Merlot Takes to Shore...

Greetings Voignier and Kind Readers,

This morning we are finalizing the details of our recent deal with a leading boxed wine producer and one of the world's premier manufacturers of boxes for boxed wines. The wine maker and the packaging company have retained us to take our show on the road, if you will. More specifically, they have offered us a good amount to tour college campuses throughout the United States in a large and completely built out bus with all the comforts of our great watercraft. I shall be accompanied by Dr. Emily, three researchers and of course Mr. Ito.

The companies have also hired a road manager, Michael Dryasdust, who has experience with these sort of promotional efforts. Michael's great great grandfather was Rev. Dr.Jonas Dryasdust, to whom Sir Walter Scott dedicated several of his most excellent novels, including "Ivanhoe." Upon our first meeting, Michael attempted to "lay down rules of the road" that included, 1. no smoking on the bus; 2. no 'cussing'; 3. no raising of voices; 4. no sex on the bus ; 5. no coffee ; 6.no distributing wine without accounting for it ; 7. no wine drinking..." It was at that point that Brian, one of more hard working research assistants who lives part of the year in The Riverside Park, just below Grant's Tomb, punched Michael Drayasdust directly on his jaw. Michael, for his part, being well above 6 feet tall and upwards of 240 lbs recovered like a ox, as if swatting off a fly.

However, as Michael turned to strike Brian, Mr. Ito stepped in, laying Michael directly on his back, and striking him several times about the solar plexus (apparently some sort of major "Chakra" as Mr. Ito later put it). These blows immediately drained Michael Dryasdust both of his breath, his rules of the road, and his fight, upon which Jake opened a box of Rose and distributed a carton of Camel, no filters. Last year, it was Jake, working hand in glove with Brian to uncover evidence from the dumpster of one of New York's leading restaurants had been using large bottles of Pinot Grigio wine to refill smaller bottles of Chardonnay of resale to customers. With this evidence, we were able to approach the restaurant marketing department, and negotiate a 5 year deal to conduct research, and promote their brand at our boxed wine tastings.

Our Tour bus will carry casks of boxed wines to distribute to college students across the US for consumption at frat parties, social events and local bars. The goal is to generate interest not only in the blends, but in boxed wine packaging as "an alcohol delivery device," as one executive put it, the graduate of the business division of a rather large private university with a storied past. We were also quite surprised, and bored to learn that he as not a wine drinker, having sworn off alcohol as an undergraduate, when he "made the cut" for his college wrestling team, a story that he told as if it were the story of our founding fathers. Luckily, his immediate boss cut his story short before finished recounting every win in the course of his four years.

Dr. Emily, for her part, has been given a cellphone, with lists of bars within walking distance of campuses, and a monthly stipend to contact them in advance to generate interest.

We will be leaving our watercraft in St. Augustine, Florida and beginning our road tour by heading south to University of Miami before heading north and west toward California. Sister Ruth, who apparently discovered our plan to head south, will be boat sitting with the children, who will be home schooled by Dr. Carol Crundle, a dear friend who took her Phd with Dr. Emily at The Columbia University's Anthropology department in the early 1980s. Dr. Carol will be instructing the children using http://www.ablazeacademy.com/, an online home schooling service to supplement their learning.