for assaulting his wife in front of our guests, several of whom used their cell phones to report his lifting Anita over his head, turning akimbo and dropping her into the water after they spend a good amount of time slapping and kicking each other all over the deck. By most accounts, it was Anita who was getting the better part of Christopher in this slap fight, just after she had used what appeared to be self defense training to place her knee into his gentle parts, which in turn brought Christopher to his knees. Well, needless to say, our guests were most upset to witness the dramatic events, as all but a few are not accustomed to seeing violence. Others were not so upset, that is, the few of our guests who live in the Park across the West Side Drive from us, and who sometime defend their claim to this or that tent, box or other form of shelter. George, who lives in the park told us: "it was like watching a trailer for Charlie's Angles; he B slapped her, and she was kicking his ass, until he flipped her into the drink". It was George who jumped in to help Anita back to the boat, by the by.

Nevertheless, while we are firm believers in the old saw, "there is no such thing as bad publicity", we are not so sure the Bloache family's new boxed wine, Lilly Tao Blush will not be hurt by their "Who'se Afraid of Virginia Wolfe Routine" as Anita described it, later. We hope not; it's a fabulous boxed blend, with an after taste of chocolate, gooseberries and mirth. We give it 4 gobblets, and believe it deserves a place on every American table.