From Ripple to Riesling

The other night I attended a fund raising event for a NYC based human service agency. It was a wine tasting event....cheese....food events. My wife Elizabeth and I purchased 4 bottles from some of the exhibitors. On the way back home that night I thought about my younger days. America back then was not a wine nor exotic beer country back then. I remember attending several high school graduation parties in the summer of 1970 { the legal drinking age was then 18}. Wine was not on the list nor was any beer more exotic than Schlitz. My buddies Ron Kunicki and John Connellyand I spent a few evenings seeing school chums at the frequent graduation parties , drinking a few brews etc. Some of these people we would never see again. We did not yet want to see over the close horizon to college and beyond. That all could wait. I remember one week from our graduation we set outside of one of our parents cars on a small secondary road oddly namedFunk Road. We had a bottle of Ripple. Made by the Gallo Vineyards this was a cheap rotgut wine. About to start summer jobs we were poor seniors......but proud. Did not matter at that moment. Ripple came in a cork screwed shaped was a red wine with a semi sweetness. This wine did not have legs. I believe the cork screw shape was to aid wine drunks to hold onto the bottle. Later that summer my two buddies and I attended the Powder Ridge Music Festival in Connecticut. It was billed as a second Woodstock but was much a fizzle as far as the music part went. Most groups had a court injunction slapped on them so they never came. Ripple was a very common product at that loosely named music festival. That was really our last hurrah.....it was August , college approached just over our personnel bend in our youthful road. By the way , we were not a trio of drunks......just young , walking somewhat reluctantly towards our so called futures our parents had dreams about. Soon we were off to college. The years have gone by. I still know my childhood friend Ron. We tend to drink Merlot or a Riesling. This is not just because they don't make Ripple anymore. WE BECAME THOSE TAX PAYING < HARD WORKING < VOTING < CHILD RAISING ADULTS. We moved on. Wineries once confined to Europe or the west coast and even the southern tier of NewYork now are widespread. Micro breweries appear in small towns and cities from Lake Placid to Brooklyn , NY. America changed as our culture expanded. Wine once an oddity for maybe a Thanksgiving now common even in a local gin mill. In a truly odd way that generation looking for something different came upon and helped create this market. Slight snobs , graduating from a Ripple to Reasoning and Riesling.