Life and Island Times April 29 2016

A dozen or so islanders opened their email inboxes three weeks ago one morning to find an email with this piece’s subject line from a guy named Sexton. Its sender is a sly jokester who sometimes plays off his surname’s more pious meaning.

Some readers marked it as junk (pun intended). Off it went to their spam folders. Others thought it might be a invitation to a “We’re Halfway to the Next Key West Fantasy Fest Party in April.” Those that did considered wearing costumes they had seen and/or worn in years previous.

Size matters? Only to dickheads. Photos taken during past Fantasy Fests

Regardless of initial impressions, all knew that contrary to the reassuring catchphrase “size doesn’t matter,” penis size may matter in bed — but only for some women, and for certain types of orgasms. Most islanders deeply know these things (pun intended, again).

The email’s author, Bobby, is more like a verger — a person who assists in the ordering of religious services, particularly those involving wine. He is rarely even gently profane but always vintage gentleman. He is a highly successful and a much-beloved wine distributor along this coral island chain.

He was inviting his confrere addressees to taste white and red wines from select vineyards and years in different sized bottle formats from 375 ml and 750 ml to 1.5 liter bottles.

From left to right: 187.5 ml Piccolo or split, 375 ml Demi, 750 ml Standard, 1.5 L Magnum, 3.0 L Double Magnum, 4.5 L Jeroboam (this picture is worth a 1000 puns here!)

The crowd swelled at the appointed hour, as Bobby’s guests gathered at his home on Flagler Avenue. Things moved along swiftly as the quaffers sniffed, swirled, tasted and spit (well, some likely claimed they did, but most of them that Marlow knows are swallowers). They started with light and dry white wines then moved onto heavier, aged, more extracted whites. Next up came the light and medium red wines before climaxing with the big, flourishing, dark reds.

With each vineyard’s offering, participants were served three tastes from three different sized bottles. They all kept notes.

All invitees were assiduously compliant with Bobby’s rules. At the end of the tasting, they shared their notes with each other. No universal across-the-board conclusion was reached, possibly due to the number of wines tasted, palate recovery times, and the small differences in taste across different bottle sized juice. All could tell there were differences but forming a qualitative opinion proved difficult. So in the end, there was no real answer.

Save for this one from Marlow’s wine buddy, Chicago, who attended: “Size does matter when it comes to a wine I like. The bigger the pour, the better it is.”

Copyright © 2016 From My Isle Seat