photo/Jessie Banhazl
Layne Witherell
Age: 79
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Bar of choice: Blue Portland Maine (BPM)
Drink of choice: Whatever wine is featured in Layne’s Wine Gig
Originally opened in 2005 as a jazz lounge named Liquid Blue, the downtown Portland bar and music venue Blue Portland Maine (BPM) has grown increasingly eclectic, adding roots music, salsa dancing, indie rock, poetry and comedy to its offerings over the decades. During the past two years, new owners Celeste Parke and Andrew Roseman have further expanded its horizons with creative events like figure drawing and a popular storytelling series. They recently turned the business into an arts nonprofit, a transition they expect will support additional growth and diversity of programming.
“We wanted to think of ourselves as an art organization and not a bar that’s just desperate to have shows so that it can stay open,” said Celeste. “We wanted to be able to focus on the people, the things that make Blue awesome.”
“Performance shouldn’t always be about the audience being hushed and reverent to the performers,” she added, alluding to the club’s atmosphere in earlier years. “All of this is experiential stuff, people sharing, connecting, having a good time. It’s not just a singular thing.”
Given the diversity of its shows, BPM naturally attracts a diverse array of regulars, but one stands out for his sharp wit and sheer enthusiasm: Layne Witherell, a.k.a. The Wine Guy.
“Layne’s just the best,” Celeste declared. “We’re so lucky to have him here. Otherwise, we’d be selling some swill!”
Let’s get to know this no-bullshit wine aficionado.
When did you start coming to Blue?
When my wife Judy and I moved to Portland, I said, “We gotta find a club.” We landed here at Blue eighteen years ago. It was half the size, and we got to know [former owners] Terez and John. We’ve been coming here ever since.
Years back, I said to Terez and John, like the cheeky person that I am, “Oh, by the way, I could do a gig up on stage with wine.” The format was to look at a distributor’s list, pick out four wines that I’ve never had, and get up there and riff with the audience. When Andrew and Celeste took over, they had never seen the Wine Gig. I got up on stage for an hour, freaked out about ancient Italian wine, and Andrew walked over and said, “Yeah, we’re gonna book you every month to come in.”
Andrew and Celeste are hands-on, and I think they’re the best club owners ever. They’re personable, they’re professional, and they’re here. I’m a connoisseur of little clubs. My whole life has been spent looking for little clubs in places like Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. So this is perfect.
Can you tell us about your military background?
I was 20, I had a draft card in my pocket and wasn’t in college. I was expendable. You sent my ass over to Vietnam. So, I said, “Well, fuck this, I’m doomed. I’ll volunteer for the Navy, because that’s got to be better than being in a fucking rice paddy and dying.”
When the recruiter looked at me, he said, “Well, what do you want?” I said, “The toughest thing out there.” He said, “God, we got submarines! You want a submarine?” I said, “Shit yeah, give me submarines.” I went to sub school, and the dropout rate was about 80 percent. It was tough. I got stationed on a diesel submarine that singlehandedly sank a Japanese aircraft carrier during World War Two, and I’m in this goddamn thing, just a little punk-ass dude. The submarine was eventually decommissioned and is now in Galveston, Texas, as a National Historic Monument.
So you were on a submarine during the Vietnam War?
I ended up stationed in Rota, Spain, fixing nuclear submarines. There’s three kinds of sailors: the sailor who never left the ship, the sailor who never left a bar, and the sailor who went native. We went native. I got the idea for the “mendo-blendo” concept I use in my Blue gig from my favorite bodega in Spain. What this guy did was, he’d take the lesser-expensive wine and the better wine, and pour it in a little Coca-Cola bottle, and blend the two.
What did you do after the war?
I went to college at San Francisco State University because of the G.I. Bill. I was up to my eyeballs in history and humanities. That’s where I got the wine bug, big time. The history department was pretty conservative, but I said I wanted to write my thesis on early California wine history.
Tell us about your experience in the wine industry.
I ended up moving to Portland, Oregon, in ’75 after grad school. At the time, there were ten wineries. Now there are twelve hundred. I was out there doing God’s work, putting the first Pinot Noir on the first wine list in Portland. For that, I was awarded a Master Knight of the Vine in 1988. I got knighted in the Kennedy Center, with the cloak, the sword, all the little plumage and shit.
While I was vice president of sales and marketing at Lemma Distributing, I wrote the number one Wine Spectator wine list in the world. I had my own company for a few years. I was exporting wines in the U.S. I drank the greatest wines, but one day I said, “Well, the dollar isn’t going well for me,” so I sold the company. I went to Virginia and became CEO of a winery. I was a suit, and that wine was crap. Fortunately, I got out of that alive.
I moved to Richmond and ran a large wine store and had enough time so that I could teach classes and write. I taught a class at the University of Virginia where I terrorized all the little rich fucks. Then this gorgeous young Mainer comes rolling into town and works in the same company. I fell hopelessly in love — still hopelessly in love. She wanted to come back to Maine. I’ve been a gypsy in the wine business for over thirty-five years. I can do another move. So what? No big deal.
Tell us about your job at Trader Joe’s.
When I was sixty-five, I hung up the suit. I got bored after about a month, so I went over to Trader Joe’s with my résumé. I said to the then-manager, Captain Libby, “Don’t look at the goddamn résumé. I don’t want management.” She asked, “How do you sell wine?” I said, “With passion,” and I’ve been there for ten years. The people are so goddamn cool.
What do you do for fun?
We have plays that we see religiously and restaurants that we go to. There are two places my wife Judy and I go to every year. One is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It’s like an extraterrestrial experience. Elon Musk couldn’t come up with a better visit to another planet than Mardi Gras. The other place we go is Rome. It’s ancient, it’s dirty, it’s caffeinated.
Do you have any projects going on aside from the Wine Gig?
When I was writing letters to my mom in the Navy, I became kind of a journaling guy. Right now, I’m writing for the West End News. I think my writing has gotten a little gnarlier over the years, because I’ve gotten gnarlier over the years, but I write every single day. When I wrote my first book (Wine Maniacs: Life in the Wine Biz), I sat with it for ten years. I think my second book will be articles I’ve written.
I wrote a piece several years ago about celebrity wines and how what they do is all bullshit. So I tend to call out the wine industry. I’m at the point, after fifty years of doing this, where I can follow the industry, and I can sort out the good people from the bad people.
You can catch Layne’s Wine Gig every fourth Wednesday at BPM (650 Congress St.) at 6 p.m.
Know an interesting bar regular? Send them our way at theregularsmaine@gmail.com
