The Day After

***Obviously, some parts of this are satire, others very serious. I trust the difference will be obvious.***

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have been thinking about what will happen when 'The Great One' is no longer of this world. I, in now way, am suggesting that this will happen anytime soon, but it will happen. As an old friend once told me, 'The funny thing about death is that nobody lives through it'.

So what is to come? I imagine that in true form he will ascend from his already lofty perch to absolute Iconic status. Along the lines of at least two other Americans, his days of birth and death will be marked by moments of silence and endless hours of news coverage recounting the accomplishments of his life. W.A.P. will become a part of the daily lexicon as an abbreviation for 'Wine After Parker'.

The humble house in Monkton will be re-named 'Tasteland' and people from the world over will make it a destination, like going to Mecca. The local police will be forced to hire more officers to deal with the amount of people. Tasteland will be made into a National Park and rangers will give tours of the place, citing the tree in the backyard where once 'On a beautiful August evening in 2000, The Great One actually urinated the remnants of a Guigal Côte Rôtie La Landonne'. Instead of 'p-nut butter and nanner' sandwiches, people will leave plates of Fois Gras and Peking Duck along with an assortment of dim sum - an offering to a god. A 'Glass Tabernacle', dwarfing anything ever created, will be erected using spent bottles of Sine Qua Non, Martinelli, and Turley. The entire ground will be shrouded in a hushed tone of reverence, save for the occasional oohs and ahhs. Parents will tell their children where they were when they heard the news. And the world, if only for a minute, will stop turning.

But what about the others? The ones left to pick up the torch and carry on fighting the good fight....

Daniel Thomasses and Pierre Rovani will meet their maker in a freak car accident on the back roads of Italy. Two Fiats will try to occupy the same space at the same time with rather unfortunate results. Rovani and Thomasses will not see it coming.

The other car, driven by one Marvin Shanken with traveling companions Laube and Suckling, will have just left an all-day tasting at Sassacaia, undoubtedly out of their skulls - drunk. Shanken, white-knuckling the steering wheel - a Cohiba the size of a baby's arm stuck in his pie-hole - is seeing triple at this point, his eyes like a Texas road map. Laube, who passed out hours earlier, is sawing toothpicks while riding shotgun. Suckling, trying to ever impress 'The Shank' - as his friends call him - is in the back seat running on at the mouth about how cool he is and how badass his new Ferragagamo shoes are. Shanken couldn't give a shit and is simply trying to keep the thing between the lines. Suckling, determined to prove his coolness factor, decides the best way to get Shanken's attention is to actually show him the shoe. Instead of taking it off, Suckling re-positions himself. The cramped quarters of the Fiat force him to contort his body, the show-shoe, pinned beneath him. Confident he can pull off this move without fail, Suckling goes for it. He lifts his body up, the pinned foot being released like a rubber band. Shanken, with sweat pouring of his brow, shirt completely soaked but still sporting the suspenders in totally unaware of what's unfolding - literally - behind him.

Meanwhile, Rovani and Thomasses are trying desperately to figure their way back to the hotel after being on a 15 hour bender at Antinori. Rovani says it's this way, Thomasses says it's that. Finally, Thomasses pulls out the map. Being three sheets to the wind, Thomasses navigational skills are less than ideal. After much discussion, Rovani convinces Thomasses that he's holding the map upside down. 'Turn tha damn thing over', he says. Thomasses comes back, 'Okay then, I'll turn the damn thing over...right now', temporarily blinding Rovani

At this very moment in the other Fiat, Suckling is trying his Kerrie Strug impersonation. He lifts up, leg shoots forward. It nails Shanken in the back of the head causing Shaken to lurch forward taking the steering wheel across the bridge of the nose. His eyes start swelling up with water and he turns to smack the shit out Suckling.

BAM!!!

In one fail swoop, the wine writing world as America knows it, is no more.

Millions upon millions of consumers will be totally lost, wandering the aisles of wine shops and package stores, wondering what to do. Said shops, in an effort to keep the machine running will continue to post 'shelf-talkers' for vintages of wine long since sold. This will, for some, provide a modicum of solace, yet only perpetuate their insecurity of personal taste.

