Referring to the Beale Street Wine Race, Alex Boggs said, “Wine race is pretty much my favorite day of the year. ‘Cause I love to win.”
For the fifth time in six years, Alex’s crew, “The Huey’s Wine Race Team,” won the event, held April 23 on Beale Street. “I was definitely worried seeing that we dropped a bottle, but, overall, this year, in my opinion, all the teams were a little bit down,” said Alex, who is an owner of Huey’s. “Nobody had a perfect run. All three teams that placed actually dropped something.”
Participants run the relay race while carrying a tray of wine bottles, glasses, corks and a corkscrew. “You’ve got to fill up all four glasses to the line of tape at the top,” Alex said. “Then you have to complete the race with all four bottles, four glasses, four corks and a corkscrew. Anything you’re missing, you get penalized. Any spillage is going to count off as well. Every millimeter (of spillage) adds a couple of seconds to your race time.”
But, Alex said, “As long as you’ve got the quickest time, the seconds that get added on for spillage don’t penalize you as much.”
“At the end of the race, all the wine that’s in the glasses and the bottles is weighed,” said Beale Street director Jon Shivers. “Teams with the quickest time and the most wine at the end of the race wins.”
Alex actually won the past consecutive six races because he was on last year’s winning team from Lafayette’s Music Room, where he worked at the time.
This year, he and his teammates celebrated at the Huey’s Downtown and Midtown locations, Alex said.
Read the full article at The Commercial Appeal >
