anonymous September 10th, 2009 10:42PM  
Wikipedia has the meaning of the song as discussed by Neil Diamond himself. Look it up to read it completely. The gist is that he had spent time with an Indian tribe where there were many more men than women so some nights the single men of the tribe would enjoy their drink (a sparking [crackling] red wine type of alcoholic beverage). It clearly could be about a woman and I'm sure he knew that easy double meaning when he wrote it.