NWR: Orange Trash

I'm starting a new type of post: Not Wine Related or NWR for short. To kick off this new topic heading, I've developed a new derogatory term for the Paris Hilton, Kardashian sister, JWoww inspired crowd of reality TV wannabes: Orange Trash.

This refers to the color of their skin after a spray tan or other badly rendered tan from a non-sunlight source. If you've been to SoCal, then you know what I'm talking about.

Normally I only encounter Orange Trash when going wine tasting in Santa Barbara. On the weekends hordes of loud, dumb, inebriated Angelinos pile into limos and buses and head north to taste wine. Often the occasion is a bachelorette or birthday party. So the ordinary level of extreme narcissism and selfish behavior is amplified for the special day. Hey, it's her party, and she can do what she wants. It does not matter that dozens of people are annoyed by her insobriety and projectile vomiting.

Unfortunately, Orange Trash made an unwelcome appearance when my girlfriend and I went out to dinner at a great local restaurant, Julienne. This is not an every day experience for us since, well, it's friggin' expensive. But it's worth it since the dishes are French inspired yet based on local ingredients (i.e. your escargot will be a sea snail instead of a land one), and the wine list is well-thought out and relatively reasonably priced (2x retail, when many local restaurants exploit the tourist crowd with 3x markups). This is virtually the only place you'll find with a by the glass list that is unique, varied and well-matched to food. Instead of insipid crap like Chalone Pinot and KJ Chard, there are French wines imported by the likes of Kermit Lynch.

But I digress. This is supposed to be NWR. No sooner had we sat down with a glass each of Palmina 2008 Malvasia Bianca and a Fouet Cremant de Loire than a group of four ill-mannered, drunken harpies were seated at the table next to us. They clearly had been to some happy hour as evidenced by their shrill, loud voices. This gaggle of Orange Trash belonged more appropriately in a Dennys on an LA-based reality show than a really fine SB-based restaurant. Highlights of their low class antics included breaking a wine glass with a ring that flew off a finger (which comically resulted in one of the 'ladettes' getting doused in wine) and a discussion of crotch tattoos. They weren't interested in any of the food as it was apparently too challenging for them. One was particularly adamant that she would never pour her own wine and expected someone to always pour it for her.

The one positive note is that the Chateau La Roque 2007 Coteaux de Languedoc Vielles Vignes Mourvedre, a Kermit Lynch important, was so deliciously engrossing I nearly forgot about our ill-bred neighbors. But let's be honest. People with manners that bad don't belong in a fine restaurant. Perhaps we need to go back to a time where dress codes or expectations of polite behavior kept low class folks like this out of classy establishments. There's a time and place for everything. When the whole restaurant stares you down because of your drunken screeching, you should be sober enough to realize it's not the time or place.

Eventually the Orange Trash left to go dancing. I pity the fool who took any of them home that night. He'll probably be needing a good dose of antibiotics after getting his junk examined at the clinic. Actually, no, I don't pity him. He's probably just as obnoxious, ignorant and wasted as the Orange Trash girls. He just had the sense to pound a Big Mac at McD's before chugging five Bud Lites at the club.