And then maybe, just maybe, people will start making wine for the sake of making wine - that long forgotten notion of representing time and place. And of course, Broadbent,Coates, and Johnson will still be there to actually write about them.

Or better yet, people the world over will realize that all of it is really unnecessary, and the headlines will read 'Wine(writing) is Dead.'

B.O.T.M.

Since apparently more than a couple of people are interested in my opinions about the world of wine, I figured I might start writing about the variouos books that I am reading. I don't think Oprah really needs to worry too much, but here goes the first installment of my 'Book of the Month'.

The Emperor of Wine

The Rise of Robert M. Parker And The Reign Of American Taste

Elin McCoy

There has already been much ink spilled about this book and as such I will avoid citing many of the 'juicy' bits (no pun intended). Let me say that, all in all, it was a decent read. Not being able to devote full time to reading it, I got through the book in about 4 mornings. Somewhat surprisingly, there really wasn't a whole lot in the book that I didn't know already. I use the word somewhat because I'm curious for whom this book was written. I would think that the average buyer of this book already has a pretty good idea of who Mr. Parker is, and that which he does, so to read the only official biography of this man would give an insight on the whole man, myth, and legend bit. As it turns out, not so much.

Anybody who knows me, has read this blog for any amount of time, or visited my shop will already have a pretty good idea as to my feeling for The Great One. I am not a big fan. After reading this book, I'm not sure my opinion has changed all that much. He started out to change the way the game was played and he did so. Unfortunately, it is this monkey's opinion that he can't leave well enough alone. But it's more than that. And in his defense, much of how his thoughts and opinions are thrown about is out of his control. But then again...

"Parker had no previous experience with sake and knew little about it, but that didn't stop him from extending his methods and ratings system to a comprehensive tasting of 225 of the best, in Tokyo, though he later described it as one of the most difficult he'd undertaken. The alcohol level in sake is 18 percent, higher than the average 13 or 14 percent for table wines, and about a third of the way through, sweat was pouring off his brow, Parker thought, What have I got myself into? He felt as though he would drop dead right there. From then on, if a sample didn't smell appealing, he passed. When he wrote up the tasting in his newsletter, fifty-two sakes merited scores between 87 and 92..."

WTF!?!?!

I'm sure I am in the minority on this one, so bring on the emails, but what the hell is this? How arrogant can one person be? I don't know the first damn thing about being a woman, and I don't know shit about shoes, so obviously I am more than qualified to stop in at Lenox Mall, try on high heels for a few hours then decree that little more than a fifth of the offerings are acceptable, right?!?

What an ass.

So check it out. Like most things these days, this book will not likely change any body's opinion about Mr. Parker, only fortify it. Something that occured to me was the tone of the book. I felt like I was reading about someone who is no longer of this world, i.e. passed on. Obviously, this is because the entire book is recounting events in his life. But the endless "Parker said...Parker did...Parker looked..." thing created a sense that you were reading an eulogy to a man gone, as in away.

Which got me thinking...

Good Food Gone Bad

Not to make light of the situation, but seriously, this is messed up.

From the article:

" Three people died after drinking home-made herbal wine and eating pork on China's southern tourist island of Hainan, state media reported on Wednesday."

What's that line about the Kool-Aid?

"They had drunk all the wine ... when everyone felt sick and started to vomit," Xinhua said. "They had also eaten pork, vermicelli and bamboo shoots."

Maybe this can be a 'Lemon into Lemonade' situation.

Note to PR people at Martinelli. You have a unique opportunity to gain footing in a burgeoning market while at the same time justifying the insanely high alcohol levels in your wine. Just re-write the back label with some little dity about how your Zin goes great with Pork and it will kill any remaining Streptococcus suis that might be swimming in the soup.

Yours truly,

Honky

P.S. This one was for free, future advice will be on a cash-only basis.

Aha!!!

Admittedly, it has been some time since I have bought any wine from California. The reason: pricing. The way I look at it, if the wine is that good, they can keep it for themselves. But there may be another reason

"Sonoma County Narcotics Task Force agents removed 5,300 marijuana plants from six garden sites in the Geysers area of Healdsburg on Thursday."

