Indigenous 'Sour Grapes Wine' a success due to Canadian guilt
NATIONWIDE—With big Canada Day celebrations on the horizon, Canadians are looking for the perfect drink to toast Canada's sesquicentennial birthday while acknowledging its colonial history with Indigenous people. The Indigenous "Sour Grapes" reserve blend wine is tailor-made for imbibing during these flag-waving festivities, bringing in full-bodied undercurrents of bitterness and acidity to complement the overarching flavours of pride and revelry.
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Local Indigenous woman Jessica Beaver of the Bkejwanong First Nation discovered the market for the barely palatable Sour Grapes wine among Canada 150 celebrants at the community's annual pow wow. Beaver discovered the wine accidently when she left several bunches of grapes soaking in a cooler of melted ice out in the hot sun for three days. A non-Indigenous attendee then took it upon himself to sample the liquid. After suppressing a dry heave, the man asked if this was a "traditional Native" drink, then took a five-hour nap under the bleachers.
To give Canadians a true Indigenous experience, the wine is brewed with the finest unboiled reserve water and overpriced store-bought grapes, and then aged in Bkejwanong's oldest tree trunk, nicknamed Giishkanakadoon or Old Stumpy, which witnessed wars between the Mohawks and the Anishnawbe, the ever-encroaching British and American troops, and the tears of two Trudeau prime ministers. The wine comes in a cedar box with a label depicting Senator Murray Sinclair reading out the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations.
This dour off-white sipping wine has been described as earthy and grainy, like a ground-up pinecone smoothie, carrying strong aromas of tobacco, smoke and disappointment.
Sommeliers have paired Sour Grapes with Canada 150 barbeques, stating that the wine provides that necessary element of unpleasantness when toasting to the country's accomplishments.
It is guaranteed to be the inappropriate talking stick at any Canada Day party. Recent gathering host Vanessa Martin observed about its flavour, "oh, it tastes terrible, but you know, residential schools."
"We are so blessed to live in a country that values inclusivity, equality and fairness, and is so gosh darn polite," says party guest John Bennett as he takes a sip of wine. "While still federally recognizing the racist laws within the Indian Act…"
Wine stores nationwide have recently announced the wider release of a similar product called "Token Gestures."
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