The wine is from the Colchagua Valley in Chile which has evolved in the last 15 years from a quiet stretch of farmland into one of Chile’s largest and most active wine-producing wine regions. The relatively low elevation of the coastal hills allows the Pacific breezes to interplay with the Andean winds extending the region’s ripening period. Most wine produced here is red.
The wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and has matured in differing aged French oak barrels.
Aroma: Cherry, blueberry, raspberry and fig.
Palate: Moderate tannins and very well controlled acids. Enough cherry influence to make a decent attempt to convince you it is a Chilean Carmènére! Grippy tannins and a long fade finish.
Personality: I am a full-bodied Chilean red wine not complex but forceful and excuse my straightforwardness delightful as both a sipper but even better with food.
Food Match: Creamy Polenta with Burst Cherry Tomato and Red Wine Ragout.
Cellarbility: Drink by 2026-year end. Will soften over time.
“There wasn’t the inimitable hoarseness of an honest-to-God drunk in the lot. It was unthinkable that there was a man in the saloon without a glass in his hand, but it was also unlikely that many men would have their glass filled more than twice. They didn’t drink at the Meadows now the way that they used to in the old days when Finnerty and Shepherd and Paul had joined the organization, it used to be that they’d come up to the Meadows to relax and really tie one on as a relief from the terribly hard work of war production. Now the point seemed to pretend drunkenness, but to stay sober and discard only those inhibitions and motor skills one could safely do without.”
“There wasn’t the inimitable hoarseness of an honest-to-God drunk in the lot. It was unthinkable that there was a man in the saloon without a glass in his hand, but it was also unlikely that many men would have their glass filled more than twice. They didn’t drink at the Meadows now the way that they used to in the old days when Finnerty and Shepherd and Paul had joined the organization, it used to be that they’d come up to the Meadows to relax and really tie one on as a relief from the terribly hard work of war production. Now the point seemed to pretend drunkenness, but to stay sober and discard only those inhibitions and motor skills one could safely do without.”
“There is something about war that brings out greatness. I hate to say that, but it’s true. Of course, maybe that’s because you can get great so quick in a war. Just one damn fool thing for a couple of seconds, and you’re great. I could be the greatest barber in the world, and maybe I am, but I’d have to prove it with a lifetime of great haircutting, and then nobody’d notice. That’s just the way peacetime things are you know.”
On 26March2024 I received an e-mail from “Your Friends at Yorkdale VW” showing how much they appreciated me being part of the VW family. Golly as Sally Field once said at the Oscars, “You really love me!” So nice to be loved by a large German corporation!
I was so loved an offer was made to enjoy food on 27March2024 at a Donut Emporium loved by many Canadians known as Tim Hortons. Volkswagen Canada would pay my bill at two participating Tim Hortons locations up to $30 and “To claim, simply drive your Volkswagen through the drive through or show your VW keys at the counter.”
How nice of Volkswagen Canada! “We hope this small token of appreciation will help brighten your day!” So I planned a special trip to the participating Tim Horton’s location arriving there at the noon hour and was crestfallen and more than a bit aggravated to see a sign on the front door, “Volkswagen event has ended.” Upon a query I was told by the exasperated store manager they had “run out” in 40 minutes. Someone from Volkswagen had put $500 on their credit card in favor of the Tim Hortons store to pay for the promotion. That would pay for 16 customers. As I was discussing this state of affairs a crowd arrived waving their phones and printed copies of the e-mail and expressed their dissatisfaction with as one customer said was a “misrepresentation”. One disgruntled and donut deprived was on her phone arguing with Yorkdale Volkswagen which refused to compensate the irate VW customers who did not feel appreciated about being in the Volkswagen family! Anger and frustration was mushrooming and to avoid a barrage of tear gas from the guys who were not defunded I made a hasty escape. Being close to Yorkdale Volkswagen I dropped in to have some bolts tightened and ran into my service contact and told him the story joined by another disaffected customer. Instead of a $30 gift certificate I was given a $10 one by a manager who was running a handful of $10 Tim Hortons gift certificates to he swelling mob at the Tim Horton’s location.
There was a disclaimer that the “activation” (whatever that means) was subject to available quantities per restaurant. My goodness there were vast quantities of donuts available! As someone in the unhappy crowd at Tim Hortons said the offer was too good to be true.
No I have no plans to launch a class action lawsuit. A poorly planned goodwill scheme obviously backfired. My next car will be a Bentley! Now if this event shows the appreciation of Volkswagen of its customers in their family I fear what happens if they don’t appreciate me being in the family!
The last Zealie Pinot Noir I tried was bordering on undrinkable as it “stunk” of oak. New Zealand, in my past experiences, does much better than a stinky Pinot Noir!
So hopefully it is redemption time with a Paper Road 2021 Pinot Noir from Borthwick Vineyards family owned and established in 1996. Ancient stony, alluvial soils, a cool climate, sustainable practices and minimal intervention in the vineyard and winery.
Aroma: This wine is not suffering from oakasis majoris! 85% French oak aged for 8 months with a mixture of selected cooperages of which 15% were new but still too much wood barely within an acceptable range that is if you like an oaked Pinot Noir. Black cherry, black raspberry with a touch of milk chocolate.
Palate: Not one of those delicate and dainty Pinot Noirs leaning towards full bodied and almost aggressive perhaps to the stony soil composition. The acids are cutting and distracting on the verge of annoying. Black cherry, cranberry and pomegranate with a gruff peppery finish.
