Psst! Wanna buy a good bottle? Cheap!

Popped (pooped?) the latest column out, on wine fraud as it happens, to much applause. Which left me somewhat bemused.

The plot, for those needing to be brought up to speed, is as follows. Wine sells for big money. Even modestly priced wine, like a Chianti Reserva is worth $20-$30ish. This doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but think of it in terms of tanks of gas and you get the drift. Wine is still the most expensive beverage, even very modestly priced wine. (There are exceptions, Two Buck Chuck, Pacific Peak, or - shudder! - home made wine. I’ll address those another time.) If you’re raising a couple of kids on 30K, you ain’t drinking much Chianti Reserva.

On the other hand, if you’re single even with a modest income, $20, $50, even $100 might be something you’d do occasionally. This is the key insight behind Grey Goose Vodka. (Nobody, can taste the difference between Grey Goose and other brands. Sure, in a controlled tasting, side by side, you might be able to; but in a bar? With mix? Good luck. I have a standing offer. I choose any two other vodkas in the bar, the total price of which will not exceed the price of GG, and the taster must pick the Goose. Wrong pick, he pays for the vodka and for three of my drinks. Right choice I pick up the tab for 3 GG. I haven’t lost yet. I encourage you to try this bet yourself and report the results back to me. I suspect you will have many nights of free drinks in front of you.) But people are willing to indulge themselves in affordable luxury. Sure GG is expensive; but in the grand scheme of things, can you afford a $15 martini?

But to return to wine fraud, people have been counterfeiting wine for at least the last fifty years. In the ‘70s and ‘80s Italians sold Croatian wine as Chianti and Venetian. Champagne labels re-branded when they were low, and the French sold Italian wine as French. These days the crime is more likely to be criminal in nature. People actually counterfeiting bottles and labels of wine to sell as the original. In 2005 the Italians seized 6.6 million bottles of Falanghina, a prized Sicilian white that sells for about $15-$50.

Brunello ($50) is being regularly knocked off, as are mid-priced Californian, French and Australian products. I inspected a Japanese high-end Sake ($60) recently with not one, not two, not three, but six hologram labels to prevent counterfeiting. The market for the Sake was China. Nuff said.

Okay so far so good. Punters are always trying for a deal. And punters always lose. That’s why your government loves VLTs and local casinos.

My question is: why is this such a popular topic?

Is it because snobs such as myself and Sotheby’s of London (subpoenaed in NY Mar. 6 re: grand jury investigation into systematic wine fraud) can’t tell the difference between plonk and the Real Thing?

Is it because we all at heart chuckle at the rogues who take punters down a notch?

Or is it because it reassures readers who don’t get the lavender and spice from that bottle of chard-semillion, that they aren’t alone. Beats me.

Funny business, wine drinking.

Writing while drunk

I sit here, typing, alone, officially drunk (i.e with a blood alcohol count greater than 0.08) possibly in a dinner jacket, possibly in my underwear (some things are best left to the imagination). And I type. Why? Beats hell out of me. Nobody reads this blog because I am making no effort to link with anybody. No effort to add any content other than words, nothing to make it easy for anyone to stay. People who can actually read, who can think, synthesize, and understand, find reading in front of a screen a pain in the ass. So this is the kind of content typically reserved for letters and diaries. It is, in fact, a silent scream, a place where I get to vent my feelings about the universe.

Why do this?

Well because that is who I am. I have been writing since puberty, and usually to the sound of one hand clapping. This is how I make sense of the world. If I wanted to be read I'd be adding pictures of sundry starlets, writing about my [mythical] sex life with them; telling y'all about the drugs I've done and the places I've been. Who cares? You, faithful reader (allusion alert!), are quite capable of doing drugs and visiting places too.

But back to the matter at hand, which is writing about wine in particular and booze in general, I sit here, alone, waiting to do an airport run - to pick up the spousal unit - mildly intoxicated. On Vina Antigua as it happens, a very interesting blend of sangiovese and bonarda. The bonarda tones down the acidulous ectomorphisity of sangiovese. Don't get me wrong. I'm a reflexive drinker of Italian red,viewing the entire selection in all wine stores as comfort food. But there is a slight edge to chianti (varietal = sangiovese) that is not always welcome. The bonarda provides an interesting contrast/influence/moderator/catalyst.

In fact the most interesting wines I've drunk in the last couple of months come from Argentina. I had a Paso Doble (tango allusion alert!), an Argentinian take on ripasso in December, and several organic wines from Michel Torrino. And of course Torrontes from several wineries, the Malvasio grape of ancient Cretian legend. All good stuff.

But the point of this particular essay is drunkeness. You've read the above. Syntax in order, grafs flowing. Even the spelling is not bad, and spelling is my weakness, being a child of the 'natural language' theory of learning. (Dear god above! Why on earth are we allowing idiot bureaucrats to come up with untested theories of learning and education? More to the point, anyone who may read this may also well be a victim of such stupid romantic scams. Your lack of reading skills and universal knowledge, your complete ignorance of the history of our species, the precious knowledge we've wrung from our wretched existence, is completely due to some romantic drivel, about your ability to acquire knowledge, syntax and grammar from the ether. On the plus side, your access to scrip for speed - aka ritalin, benzedrine et al. - comes from those same sources. Enjoy.)

Putting the screed aside, can one craft sentences such as the above while drunk? What is 'drunk?' I know what intoxicated is. I've been completely ripped to the tits several times: on love, on laughter, on various dopes, and indeed on alcohol.

However I present to you the following thought: the idea that .08 = intoxicated is foolish. Several analysts of the effects of conversation have pointed out that talking on a phone is more dangerous than .08. Indeed, research points out that arguing with family, particularly children, while driving is more debilitating.

Everyone in favor of banning conversation in vehicles, please raise their hands. Voters to the left of me, clowns to the right. (pop culture alusion alert!)