Novus Ordo

Your Faithful Correspondent is back after a prolonged absence to regroup and reinvent. The new wave around here is independence, traveling light, destocking (not sure I really like that word though).

To destock in advance, there is no wine store in my immediate future, thus no stock to acquire and manage. But I still have a large inventory of words on hand and they need to be (re)capitalized. Having discovered some ability to write coherently in English, I have revived an idea and become a freelance translator. Since I like to solve puzzles, especially ones that I must dive very deeply into, it is very satisfying to analyze a sentence and surface victorious at the end.

So far, I am a generalist. My fields of specialist knowledge have not been called upon much, but I have enjoyed the variety of topics to translate. They have ranged from yoga (available now on an iPhone app near you) to coffins, grape-growing to philosophy. Nothing about food, my usual topic here, but cocktails (proofreading another app) did come up.

More soon. Really.

The Future Of Service?

My friends,

Are you tired of human interaction?  Do you want to avoid talking to a waiter when you get a drink?  Then what you need is a wine dispenser in your local tavern or restaurant.  Just swipe your "prepaid, debit-style, smart card" and this beauty will fill your glass with your choice of, well, whatever is in the machine.

This remarkable apparatus was designed to "maximize portions and profits per bottle."  Any right-thinking publican will see how eliminating those mis-pouring employees can only help the bottom line, and after all, isn't that what their loyal customers are looking to do too? They're already used to getting money out of the wall. They have the opportunity to scan and pack their own groceries. Why should they want to be waited on?  If those waiters want to make a living, they should retrain as vending machine technicians.

The manufacturer claims to have "revolutionized the wine industry by bringing wine hospitality to the next level and to new and unexpected business environments."  I now expect to see a wine dispenser at the laundromat, next to the miniature boxes of soap.  In fact, I'm really looking forward to it.  Laundry day will be so much more pleasant.

I assume that humans or trained monkeys are still needed to open and install new bottles in the dispenser at this point.  Maybe that job will be done automatically by Wine Dispenser Mark II, which will also clean the empty glass after the monkey snatches it from your hand and shows you the door.

On the other hand, if you believe that a social environment with the enjoyment of wine and food is by humans, for humans, this is going in the wrong direction.  Nothing says hospitality like self-service, or maybe self-service says "nothing like hospitality."

Snark and Run

I was so annoyed by this article saying that wine is an unnecessary luxury that I had to object strenuously. Luxury, my eye. When the economy is weak, we need to watch more carefully for value, not just give up.

However, I must apologize for maligning the Puritans. With further research, I found that that their objection was to drunkenness rather than to drink, and indeed there was more beer than water loaded aboard the Mayflower.

Any further insults will be reserved for prohibitionists, separatists and the self-righteous.

The Identity Question

Is it what it says? This is not a Clintonian fudge. My question is: Is this wine what it claims to be? Here are a couple of wines that, shall we say, did not represent themselves accurately.

The Princess, our friend and I took a junket to a winery that shall remain nameless. It has a spectacular setting high in the mountains, with an elaborate and fantastical villa that must have cost a great deal of money (this point is important). The other guests on this open tasting day were living the high life, with the type of beautiful view that Mad King Ludwig would have enjoyed if he were in California rather than Bavaria. I expected some of them to break out cigars as they sat on the patio, but we were spared that.

Too bad the wine did not live up to the surroundings. The various Pinot noirs, this winery's alleged specialty, were unfocused and showed no prospect of developing into anything interesting, nor of tasting like Pinot. The Cabernet sauvignon was uninspiring. Their Merlot was tasty, with enough stuffing to show it would be even better in 3-5 years. It was worth buying at 40% off, so we did so.

One worthwhile wine out of three seems to be about average these days. So is Pinot noir with no finesse or delicacy. The thing that really bugged us was the $40-50 price range on these wines. They were not worth the money to any of our party. The only possible explanation for the pricing, we felt, is the need to pay off the villa quickly. This may be a valid pricing strategy, as long as your customers are not aware of what else they could get for the money. That is ... unlikely. I have expectations of a $40 wine, and nothing we tasted here met them.

Now for the next impostor:

A well-established restaurant boasting a Wine Spec award-winning list should be a safe bet for a good glass of wine. The food was good enough, the wine list broad enough in California if not other regions.

Tonight we were didn't want a whole bottle due to the long drive home. So we looked over the token by-the-glass list. Are we not worth looking out for unless we buy a whole bottle? Apparently not.

I decided to try a Pinot since it would match our dinner best. Color: opaque and thick, not typical for Pinot. Taste ... well, it's wine of some sort. Our kind waitress goes back to the bar and verifies that, yes, the bottle is labeled "Pinot noir".

Maybe this bottle has been open too long? Our very kind waitress brings a glass from a fresh bottle. It tastes the same. Feh. I give up and get a Louis Martini Cabernet, which is basic but tastes like Cabernet.

Back home, I research the Pinot and find it has 20% Syrah. No wonder it doesn't taste like Pinot! This is not a case of blending to achieve more complex flavors - this is blending to achieve nothingness.

Castle Rock Winery, I will avoid your wines from now on. And Unnamed Restaurant in Carmel, you should be ashamed of yourselves for trumpeting an award-winning bottle list while foisting off a mediocre glass list on us. That's disrespect to your customers.