Video of the Week: Grape Lady

| Cadenza Reporter

My soul rejoiced at watching the Grape Lady fall. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to plop yourself down in a chair and affix your eyes to the nearest computer. The Grape Lady has gathered millions upon millions of views since its original arrival onto the YouTube scene. With good reason, too.

A local news station in Atlanta was covering Chateau Elan, Georgia’s largest winery. There’s a stage like the ones upon which there would be a guillotine and two women with their feet in wooden containers. One of those women is reporter Melissa Sander, and her goal for the day is to compete with the lady next to her to see who can stomp the most grapes in the shortest period of time. This should be a wonderful, fun way to commemorate le Chateau’s success on television, right? This should be one big celebration of grapery, right?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THfiHQZVSw0

Wrong. Legend has it that Sander wasn’t content with just standing and working those grapes under her feet. No, she wanted more. So, as the two ladies start to stomp, vying for the title of Master Grape Stomper, Sander abruptly yells, “Stop!” And then everything happens so fast that it’s a blur. Competitor Stomper has stopped and Sander begins stomping really fast and hard to take advantage of the other’s inactivity. Sneaky, eh? But then to top it all off, Grape Lady Sander trips on the barrel’s side and plummets Beyoncé-style to the ground. When she makes contact with the hard earth, she makes the most otherworldly sounds ever known to man, and she starts to cry out in pain. The other woman watches frantically, seemingly wondering what she can do. But not even her bewildered face can stave off the laughter that comes from the viewer who is wondering why Grape Lady has turned into a wallaby mixed with a narwhal.

Amid the Grape Lady’s cries of “Arnht, urnnnnd, oouwwwwh,” the channel smoothly cuts to inside the studio back in Atlanta, where the two anchors are staring at the camera in awe. They regain their composure, but as they do, they utter earnestly “Ouch, that looks like it hurt” and “Well, hope she’s okay.” You won’t know what to laugh at first, the Grape Lady’s banshee whoop or the anchors’ faked concern. Whatever you laugh at, though, it’s clear that this video must go into the Pantheon of Epic Win. Watch it. Not only will you laugh until you cry, you’ll also derive new meaning from that one Aesopian fable about sour grapes.

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