Man on Winery Tour Tastes the Gooseberry

Napa County, CA - Dale Southerland, an accountant visiting the Flora Springs Winery and Vineyards in St. Helena over the weekend, shocked a large crowd of winemakers, cellar rats, and fellow winery patrons when he was able to note 27 distinct flavors in their 2023 Russian River Valley Chardonnay.

Southerland, shown here tasting the gooseberry mere moments before being ripped apart by fellow wine tasters so that they might feed upon his brain stem and olfactory cortex to acquire his unique and powerful wine tasting abilities

"We've had people note ten, maybe fifteen flavors before," tasting room manager Ignacio Gutierrez explained. "They'll usually describe the aroma a bit and then comment on the finish, but this was incredible. Nobody has ever taken it to this level before and it's a great example of how precise wine tasting is and how some people are just better at this than others. And Dale was just a very impressive guy. We were all just very impressed, and it's a shame what they did to him."

Southerland, who noted a glimmer of autumn leaves and gooseberry as the 26th and 27th flavors, hinted at even more subtle notes before the tragedy occurred. Gutierrez, who plans on taking some time off to process the horrific event, heard the gifted taster's final words right before a retired biology teacher from Fresno tore out his trachea with her bare hands. "He didn't seem entirely sure at first, but right at the end he said he could almost pick up on just a splash of black currant with Bing cherry undertones. Then his eyes lit up, and he smiled. I knew he had found something even deeper in the flavor profile, something subtle and sublime, like the scent of squirrel's feet as they scamper across the limbs of a California redwood or the brume from chalkboard erasers clapped in the rays of the late afternoon Sun passing through a classroom window. And then...he was gone."