2022, Food, Nature, Seasons, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Carpe Vinum

60 Comments

One of the days I was in Nashville, Pat and I drove out to Arrington Vineyard – a lovely place about 45 minutes from the city.  It was so beautiful that day and the winery is definitely set up and marketed to folks who want to come out and enjoy it.   Various dining venues including outdoor tables and umbrellas as well as picnic tables on the hill overlooking the vineyard.

Bringing your own picnic is definitely encouraged but if you need to add a little spice to your meal, there are pre-packaged olives, cheese/salami slices, crackers galore, pickled vegetables, and lots more.  Even desserts.  The stars of the show are, of course, the wines and you can purchase bottles or you can get flights of wine to go with your meal.  I’ve never actually purchased a flight of wine before so was a little surprised at first that you can’t just pick your own four wines (or six depending on what size flight you want).  I guess the winery figures they know better than you about which wines go together and which don’t.

The little gal who was working the register looked to be about 15.  Obviously she had to be old enough to sell liquor, but the older get, the younger they all seem!  I ordered the flight we wanted and the young gal asked me for identification.  The shock must have shown on my face; after all it’s been 40+ years since I have been underage.  She quickly told me that they are required by law to card everyone.  Seems like a lot of wasted breath to asked clearly geriatric folks for their ID.  But I did consider slipping her a big tip!

Do you remember the last time you got carded?

60 thoughts on “Carpe Vinum”

  1. Here in Michigan, the cash register at ALDI will not send the sale ahead if the purchaser has any wine in the cart UNLESS the date of birth from the driver’s license is entered into the record. Of course, the checker could just take your word for it, but I always, even at age 71, have my ID out and ready when it comes time to pay.

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    1. Interesting. Of course, here in Minnesota they don’t sell alcohol in ALDIS but when I got my wine advent calendar last week in Wisconsin, I didn’t get carded at all. So it must be a Michigan thing.

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      2. I wouldn’t jump to either conclusion. My experience at Cooks of Crocus Hill is certainly not typical of carding practices in establishments in Minnesota or even St. Paul.

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  2. Too old! I grew up in a family that did not drink, not my immediate family but my extended family! Then I went to nursing school were, in those days, we were treated like cloistered nuns. In room study 7-9, lights out by 10. Then in second year working shifts, evening , night a 40 hour work week to pay for our room and board. Immediately after training I became an Air Force nurse. The military is a drinking environment and within a year or two I became an alcoholic. Fortunately after 4 years I was able to quit the habit and haven’t had a drink in 57 years! Never been carded.

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  3. I remember Jane’s last time (to my knowledge), and funnily enough it was in Nashville, as I’ve previously related. She has never looked her age. When we met, she was 24,but I took one look and told myself, forget it, you’ll be arrested.

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    3. Isaac was born when I was 58. It was best to just accept that people would think I was his granddad. I just tell them upfront, and let them worry about how to take it in their stride.

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  5. The last time was during a cooking class at Cooks on Crocus Hill in 2018. They sell wine by the glass to enjoy with the meal you’ve cooked at the end of the class, and they card everyone. At one class, I was approached by a woman who lived nearby and had walked to class, and for whom fifty was clearly in the rear view mirror. She asked if I’d be willing to purchase a ticket for her, she didn’t have her ID with her. I said “of course,” and did. A month later at another class in that same location, they were carding participants when they tried to redeem their tickets for a glass of wine just to make sure there weren’t any scofflaws in the class. To my mind that’s just silly.

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  6. So, Sherrilee, I was curious about your choice of header image. The best I can come up with is to translate the title, “Carpe Vinum” as “Seize (sees) the Wine”. Am I close?

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    1. The photo and the title are only tangentially connected. Carpe Vinum is indeed “seize the wine “ since it was a story about a winery and getting carded for wine. But the picture of the winery that I had didn’t look as good blown up so I went out and looked up pictures for ID and that’s when I found the eye scan picture.

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  7. The last time was two months ago but not for alcohol. I had no idea that carving knives are age restricted in Ohio.
    Just prior that was at a drug store. I didn’t realize that an over-the-counter diuretic is age restricted.
    I do remember my first alcohol carding. Duluth. 1969. An unsuccessful attempt to buy a six pack.
    Nervous!!!

