by Merrill Shindler
For those of us of a certain generation, our relationship between weed and wine was simple and basic: Whatever juice was available was fine with us, “spo-dee-oh-dee,” as the song by Stick McGhee goes. If that meant the fabled Carlo Rossi Red Mountain, Thunderbird, or Annie Green Springs, so be it. The idea was to pass the bottle around, taking swallows in between tokes, while listening to an endless riff by the Grateful Dead . . . or perhaps a multi-dimensional recording of the Firesign Theater. Quality wasn’t the driving force behind our choice of wine. Low prices and availability were. If they carried jugs of the stuff down at the local package store, we were on. Pot and Chablis, reefer and Rhine—it was all good with us.
And then we grew up. And so did the cannabis and vintage wines that we were buying. It 
ain’t pot no more. Now, people speak of flowers, of sativa and indica, of CBD and THC. And thanks to the rise of medical cannabis, and of research into the endocannabinoid system within our bodies, the world of the stoner is something distant and faraway. Marijuana still exists on a recreational level. But more and more, it’s become a medical alternative. And our tastes in wines has evolved as well.
The deeper you get into pairing cannabis and wine, the more complex and subtle the whole process becomes. Pot ain’t just pot no more. Indica tends to make the user sleepy, and if you pair it with a Cab or a Merlot there’s a good chance you’ll get more drowsy than buzzy. Sativa is known to give bursts of energy, sometimes manic. A nice glass of Chardonnay might take the edge off the need to rearrange your spices alphabetically.
And things get a lot more complicated than that. True aficionados get deep into the psychoactive qualities of hybrids and the many breeds developed in the Emerald Triangle of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties in Northern California—ground zero for cannabis cultivation and cannabis development. Better living through science, and all that. Or in this case, better weed. Thus we find that Sensi Star, Lemon Haze, White Rhino, and Green Crack go exceedingly well with sparkling wines. While Afgoo, Age ‘n Sour, Blackberry Kush, Sunset Sherbet, and Granddaddy Purple will really bring out the essence of a fine Malbec.
It is, you should know, all abut the terpenes—the fragrant oils that give both cannabis and wine their distinctive aromas. The terpene called linalool smells like lavender. Myrcene is what makes mango smell like mango—why do you think they call it Mango Kush. What used to be dismissed as Culiacan Trash, a mass of seeds and stems that was about as psychoactive as oregano (and often was oregano), is long lost. Good riddance. It was cheap and worthless; today’s cannabis is anything but. Gourmet weed mixed with gourmet wines. What a long strange trip it’s been.
And what a long strange trip, it still is. There are restaurants—high-end establishments—in legal states like Colorado and California, offering carefully curated dinner of cannabis and cuisine. There are cookbooks with names like Bong Appetit and Edibles, that offer recipes using pot. There are podcasts dedicated to the world of edibles—I do one called “High on the Hog: The Potcast,” which is about the medical aspects of edible weed, especially of CBD (which unlike THC isn’t psychoactive—it just heals). There are chefs, like Holden Jagger, who’ll cater a cannabis and dinner meal at your home—he recently offered a marijuana Seder meal for Passover. Cannabis infused matzoh balls? Weed in the haroset? Why not?
And, of course, things get even stranger. Which brings us to the world of cannabis-infused wines. The best known of them is by CannaVines (part of “The Bay Area Wine and Weed Tour” in Northern California) who produce a Red Blend, flavored with the Headband Strain, a Chardonnay with South Diesel, and a Rose with Granddaddy Purple. Their descriptive material is fascinating. From it, we discover that: “The Chardonnay variety of our bespoke cannabis wine is grown in sunny Napa Valley, California and possesses airy, tropical notes. When combined with the earthly, energetic Sour D, this wine promotes a pleasant cerebral sensation and a feeling of well being.”
The folks at Rebel Coast Winery promise 20 mg of THC in every bottle of their Sauvignon Blanc, which they say is intended to make you “get giggly and naked with someone.” Mary Jane’s Magical Hemp Wines from Canada run to a Magic White, a BC Buddy White, a BC Buddy Red, and a BP Hemp Ice Wine. They’re also producing a hemp-infused gin. And largely unlabeled are the wines from Greenway ”Know Label” Wine Tinctures of California, whose wines exist as much for healing as for enjoyment. Singer Melissa Etheridge claims the tinctures have helped her in her battle against cancer. A long, long way from drinking from a bottle in bag, while passing a soggy joint from hand to hand.
