Don't Try Drink This At Home! As loyal readers of the BasketCases blog know, the BasketCases enjoy a good glass of wine now and again (and again). So with our adopted New York Libs having been sent home Tuesday night by Evil Bill's Shock in that heartbreaking overtime game, finding some good wine on Cape Cod seemed like the right thing to do. Now, when you think of wine-producing regions of the world, some places come immediately to mind -- France, California, Italy, Germany, even our home state of Virginia. Cape Cod may be famous for many things, but wine, unfortunately, is not one of them. So imagine our surprise when we stumbled across a very pretty little vineyard in North Truro, just outside Provincetown. The place is (very originally) named Truro Vineyards of Cape Cod. We were a bit skeptical about wine produced so close to sand, sea, and lobster pots, but simply could not pass up the chance to taste the stuff (it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it).

The vineyard makes several red and white wines, but we were told that its best sellers are a red wine called "Cranberry Light" and a white called "Diamond Light." The word "Light" is not used as the opposite of heavy or to denote something you'd drink on a diet, but rather because the wine comes in bottles shaped like a lighthouse. (Frankly, they looked to us a bit like canola oil bottles, but we got the idea.) As its name suggests, the Cranberry Light is in fact made with cranberries (something Cape Cod is famous for). Call us crazy, but the BasketCases think that the only ingredient in wine should be fermented grapes. This stuff tasted like, well, like cranberry juice! When we want cranberry juice, we open a bottle of Ocean Spray, which is considerably cheaper. As for the Diamond White, we're not sure exactly what was in it, but it was one of those wines that makes you glad the tasting table had a dump bucket.

Fortunately, the vineyard's gift shop sells little converter kits so that those brave enough to actually drink the wine can turn the empty bottles into lighthouse shaped oil lamps! And, we learned, the rest of us can purchase an empty bottle for a mere $3! Now, that's a good deal. You get a base for your lighthouse lamp and you don't actually have to drink the stuff! So if you are looking for that very special holiday gift for the person who has everything, plan a fall trip to Cape Cod or order on line . . . they make very pretty lamps.

Go anybody but Detroit Indy!

Photo Credit: DC BasketCases