A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

— W.C. Fields

I have an announcement to make.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a Foaming Rant lauding Floyd Landis for beer-drinking his way to a Tour de France-winning comeback.

I have subsequently tested positive for wine. White wine. French white wine.

No doubt you feel shocked, astonished, perhaps even betrayed. But imagine my dismay when the Ancient and Honorable Brotherhood of Rounders, Roisterers and Rumormongers informed me that both my "A" and "B" samples — taken immediately after my having finished the column and traded it to VeloNews.com for a six-pack — showed traces of a banned substance: Chateau Jeanguillon Entre-Deux-Mers 2004.Elegance and finesse?Aromas of apricot and jammy fruits?Creamy textures and a minerally clean finish?!?!?WTF?That I should test positive for such a substance while writing defies credulity. White wine is a publisher’s libation, something to be sipped while contemplating how best to increase a publication’s profitability ("Add labor-intensive features to boost circulation and thus advertising rates while ruthlessly slashing the editorial staff? By George, I believe I’ve got it!").

Beer, on the other hand, is a blue-collar beverage, the choice of weary wordsmiths tapping out yet another disposable opus for the masses with two fingers and some surreptitious inspiration from a pint of cheap Kentucky tonsil polish, stashed in the lower desk drawer under a dusty copy of The Associated Press Stylebook & Libel Manual.

Write on white wine? What can a guy get going on white wine? A sonnet? A snarky memo? A forged signature on a four-figure bar tab? Puh-leeze.

And don’t forget I knew I would be tested post-column. VeloNews.com has insisted on a regular testing regimen ever since I turned up at a major advertiser’s place of business in a thong, a Tina Turner wig and a state of intoxication that was best described not as having too much alcohol in my blood, but rather too little blood in my alcohol. They want me mean, not weird.

There are perfectly reasonable explanations for this distressing turn of events, and don’t think I haven’t made up a few. I had Grape-Nuts with my morning beer. My body naturally produces French white wine as a by-product of beer consumption. Some treacherous tosspot from L’Equipe spiked my beer with French white wine while I was away from my desk, getting another beer.

While you ponder those possibilities, I’ll be making the rounds of the morning TV shows, fighting to clear my name. Look for me on "The Today Show," during Al Roker's weather segment. I’ll be the guy pissing on Al’s shoe and telling him it’s raining.

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What does your discriminating palate tell you? Is it an amusing little libation, or should it be corked? Scribble your notes on a virtual napkin and slide it across the digital bar to webletters@insideinc.com. — Editor