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  8. Wife and I got carded maybe 5-10 years ago at someplace I don’t remember (bar, wine store, restaurant) because the place (or state) had a “we card everyone” policy. I always laugh at our government protecting us from ourselves. Just like the TSA, everyone is presumed guilty of terrorism until you walk through their cattle chute, get studied, groped, poked, prodded, and x-rayed, until you’ve “proved” you’re just a little old lady with a walker, bad eyesight, and dementia (my now-deceased mother-in-law). 😦

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. If I were running a terrorist ring I’d be recruiting as many “unlikely” candidates as I could. Recruits would definitely include frail looking elderly women as well as ordinary looking folks of all ages, races, and body types. I suspect that folks who are running terrorist groups do the same.

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  9. Not sure, but something similar to VS’ “We card everyone” experience.

    The most memorable carding, though, was in California when I would have been around 25, and living in El Granada (on Hwy 1)… Boyfriend want to take out the motorcycle, and we drove mostly inland for a couple of hours, ended up in a little town somewhere in San Joaquin Valley. We were hot and dusty and parched, couldn’t wait to find a watering hole. I was really looking forward to a chilled wine or beer, and found out when carded that I HADN’T BROUGHT MY PURSE WITH MY ID. Must’ve thought we were just going for a little ride… I suppose I had to have a soda or something while he got to have his beer.

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  10. About a month ago. I was in the Cashwise liquor store and the earnest 40 something new clerk must have just had the “you are in big trouble if you sell to anyone underage” insisted I show home my ID.

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  11. OT.
    11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918
    There were more casualties on Armistice Day then on D-Day the difference being the war had already been won by the Allies.

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  12. OT. Gatitos Palomar. Sorry, still haven’t got pictures. I will.
    Jordi’s friendly chat with Chelo last Saturday consisted of “When are you going to shift some cats?!” We’d decided to wait for the workmen to finish. Jordi keeps dragging HIS feet. But that was why Chelo started catching cats. Winter’s coming and we do need to get on. I don’t think we’re all grasping that there is going to be a lot of cats. I wouldn’t be surprised at fifty. Anyway, we’re slowly getting in gear.
    Two/three days ago I was set to bring a cat back, the chicken wire roof for the “holding pen” wasn’t finished, and there was heavy rain predicted. I chucked plastic sheets over it all and suspended them from surrounding trees, to make the water run off, not weigh the whole thing down. Stuff like that, I’m used to, of course it was temporary and didn’t look pretty. Next thing, Jordi tells Chelo, I don’t like the plastic, I would sooner see metal. Jane got mad, and fired off a reply to Chelo, “You tell Jordi, etc etc”. I must admit, I felt like that too. I would love to be able to say, hey man, I come here every day, looking after these cats for nothing. Putting a bit of my own money to it. You can’t just wait and see how good this place is going to look, well goodbye I am gone, do it yourself.
    Similar to the conversation I had with my father in law in February, I haven’t told y’all about that.
    But it’s for the cats, isn’t it? Not me and Jordi. I wish the guy didn’t run away rather than talk to me, he’d find I’m not so bad. But I need to calm down, right now I am feeling enmity for the Town Hall in general, and that’s no good.

    I’ve prettied it up a bit, to show I know how. And life will go on.

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  13. Well all right. That last post didn’t go the way I expected. Is that what “stream of consciousness” is?
    John and Sandra had three big pines to come down. Over the house, things like that. And Eelco, who bought their other house, had three as well. I’d like to have the necessary equipment for dangerous trees, but I don’t. So a “professional” came in, and he hired a crane truck for the difficult ones. The deal was, he was happy for us to have all the wood. Eelco said we could have his share as well, so I was delighted at the prospect of steadily cutting up six big pines for firewood, enough to last both families for a while. Jane and Isaac came and helped a bit, but to me they count as an extension of myself.
    Trouble is, John and Sandra hadn’t been aware that cutting down a big tree makes a mess. John can’t stand mess. He wanted to pay someone to help me, and the two of them just kept on about it. They couldn’t understand what others know about me. I’m a lone wolf, let me do the job myself and I’ll be happy. John can only understand, you know, the bottom line.
    Well they pulled a really stupid, transparent trick, they got Alicio there to do some other little job, oh and he happened to have his chainsaw with him! They really thought I would say, oh, I remember, I need a hand after all.
    First I really knew though, was Jane heading for her car, with John, HER FATHER, calling her a stupid little bitch. I think I knew then I’d finished my day’s work on his premises. No need to tell you everything, but I said, if you really don’t want to let me do this myself, ( and I was actually getting well on top of it,) carry on, keep your f***ing wood. Left. That’s it, I’m gone. So he’s got the pleasure of having my wood as well as his own, and I have a good deal. No more father in law, it was a long time coming, but now I’m free.
    Of course there was a lot more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it.

