I thought the same for many years... in fact, until just this moment. But now that I've heard this line with my current knowledge of
wine and wine
afficionados, it I
realize that the actual meaning of that phrase is more complicated. Wine lovers often speak of
laying down a bottle of wine when they are planning to keep it and allow it to
mature. The phrase evidently
derives from the fact that the wine would actually be
laid down in a
cellar, where the cool, dark environment allows the chemical processes inside the bottle to proceed at a
measured pace.
To an outsider, the phrase "laying down and avoiding"
conjures images of carefully setting down a
grenade and cautiously backing away. But to a wine person, that line merely means that the wine needs a good, long time to age before it should be drunk (or, perhaps, that it should be left in the cellar for some unsuspecting
pigeon to drink). Since
Monty Python often makes fun of aristocrats, and since the culture of wine is better-known in
England than in the
United States, I find it likely that the intention is a disorienting merger of the two concepts.