Corked: tell your best wine story, win a copy of the book

• Too many, but the most memorable moment happened at a downtown Minneapolis restaurant I worked at several years back. One day during a busy lunch rush a table ordered a bottle of bubbly in celebration. First bottled they ordered was out of stock and the second we had the incorrect year listed. Third was out of stock leaving the table to order a cheap Asti out of desperation. The server attending to the table, who was understandably frustrated at this point, brought the bottle out and while attempting to pop it broke the cork in two. As he brought the fifth bottle to the table to uncork he twisted it with vigor and with some pent up firey anger shot the cork half way across the dining room where it landed perfectly on a chandelier. The server took a bubbly, messy swig of the bottle, slammed it on the table, grabbed his bag and walked out. Needless to say, said server was fired.

• Low on money, we were staying in the cheapest guesthouse we could find during the off-season in Cinque Terra, the string of five fishing villages on the west coast of Italy. The weather was gray, rainy, and cool. We were loitering in the lobby, waiting for a let up in the rain, before venturing out to find a cheap plate of spaghetti when we started chatting with Luigi, the maintenance guy for the guesthouse. It was one of those conversations where neither speaks the others' language and ideas are passed through gestures and laughter. Before we knew it, we were being led back to the guesthouse kitchen and Luigi was pouring olive oil into pots & pans. While he cooked, his friend came by with 2 unlabeled bottles of wine from his vineyard. These two unlikely characters - the maintenance man and the farmer became our company for the night. We sat and watched Luigi cook up the most amazing frittata and pasta carbonara I've ever tasted and sipped the farmer's smooth, clean wine. The night was spent laughing at Italian jokes we didn't understand & telling stories in English that they didn't understand, but with food & wine that good, it just really didn't matter.

• My fiance's parents live just north of Duluth on a small hobby farm. Their log-cabin styled home was hand built by her father and has a gorgeous veranda-type of porch that runs the entire front of the house. The house sits on a small hill, overlooking a field, the northern Minnesota woods and a small pond. Early on in our relationship, her folks went off on an early fall weekend trip with some friends, leaving the house to ourselves. We had a great bottle of Chianti (Rocca della Macie as I recall) and since summer was quickly waning in Duluth, we decided that it was best enjoyed "al fresco." We settled on a bench on the veranda with a quilt just as a thunderstorm began to roll in. We sat and sipped that bottle for what seemed like hours as we were engulfed first by hard claps of thunder, flashes of lightening then finally a torrential late summer rain. We fell deeper and deeper in love with every rain drop and each sip of wine. http://www.tomandlauraswedding.com

• A few years ago I was at a friends holiday party. Another friend and I started talking about an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David swore that club soda and salt would get out any stain. Later that night we were playing a game and another friend, who was very drunk, made an exaggerated gesture and knocked over a full glass of red wine onto the couch and several people sitting on the couch. The one friend and I started screaming club soda and salt, club soda and salt. Well, we tried it, and suffice it to say the stain never came out and there was salt everywhere.

• Damn, of course you giveaway a book the week after I start contributing so I can't WIN, but nonetheless I'll tell about my favorite wine memory anyway. I lived in Italy for a year in college in a small town called Urbino. There was a small enoteca (wine bar/store) at the top of the steepest street in the city, Via Raffaello (http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1510339.jpg) whose incline is enough to give most streets in San Fransisco a run for their money. The cheapest way to buy wine that wasn't out of box (and yes, Italians drink wine out of a box too) was to buy a big 10 liter glass jug, which we of course had to bring DOWN the hill after purchase, and return the still heavy empty jug after consumption. None of us had cars, so we would take turns carrying this monster between 4 or 5 people. It was quite the sight to be seen, but definitely better juice than two buck chuck... and it makes for a fantastic memory.

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