The Smiling Grape Company

I watched a very funny movie last night called “The Grapes of Death”.  The film is set in the South of France where winemakers experiment by spraying their vines with a new cutting-edge pesticide.  Unfortunately, when the grapes are used in the next vintage anyone who drinks the wine is turned into a flesh chomping maniac!!

This movie made me laugh as I felt a connection with these poor French wine drinking zombies.  As a wine merchant, I have to taste hundreds of wines a year and quite often you come across a wine that is so bad you start to act like the un-dead.  You begin to moan and make gasping sounds, your jaw becomes loose, you talk in gibberish, you lean forward and limp about swinging your arms in a crazy manner.

You’ll have no problem spotting me at wine tastings…

Matt

Many people have asked me how the The Smiling Grape Company name came about.  I’m trying hard to remember…it could have been from that dream where I was dressed as a Roman Emperor and a smiling Carmen Electra was feeding me grapes or was it that lightening strike moment of genius after too many glasses of a New Zealand Pinot Noir?  It could only be a name better than Slurp & Spit International…

The Smiling Grape Company name seemed ideal as:

• My nickname has always been “Smiler” and yes, it’s true I’m always SMILING - it must be the wine
• Wine is made from a GRAPE (quite a few) or so I was told by a customer last week.  Also a big thank you to Andrew who brought me his latest batch of runner bean wine to taste (my eyes are watering just thinking of it…)
• Er…we are a COMPANY

Wow…it’s that simple!

Keep smiling and drinking the wine!

Matt

COMING SOON: I meet one of our winemakers whose fingers were bitten off by a gorilla…