Personality: I am very rough and zippy around the edges.
(Paper Road 2021 Pinot Noir, Wairarapa, New Zealand, Borthwick Vineyard, Gladstone, New Zealand, 750 mL, 13.5%).
Comments from the Peanut Gallery: Too much oak aggravated by too much acidity. “Drinkable” is not something you should have to settle for. Three strikes and you are out New Zealand.
Shot in a rich 1960’s motive (with a touch of Fellini) including food, dress and music Velma (Scarlet Moreno) searches for that “special man” but Velma is locked into a pattern of feeding then bedding a man regretting her unsuccessful endeavours of willing if not compulsive behavior. It is not regretting or being ashamed of her sexuality but of its failure to progress past the carnal into the canal of true love.
And finally the perfect man, yet again, is not the perfect man. So unfortunately just another notch on the broom for Velma and even greater regret of the perfect man who was not perfect.
Back to the routine Velma goes in her search for the perfect man leaving an unsavoury wake.
A role reversal of Norman Bates and Marion Crane.
This American short will be released on VOD on 26March2024.
“It was a generalized love-particularly for the little people, the common people, God bless them. All his life they had been hidden from him by the walls of his ivory tower. Now, this night, he had come among them, shared their hopes and disappointments, understood their yearnings, discovered the beauty of their simplicities and their earthly values. This was real, this side of the river, and Paul loved these common people, and wanted to help, and let them know they were loved and understood, and he wanted to love them too.”
“The faith of Kroner’s had a lot to do with Paul’s getting to be manager of Ilium: and now that faith might get him the managership of Pittsburgh. When Paul thought about his effortless rise in the hierarchy, he sometimes, as now, felt sheepish, like a charlatan. He could handle his assignments all right, but he didn’t have what his father had: the sense of spiritual importance in what they were doing; the ability to be moved emotionally, almost like a lover, by the great and omnipresent and omniscient spook, the corporate personality. In short, Paul missed what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.”
As disclaimers and “transparency” are soothing words spouted by public relations firms desperately trying to “manage” the transgressions of deep pocketed corporations I must disclose that I am President and Chief Executive Officer of “The Pan Canadian Society for the Purity of Opera”. Our goal is ensuring operatic performances maintain minimum standards including “proper management” of audiences. Unruliness of operatic performances and of audience members must not be tolerated.
I attended my second performance of The Opera Revue recently at the Granite Brewery in Toronto. One simply must not give performances at a brewery when we have a plenitude of more “appropriate” venues in massive concert halls that make an audience member cower in awe and respect. Really now drinking beer, eating supper and listening to opera is against all basic standards of the opera.
Opera Revue performers misbehaving in their dressing room
Listen to the rules announced at the beginning of Opera Revue’s performance.
Talking permitted
No need to turn cell phones off
Dressing up for the “opera” as they call it is discouraged
Drinking more improves your experience
OUTRAGEOUS!
No talking is a cardinal rule of a “proper operatic” performance. An operatic audience is best managed with a silence rule and schussing upholds the purity of a performance.
Masticating food during performances reduces opera to a dinner theatre as please one must not confuse Toronto with The Catskills! Imagine hearing a bottle of wine being opened in the middle of a song or watching some patron gobbling greasy chicken wings leaving a greasy chin for all to see. If there is any food at the opera a $23 glass of wine and a $32 ham and cheese on a croissant from one of Toronto’s best bakeries (COSTCO) is the way to go. Opera patrons are all barons of industry and Muskoka cottage owners so what is a “little premium” on food.
Not turning off your cellphones is a slap in the face of decorum.
Bathroom breaks a la volonte? If you can’t hold it in and suffer there is no place for you in a proper operatic audience.
Do you know how many people were wearing jeans at the performance I attended? A pair of jeans at an opera! What moral decline! What an affront to humanity! What next, pets at the opera or Loonie hot dog performances. Is Opera Revue offering “discount opera” in the nosebleed section. And the performers dress style? Best not delve into that but that baritone guy in a T-shirt. Ooooh!
Opera lovers know all the plots and acts in an opera but The Opera Revue explains the numbers before performed. Ignorance is bliss in opera. To explain destroys mysticism.
You are getting the picture right?
The biggest violation of operatic rules absolutely “beyond the Pale” is Opera Revue’s insidious attack on opera by performing numbers from popular musicals such as “Guys and Dolls”, “South Pacific” and “Music Man”. And the jokes made by the performers themselves is unconscionable.
In the call of duty I attempted a citizen’s arrest of a couple of the performers but no one in the audience assisted and in fact treating me like Professor Everett Scott booed me!
I will leave it here with a promise to return to the next performance with a team of picketers demanding the shutdown of Opera Revue! There is no room for fun at an opera. It is all about duty!
As a last observation a dog behind me breathing dog breath al over me!
A replica dog that was breathing down my neck at Opera Revue performance!
Note that the author is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pan-Canadian Society for the Purity of Opera and holder of the Chair of Operatic Deviance Department in the University of Tirana. He is an inductee at the Everett Scott Hall of Fame for Patrons of the Lofty Arts. Nominated “Vindictive Critic of the Year” by the Romanian Journal for Esoteric Arts.
Interesting in further corrupting yourself here is a link to their website and you didn’t get it from me https://operarevue.com/
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