Wine Giques: How to Smuggle Wine into a Concert

When I moved to Napa in 1994 it was even more sleepy than it is now, which, I know, is pretty hard to believe. The sleepy part doesn't thrill me but going to a movie theater and always having plenty of seat choices, does. I used to go to the Uptown. It was the only movie house in Napa that was left over from the good ole one-big-screen-and-real-butter-on-your-popcorn movie theater. They always showed fairly artsy films for Napa - I saw Pulp FIction there on my first date with my husband. (Okay, it was no Nosferatu, but not quite as mainstream as most of the stuff we get here at the Cinedome). I said "showed" because the place has been empty for some time. Frances Ford Coppola bought it a few years ago. He's renovating it - one brick at a time...
Well, back to the point of my rambling. I used to go to movies there with champagne bottle and (real) glasses in a bag. At a noisy part in the movie I'd pop that cork and pour away. It was easy peasy. Piece o cake. In fact, half the time there were only a handful of people in that place. I used to do that kind of thing all of the time.

Going to a concert is another thing entirely. Those people stick their hands into your bags - they feel around the outside and just scrutinize everything you carry in. The website said I could bring in a small icechest (smaller than 12 inches) which kind of precludes a bottle of wine. SO. I had the bright idea of dumping a bottle of wine into a gallon freezer bag. I opened a bottle of Chandon Pinot Meunier (we drink so much of it these days) and poured it into the baggie. I could not believe how insignificant that wine looked at the bottom of the bag so I opened another bottle and poured it in. Then I buried the baggie at the bottom of the ice chest and piled ice on top of it. Easy peasy. Piece o cake. The wine was aerated and once the temp came up a bit the wine tasted great - even from plastic glasses.

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