So I guess this explains it. Winery owners get down with the left-handed shit and literally pull a number out of their ass. Need proof? The following were taken from a recent discussion on a rather famous website:

Paul Hobbs 2005 Fall Mailer Out

Top offerings:
2002 Cabernet Beckstoffer To Kalon-$265
2003 Chardonnay Cuvee Agustina-$100
|
Is that pesos?
|
As if the $70 (2000) to $180 (2001) price hike wasn't absurd enough: $265?!?! Mr Hobbs must be using too much of his own product!
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One share of google == one bottle of To kalon
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and so on...

Unreal.

What I did on my summer vacation....

For whatever reason, I have various loops of Cheech & Chong running through my head as of late, hence the titele of this post. Sargent Stadenko, Sister Mary Elephant, Dave, the whole thing. Anyway, on to the adventure.

I should offer at the outset that by the end of this post I very well may sound like the poster child for the city of Montréal and potentially Québec to boot. Regardless, both are beautiful and if you are ever afforded the opportunity to visit, do not hesitate.

Various observations:

Coldplay at the Bell Centre. Admittedly a guilty pleasure for me, but the F.A. is an absolute freak for them. They put on one hell of a show and good luck trying to see them. Everything is sold out. Could have done without the 'Fair Trade' propaganda at the merch tables, especially in light of the expense I incurred seeing them. $135-US for 2 tickets, and $40-CA for a damn T-shirt. Fair what? Also, the visit to the Bell Centre was my first to any hockey arena. Quite comfortable and pretty much good seats everywhere.

SAQ Signature - Montréal. Seriously one of the most amazing shops I have ever been to. Visually, the space is stunning. Spirits on street level (Armangnacs back to 1929, Ports back to the easrly 1800's) and wine downstairs. A couple of curious things of note.

1. This was the only store in both Montréal and Québec City that had 'Parker Points'. There may have been others but I didn't see them if there were. More importantly, there were points on only a few wines. When I asked the clerk why, he laughed and said 'They sell the wine.' But out of the 400-500 labels in the store, there were ratings on maybe 30 of them. Why don't the Canadians feel the need to have their selections deemed worthy of drinking? In all honesty, my impression of this store and evry other one was that the mere presence of the wine in house was all the validation needed. To say it another way, if it wasn't good, it wouldn't be there in the first place. This is a feeling that I try to present in my store although I'm not so sure how effective it is.

2. Back labels. Or more importantly, a lack thereof. A great deal of wines that I picked up had none of the obligatory 'goes great with chicken, blah, blah, blah'. Is one to assume that Canadians are smarter about wine than their American counterparts? Hmmm.

3. When looking around at various vintages available, almost without exception, they were from 2000 and 2001, especially when it came to Burgundy. I inquired about the 2002's (most of which have come and gone here in the States) when we were in Québec City, and the clerk sort of giggled and then said 'No, they are still in France. We hold them there. They may get here towrads the end of 2006.' Holy Shit. What a novel concept. A retailer acutally going through the effort to hold back the wines, giving them more bottle age and therefore making them a bit more agreeable earlier in life.

One day was spent in the Laurentians. Absolutely stunning.

The food was stellar. Eveything from fast food to shopping at the IGA. Unfortunately, time precluded me from visiting fellow blogger The Caveman's various restaurants. I promise that will be different on the next trip. I hope to see the Habs (that's the Canadiens for non-Québecers) play a match this season.

Taking off for a bit...

Actually, I already have but in the rush to get out of Dodge, never got around to posting it to the blog. I am currently sitting in beautiful Montreal, Canada and the water is fine.

We flew over Toronto coming from Cincinatti and along the way got my first view of what they call the Great Lakes. There's good reason for this...they're friggin huge.

What can be said about yesterday's accident at Pearson Inter Air. Being up here, the news channels are much different than those in the States. While there were a few instances of a reporter trying to find something sensational to report, the press as a whole is generally much more reserved and repectful of the situation than anything in the U.S.

309 people. 1 plane. 0 Fatalities.

Unbelievable.