Amusing Musings From the Wine Road

Amo, Amas, Amat (For the love of...)

I heard about an interesting comment on Robert Parker's site this week.  To the question "How do you define a 'boutique' wine producer?", someone replied "One that is failing".  Well, I have great regard for Mr. Parker, but he DOES tend to attract more than his share of macho wine drinkers.

My wine road recently led me down a side street called "Just For the Love of It", a small detour off of Memory Lane where all the inhabitants are amateur winemakers.  Such inhabitants are invariably an enthusiastic lot, eager to pour their product for anyone who stands still long enough to ask for directions.  And such generosity provides fertile breeding ground for fond wine memories.

The fondness may or may not stem from the wine itself - they vary wildly from year to year and producer to producer.  But all these wines, from the great to the forgettable, have one thing in common - they were made by people who went to significant expense, inconvenience and discomfort to create a product they love, the very root of the word amateur.

New York Bans Trans Fats??

If you have even a single entrepreneurial bone in your body, you've likely pondered New York's coming black market in Trans Fats.  Now that such fats are banned in the Big Apple, I foresee tremendous black market potential for some old favorites - foods high in hydrogenated oils such as cookies, chips, pizzas, hamburgers and fries. 

But if planning to feather your retirement nest by hawking Cheeto's under the dark of night, you'd better hurry.  If the Heart Attack Grill gets in on the action, the market is as good as sutured.  With their Quadruple Bypass burger (right) and Flatliner Fries (still cooked in old-fashioned lard!), hawkers of mere Cheeto's are doomed.  This famed Tempe institution has managed to use the world's oldest marketing technique to move more than their share of ground cow, while simultaneously raising the ire of feminists and the Arizona State Nurses Association.  Rumor has it they're looking for new locations.

Such institutions are no longer welcome in the Big Apple (suggested slogan - "Watching your waistline so you don't have to").  The city's new ban on trans fats has raised more ire than a scorned feminist, which pales, apparently, relative to a scorned New York City Hot Dog vendor.

NYC lawmakers must have missed the good news on Resveratrol, which was found to offset the affects of fat in mice.  Had they but known, they might have simply mandated a daily dose of these red wines instead of banning trans fatty acids...

What is that... that smell???

Before I traveled the wine road for a living, I commuted to cubicleland on a city bus.  Ask anyone who has spent a few minutes in a bus stop to describe its scent and you're unlikely to hear the word "appetizing".  More likely, they'd describe the lingering personal hygiene limitations of its unfortunate nighttime dewllers - those without access to showers.  Or bathrooms.

Into this scenario insert this week's landmark "scent ads" by the California Milk Board and their ad agency, Goodby Silverstein.  For details, take a moment and see the video clip of the news reel (yes, there is a commercial first, sorry).  Short on time?  Here's a synopsis - the "Got Milk?" folks combined their famous campaign with scent strips that made selected bus stops smell like, get this, freshly baked CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES! 

Wow.

You'll shoot your eye out!

“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!”

In the classic movie “A Christmas Story” by the late Jean Shepherd, this warning was on the lips of every adult who heard young Ralphie's desperate plea for a Red Ryder BB Gun.  Of course, most users of such toys (including yours truly) grow up with nary a mishap.  But the possibility of such permanent consequences turned this warning into an adult mantra.

And though today’s interview isn’t with anyone from the powerful BB Gun faction of the NRA, we ARE talking to a devotee of an activity that evokes similar warnings – foraging for wild mushrooms.  As with BB Guns, most wild mushrooms are consumed with nary an incident, but the POSSIBILITY of poison brings to mind a warning that might sound like “You’ll poison your liver, kid!”, and the liver is one of those organs without which one dies.  And on the scale of bad things, dying from something you ate has to be way up at the top of the list.

Let me first spend a moment introducing the Renaissance Man, the polymath that is Dan Tudor...