Inside the Beltway

Country air

One knows he’s escaped the political suffocation of Washington when the topic of conversation centers on compatible astrological signs instead of how President Bush is going to get our troops out of Iraq.

It’s feeling like August out there, which means Washingtonians are already heading west to escape the Beltway blues.

Photographers outnumbered familiar faces Saturday night at the Oasis Winery in Hume, Va., where DC Style magazine and California winemaker Robert Mondavi co-hosted a “Sunset at the Oasis” celebration of the Supreme Court’s reversal of a long-standing law prohibiting wineries from shipping directly to out-of-state consumers.

The court’s decision was no better demonstrated to several hundred partygoers, dressed in “wine country elegant” attire, when three UPS delivery men (they remained clad in their brown uniforms) suddenly appeared and handed Oasis owner Tareq Salahi, who was in the middle of his toast, several cases of Blue Rock wine shipped from California.

Mr. Salahi said the Supreme Court ruling is a “tremendous boon” to wineries nationwide, which “band together like family.” Wine has been produced in Virginia for nearly 400 years, so the state and its winemakers took the lead in arguing for high-court intervention.

In addition to the free-flowing Oasis wine and champagne, the highlight of the evening was a stirring rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” played by Neil Schone, founder of Journey.

Meanwhile, that same evening at the Ragged Rock Ridge Regnery Family Farm in Madison, Va., American Spectator publishers Bob Tyrrell and Al Regnery hosted their magazine’s first American Spectator Pig Roast and Bluegrass Festival.

“Spouses, friends, children, dogs, and any other hangers-on who need an afternoon in the country are welcome,” read the invitation, which offered “swimming in the pond, fishing, walks in the woods, horseback riding, hayrides, square dancing, and country air.”

Mr. Regnery, as adept at farming as he is at publishing, led a hayride around the 50-acre property. (American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene chose to steer an ATV, with an unnamed reporter hanging on in the back for dear life.)

Among those feasting on the 75-pound pig: Judge Ray Randolph, of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Military response

We’d written in our previous column about an offensive sign out in front of Casa Furniture in Alexandria, which we suspected might lure undocumented aliens to the store to buy a new sofa or mattress.

“Credito Sin Papele sde Gringos,” the misspelled sign read.

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