Arias Wine

Thursday, March 23, 2017 – Sturbridge, MA

With a little over a week to go till Opening Day, I heard about an event in Sturbridge, Mass.  David Ortiz was launching a brand of wines, named Arias after his mother, and the Yankee Spirits store had a meet & greet event planned.  What made me jump at this chance was that everyone who bought a case of Arias wine would get a picture taken with Big Papi.  While I’ve been lucky to get his autograph before in Spring Training, and I’ve been able to get a picture with plenty of players over the years, I’ve never had one with him, and he’s one of my all-time favorites.  I had already purchased a “Big Papi Love” t-shirt to support the David Ortiz Children’s Fund a month earlier, so I even knew what I’d be wearing that day.

The cameras came out when the Large Father entered. I guess you could call us the Papi-razzi.

I bought my ticket online in advance, then took the day off from work and made sure to get there early.  There were 180 people guaranteed a spot, but he was only supposed to be there an hour, meaning just 20 seconds per person to meet him and take the picture.  Even though I was near the front of the line, they did whisk everyone though so quickly that there was barely time to face forward and smile before they called the next person up.  I did manage to say, “Thank you for everything, Papi.  You totally changed what it means to be a Red Sox fan.”

I was just a little excited to meet Big Papi.

He signed one bottle and handed it to us, and then we went through another line to pick up the rest of the case.  The case contained three bottles each of merlot, cabernet, chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc.  You can get your bottle at ariaswine.com.

Cheers!