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      1. Well, they didn’t think it would be quite THAT much mess. Pines ARE messy.
        But those two……. I arrived one day just after the second tree had been cut down, that one was straightforward. But Sandra was in tears, at the end of her tether. Not to mention all the other little things, all of a sudden there was a huge crash, and the house shook, and they looked out and a great big tree had landed on the ground. Yes, the guy they’d engaged to fell trees had gone and felled a tree. I mean, what next.
        But it seems he should have warned them. Like, a big chainsaw on full throttle, what else was the guy doing? Really that’s one of the things that sticks in my mind from the whole episode.
        If you’re going to work for townies, make sure you explain every step.

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    2. I’m not sure I understand, Fenton, why you would object to John speeding up the process of cutting up the trees if he’s paying for it? Falling out with your father-in-law, to the point where you don’t even speak to each other, especially when you live in the same small village, might prove to be an additional strain on your family. Perhaps John thinks you’re over-committed at the moment – what with the ongoing cat project and all the work that involves – and sees no end in sight to the cleaning up the tree cutting mess?

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      1. Well firstly-falling out with my father in law has given me and my family more peace than we’ve had in years.
        “I guess you had to be there.”
        Secondly, this happened long before the cat project was even thought of.
        Thirdly, I am not a team worker.

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        1. Oh, and, ironically.
          When I left, I had done a lot, and had the end well in sight. Alicio is a good guy, but he has a full time job. Can only come for the odd few hours. So it took weeks and weeks for him to finish, and Jane was delighted at some point to mention to her mum about how I would have had the job done by now. Watched her mum swallow her infuriation.
          Anyway, I don’t care. “God knows how the balance stands between us, Carver Doone.” (Quote from about the only book I’ve read.

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  14. OT-Still waiting for the snow plow to come past. We will head out anyway as Husband has 4 wheel drive on his pickup. The main arteries are getting cleared first.

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      1. Oh, probably not much, but Husband is getting fit for a new cpap machine this afternoon as his old one.doesn’t work any more and he needed to get to the pharmacy.

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    2. The neighbors whose children we garden with helped husband shovel today, so I made them raspberry sweet rolls and Husband went over to play chess with their 8 year old boy who is a chess fanatic.

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  16. yesterday 11/11/22 was kurt vonnegut’s 100th birthday heard a nice interview from 18 years ago

    my favorite id story was from 1972. i was 17. drinking age in minnesota at the time was 21 i believe. i was living in a house on portland and lake and it was a part house. we ordered a bunch of booze to be delivered as bd i had to go run errands and said i’d be back in a bit. well the liquor store deluvery guy came by asked for an if and no one had one so they said tim will be back in a bit, the guy came again and i still wasn’t there, when i pulled up in the old vw van he was just arriving for the third time. i apologized profusely and gave him the money and accepted the booze. my friends thought it odd that id pulled it off even though i had no id
    he just wanted to finish the delivery
    i get carded at total wine on occasion it is policy. but i also remember from my revoked drivers license deys that when they ask for your id they check the back to be certain there are no restrictions that state no alcohol is to be allowed. a bar in a northern suburb pointed out to me that they were forbidden to serve me because of that note on my id. i wasn’t aware if it prior to that

    ain’t it true that the leagalxage for kids appears to be 12 as we get older. those great little kids learning the wonderful experienced that come with 12 glasses of the party drink of choice

    good nashville stories vs

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