“THE EX FRANCOPHILES”
- Skullit it has come to my attention that alien grape varieties have been the abducting the market share in California.
- Nonsense, Mulledwine, this is just another one of your conspiracy theories.
- Well, Skullit, look at the facts. In 195- a flying cigar-shaped object landed in a vineyard in Southern France. 35 years later a long-haired Californian, called Randall Graham, began creating pictograms of unknown origin on wine labels.
- Sheer coincidence, Mulledwine. There’s a perfectly logical explanation for this. Randall Grahm went to Berkeley University in the 60s. He wants to believe like you that there’s something out there.
- I disagree, Skullit. There has to be a link between this alien landing and the sudden increase of Rhone Ranger activity in the San Fernando Valley.
- Oh Mulledtwit. The Rhone Ranger is a fairy story, like Sasquewatch, the Beast of Bolsover and the Probity of the Floridian Electoral System.
- You cannot deny the facts, Skullit. It all adds up. Strange sightings around Jade Mountain, the infamous Cline triangle and need I mention the Mourvedre clones at Qupe?
- That was never proved Mulledwine. Those could have been perfectly innocent Cabernets.
- But what you may not know is that a team of scientists from the Gallo Institute did a DNA fingerprinting of the vineyard in Southern France and guess what they found?
- I can see you’re dying to tell me, Mulledwine.
- They found no trace whatsoever of Cabernet or Chardonnay. It’s as if they never existed. Or had been abducted a long, long time ago.
- Impossible, Mulledwine! How come I’ve never seen a report on this?
- That’s because they don’t want you to know, Skullit. They don’t want any of us to know.
- And how do you know all this, Mulledwine?
- Because Randall Grahm came to see me. He was a gibbering wreck, going on about clonal selection, Siddhartha, old telegrams, losing his sense of Riesling and then he finally fell in a deep faint on the floor of my apartment moaning “The terroir! The terroir!”
- Mulledwine, we all know there’s no rhyme nor roussanne behind anything Grahm says or does.
- That’s where you’re wrong, Skulledit. Have you never heard of the Great Viognier Conspiracy?
A man smoking a cigarette (the Cabernet Man) is listening to a tape of this conversation with an equally shadowy member of The Committee of Alien Varietal Infiltration.
- He knows too much. We need to take action.
- It’s in hand.
- But he’s going to find out about all experiments with hybrids: The Grabernets, Nebbimerlots and Zero Mistelles. And what if Grahm talks further?
- He won’t. We’ve taken him back to Davies for reprogramming. Mulledwine has no proof. The vineyard in Southern France has been sprayed clean of Rhone Rangers by our flying winemakers and the new varietal clones are in place.
- Good. I’ll keep the anti-terroiristes oversight committee apprised.
To be continued.