CAMP

“Something so outrageously artificial, affected, inappropriate or out-of-date as to be considered amusing” Merriam-Webster

“THE ESSENCE OF CAMP IS ITS LOVE OF THE UNNATURAL AND OF EXAGGERATION” SUSAN SONTAG

Our entire era of the latter half of the 21^st Century can be defined by both the smartphone and your ability to garner attention and turn yourself into a brand. Some of these brands are created by individual “influencers” and others are the efforts by companies to reach a specific audience or to create a new one. The whole world today is in search of a brand.

There are 11,691 wineries in the U.S. and 49% produce less than 1,000 cases each yearly. I mention this because we are constantly witnessing an ocean of wacko ideas to increase that tiny number of dollar sales in each of those wineries, or in the case of the major companies, the remaining 51%, their quest is to make their shareholders deliriously happy.  These efforts are often beyond amusing.

I usually taste all the products that I write about, but in this article the call is all yours.  

HAPPY MOMMY WINES:

A Santa Inez winery with a brilliant marketing idea. They are out there, lots of them, and now it is time to reign them in. Dana Volk, single working mom with two kids is pictured wearing her grape vine pruning flannels in her vineyard in a classic photo. These are wines for the “discerning woman”.

Mommies Time Out: Pinot Grigio $12.00

Girls Night White: $15.00

Kids in Bed Red: $15.00 etc.

The list of like-minded swag is endless and includes books, television, films, board games, tea towels, seminars, luncheons, stemless glasses- all by women, for women. Dana has carved herself a sizeable niche.

THE BETTER FOR YOU CATEGORY:

SUNNY WITH A CHANCE OF FLOWERS WINE

This is a category for the generally ecologically freaked out members of our population regarding calories, purity, alcohol, and the cosmos. The brand title alone is uplifting. They practice, “an innovative and proprietary process that gently reduces alcohol”.  

Bubbly Rose, $20.00. “Why not add some ice to the Bubbly Rose”. They have already added the water or run it through the spinning cone to reduce the alcohol, and hence the flavor, but you really didn’t care anyway.

AVALINE ROSE CLEAN WINE “VIN DE FRANCE” $20.00 bottle by Cameron Diaz

This is both a healthy dose of camp combined with your share of celebrity hype. Best enjoyed on your yoga mat in the position of your choice. Love the San Francisco Chronicle wine writer quote, “the one great clean thing about it is, it is sure to clean out your wallet”. It isn’t really a “Natural wine”, as none of its choir of practitioners have really come up with a solid definition. It is intended for “discerning drinkers (and friends) who embrace the pleasures of a whole life and a relaxed approach to wellbeing” and is created by a celebrity who revels in the daytime talk show circuit.

The Give me a Break moment is the label quote, “pairs well with the warmth of the sun and the company of your best friend”.  

MARTHA’S LIGHTER CHARD, 19 CRIMES, Calif. $12.00

This is the penultimate marketing disconnect from reality. Yes, there were thought to be somewhere around 19 crimes that got you sentenced to a vile English prison, but the story just begins there. Beginning in 1788 English criminals were shipped to a total alien never, never land called Australia: all 160,000 of them. None of the convicts would have an idea of their destination. “Australia was settled to defend English property not from the frog-eating invader across the channel but from the marauder within. English lawmakers wished not to get rid of the “criminal class” but, if possible, to forget about it” Robert Hughes.

These people bore absolutely no resemblance to our ever cherubic, blond luminous Martha Stewart smiling at us from the label. Our heartfelt thanks to Mr. John Wordley, Brand and Marketing Manager of 19 Crimes, for his cultural assistance.  

Arthur Bowes Smythe, surgeon on the women’s transport Lady Penrhyn, comments “but I may believe I may venture to say there was never a more abandon’d set of wretches collected in one place at any period than are now to be met with in this ship…it frequently becomes indispensably necessary to inflict Corporal punishment on them. Nor do I conceive it possible in their present situation to adopt any plan to induce them to behave like rational or human beings”. Robert Hughes. Penalty of escape was death.

The augmented reality app is wonderous at telling a fanciful, short millennial tale but nothing beats reading a book for the truth. Our text: The Spectacle of Skill by Robert Hughes.

BUD LIGHT:

Here is where we get into dicey ground. Dylan Mulvaney, trans influencer, has her own Bud Lite package and Kid Rock got out his trusty machine gun and annihilated a few cases of his favorite beer.

This is an old story dressed up in a Gen Z package for a new generation’s consumption. As I reported in my March 2020 article Wine: Fastened or Fluid the execs have been freaked out over Gen Z for a while. They are 24.3% 0f the population and “they don’t have to grow into their skepticism- they already have it.” And there is that all important gender fluidity to worry about.

Let’s see how Budweiser solved their last Gen crisis: Gen X was busy inventing a thirst for craft beer in the 1980’s. What to do? The folks at Bud Light created the “original party animal dog- Spuds MacKenzie”, causing the entire generation to make a head turn and get warm and cozy again with their product.

Spuds run ended when the Mothers Against Drunk Driving howled and The Center for Science in the Public Interest hauled out their big guns to take Spuds down. I guess the real end in popular culture was when Sophia from the Golden Girls sit com dated Mickey Rooney from a jail lineup for the crime of spray-painting female parts on a billboard picture of the make-believe male dog. Hats, dolls and other Spuds memorabilia are available online and selling cheap.

Don’t worry. Dylan Mulvaney will be here, like all Tik Tok sensations, then gone. The execs are at this very moment hatching yet another idea to keep those all-important shareholders and the next generation of beer drinkers happy.

As long as we have our phones, our gummies and our vivid imagination, there will always be CAMP in our lives.

Check out Layne’s Wine Gig every third Thursday from 5-6 pm at Blue, 650 Congress Street, Portland. For $18.00 you get four 3oz pours, a chance to do a little #mendoblendo with the featured wines, and have a rollicking good time spent with Portland’s foremost wine storyteller. Layne is a guy who has seen it all, done it all, and is still having fun at it. Informed, unpretentious and fun. He is s Master Knight of the Vine with decades of experience under his belt including importing, teaching, writing, competition judging and winery running. For more info check out Portcityblue.com