Me: Excuse me, do you know where we can get wine?

Bud the Checkout Guy (blankly): Wine?

Me: Yep. Wine. You know, that purple stuff made from grapes? (Okay, I didn’t really say that last part. But I wanted to.)

Bud (amused that we would want such a thing): Um… I think the closest place is McCann’s.

Me (my turn to be perplexed): McCann’s?

Bud: Yeah. Hey, Shirley, is McCann’s the closest place for wine, do you think?

Shirley the Shelf Stocker: Yeah, probably.

Bud: Yeah. McCann’s.

Me: Where’s McCann’s?

Bud (taken aback by the question): Over toward Waverly. By the gas station. Just go right on the street over there, and left toward Waverly. You can’t miss it.

After exploring the extensive beer section at the grocery store in search a local bottle of wine and turning up only an aqua blue bottle of Boone’s Farm, we gave up and decided to seek assistance. Which led to the above conversation. Apparently in Spencer, New York, a wine consumer is an anomaly, even though the Finger Lakes region is known for its abundance of wineries.

We thanked Bud and Shirley and headed out on our quest to find McCann’s near Waverly. After driving for five minutes, we swerved in front of an approaching car as we almost flew by the store. It seems you could, in fact, miss it.

We pulled into the parking lot, then walked around the corner, past McCann’s Restaurant, to McCann’s Liquor Store. It appeared to be closed, but there was a doorbell. So we rang it and waited.

A minute later, out came a frazzled but friendly woman from McCann’s Restaurant. She pulled out a key and led the way into the closet-sized liquor store. She was slightly less puzzled by our request for wine than Bud had been, and pointed out a huge bottle of $9.99 Swedish Hill’s Doobie Blues and another of Jack Ass Red, local wines named after the vineyard’s pet donkey. We were sold.

Content with our 2 bottles of donkey-themed wine and a little dazed by the whole bizarre experience, we headed back to our bed and breakfast to sample our spoils.