I had a really dispiriting email exchange with a former business acquaintance yesterday. The exchange centred around what I perceived to be his negative reaction to my new business venture.
As I don’t like to burn any bridges I ended our terse exchange with an assurance that I’d send him a bottle of white burgundy as I recalled it was his favourite tipple. I’ve picked out a nice one and I’m sure we will be friends again.
What a nice man I am.
This incident really got me to thinking, “What would be the ultimate bottle of wine you could send someone in the guise of a gift that, in fact, delivers the message that you think the recipient is a complete arse?”
In my mind I couldn’t get beyond any one of the varietals in the Blossom Hill range but these were too obvious, too boring.
So I turned to twitter and was as ever inspired by the good sense offered by the mob. So in no particular order, here’s the WOTW twitter guide to the gift of crap wine
@EricavH suggest Tassenberg Wine which she helpfully advices “must only be consumed in a tin cup as you don’t want to smell what u drink!”. Take a look at this website and you’ll see what she’s getting at. A top contender
@robynslingsby and @BeckaMcMaster both responded with Lambrini and who am I to argue with that? Go to the Lambrini website and I’m sure the irony of the following will not be lost on any of you – Visitors have to prove their age. I’ll leave that one hanging
Biggest WOTW chortle goes out to @originalian for the suggestion of “Hock from the bottom shelf of Tesco” which reminded me of my time working with an un-named supermarket who did indeed stack Hock on the bottom shelf. “You’re taking the piss” I said. “No,” the wine buyer replied “we’ve already done that, and now we’re stacking it on the bottom shelf”.
Honourable mentions to @heppy for the perennially piss poor Blue Nun and for @Ewbz for a banker – E&G’s Ruby Cabernet
And finally, this in from the Southern Hemisphere @SamKilian says “in South Africa we have what you call Pap sak… Crackling papsak… The cheapest, nastiest cr@p!!!!”.
May I try and trump the other suggestions and put forward this, erm, beverage as the ultimate insult?
http://www.winecellar.co.uk/three-mills-red-case-of-6-p-2059.html
I say beverage as it does not actually state the word “wine” on the bottle, just gives that impression until you try some.
I imagine it can’t use the w word as it is, or at least does a very good impersonation of, ribena mixed with white spirit.
Supermarkets haven’t cottoned onto this legality though and still call it wine, selling it at £2 a pop.
It is made by a “winery” near me. The better half calls it “Three Ills”.
I remember years ago being in a Chinese restaurant in London and i was sitting round a table with fellow chefs! we were given a glass of something which can only explained as utterly disgusting…. We asked the waiter what it was… He replied “Panda Piss” of course he was joking or was he… he explained that the pandas are forced into a corner (yeah right in the jungle!) and because they are scared (yeah right again…. can you imagine a 5ft Chinese man scaring a giant panda??) they piss, they catch this, filter it and send it to all Chinese restaurant to give to there special guests or a load of drunken chefs trying to speak Chinese and tell them how to cook crispy duck after consuming 10 bottles of tiger beer!!
So send your favourite person or not a bottle of Panda Piss also known as Saki!