They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I started to play with myself, they asked me—in no uncertain terms—to get the hell out of their villa.

Well, those callous, holier-than-thou sophisticates actually did me a favor.  Socially ostracized from my gated community, I was forced to re-invent myself—this time as a wine writer.  Overcoming the shame heaped upon humiliation submerged in embarrassment, I began to find methods other than exposing myself to ‘break the ice’ at cotillion balls (no pun) coming-out (no pun again) formals and cocktail (third time’s the charm) parties.

I learned every single thing I could about wine, devouring statistics as eagerly as an autistic kid memorizing Major League Baseball ERAs.

Lady Doña Clitoreña

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario:

It is Paris, Nuit Blanche 2011.  While ambling through the contemporary-art scene in the Versailles Château, I spy Her Most Excellent Lady Doña Clitoreña Vagintiña, 1^st Duchess of Coochuela, Countess of Cervixia and Lady of Bojingo.  She’s wearing a lime-green Donatella Versace bias-cut evening gown, and she looks ravishing—but if I ravish her, I serve serious jail time.  So instead, I sidle up in my white, silk-collared Dior Homme waistcoat and whisper seductively in her ear:

“Did you know that the average yield from an acre of vineyard is four tons—although this can vary greatly depending on the grower?”

A pair of coopers from Lexington, KY

It piques her interest, so I follow up with:

“Three reasons why more and more producers are going ‘American’ with their oak? Cost, cost and cost. A barrel from south-central France’s Limoges is currently upwards of $800, while a barrel made by some mullet-wearing inbred in Kentucky can be as low as $300.”

Then I slip in for the kill:

“It takes about five hundred grapes to make a single bottle of wine.  So if you figure maybe 100 grapes in a cluster, that’s five clusters per bottle.  Can you imagine such a mesmerizing eventuality, my voluptuous Valenciana vixen?”

And I’m in like Flynn.

*

This technique, my brothers, is foolproof; so in the interest of furthering our creepy Cro-Magnon cause, I will outline a few more handy wine facts that should loosen-up your tied tongue whenever you’re trying to score with someone multiple light-years above your social station and who intellectually outranks you by triple-digit IQ points.

(Incidentally, all these useful bonne bouches—and more besides—can be found in my self-help best seller, ‘How To Pick Up Slutty Heiresses Other Than Paris Hilton’).

*

Scam-lines to try out the next time you run into a morselette of royal lineage:

• “This may surprise you, Cupcake, but a vine must be about three years old before it can produce useful grapes.  And five before it reaches full production…”

• “Unlike you, Angel Puss, who I would not guess to be a day over eighteen, a vine may be thirty years old before it reaches its peak of performance—about the time when you’ll be hitting that ol’ looks wall and will need to be traded in…”

• “How many vines are planted per acre, Doodle Bug?  So glad you asked.  Depending on the vintner, between 500 and 1300…”

• “Did you say South Beach Diet, Love Muffin?  You’ll be pleased to note that although a five-ounce glass of dry wine may contain 125 calories, none are ‘fat’ calories and there is but a gram of carbohydrates in each…”

• 

  (L) What 9% of Napa looks like. (R) What the rest of Napa looks like

  “Since you have a Ph.D in Applied Physics from the Cambridge College of Mathematics, Sugar Booger, I’m sure realize that the 45,158 acres planted to vineyards in Napa represents only 9% of its total land area…”

• “Oh, and Snuggle Bunny, while we’re on the topic, 58,000 represents the number of acres  in Napa Land Trusts that can never be developed—more than 20,000 of these are in conservation easements, and 38,000 in agricultural preservation…”

• “Look, beeotch, I already told you about how many grapes it takes to make a bottle of chenin friggin blanc.  Oh, how many bottles per barrel?  Sorry:  Three hundred…”

• 

  Bye, Bye, Berlusconi

  “’Oh say can you drink, til the dawn’s early light..?’  Damn straight I can, Schnooky-Lumps, ‘cause I’m a burgundy-blooded American.  In terms of wine production, we Yanks may lag a bit behind Italy, Spain and France—any and all of whom we could nuke to quarks in a cocaine heartbeat—but as of 2010, we skedaddled past those frog-eating Gauls in terms of wine consumption.  Okay, so our population is three times bigger, so what?—if I want any lip out of you, Poopsy-Woopsy, I’ll call your plastic surgeon…”

• “And finally, Tootsie Pie, the real kick in the most superficial of our three gluteal muscles—the maximus—is that the largest corporate holder of Napa vineyards is not even American. The company is called Diageo and it’s owned by those slang-slinging, eel pie-eating, Lucozade-slurping Brits…”

• “…What’s that you say, Rumpy-Diddle? I offended with you with that last remark because not only are you British yourself, but your title is Her Royal Highness The Princess Twatolyn Throckmorton of Crapstone, Duchess of Crotch Crescent, Countess of Wetwang?  Well, lookee here, you Holiday Skin-wearing, Benny Hill-watching, Bebo-posting, scurvy-prone Redcoat: We kicked your arses out of Yorktown in 1781 and we’ll sure the hell kick ‘em out of Carneros, too.  P.S., buy a bloody toothbrush…”

Are you suspect?

There you have it, malchiks—and if these gems can’t help you score a nubile scion-ette from the extended family of some King or Queen regnant, my gay-dar is gonna blow a 112 Hz cathode tube.