“God and nature were both unjust, they had their favourites, chose to be gracious at random, adorned one man with precarious honours and the next with an easy, but ordinary fate. And for the man that would act? For him justice was, on the one hand, a paralyzing weakness, the very essence of doubt, and on the other hand, it was a trumpet call to reckless deeds. In order to remain within the spirit of morality, man was constantly correcting one meaning of “justice” with the other-so how could there be anything absolute and radical about the concept? “
The Limarí Valley has a rich archaeological heritage and was prized for its agricultural significance since pre-Hispanic times. The topography creates the unique “Camanchaca” fog that brings moisture in the valley each morning and is blown away by cooling ocean breezes in the afternoon. The Limarí has proven itself for its quality Syrah, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and more recently its Pinot Noir.
We try a Gran Reserva 2021 Syrah from Santa Rita.
Aroma: Loads of blueberry and blackberry lead the charge.
Palate: The tannins are noticeable but not notable making the wine immediately approachable. Firm and steady as she goes on the ocean of your palate. Yes it has substance but is not boastful. Compact black fruit perhaps a bit too lean for those looking for immediate gratification instead of exercising a bit of patience.
Personality: If you follow my aroma I am outgoing if not ebullient. On the palate however I lose much of my flash and become somewhat boring.
Food Match: Spaghetti a la Bolognese or chicken cacciatore. This wine adores rich sauces.
Cellarbility: You can hold for a couple of years but don’t expect improvement.
Price: $17.95 (Ontario).
RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 88/100. James Suckling 92.
(Santa Rita Medalla Real Gran Reserva Syrah 2021, Limarí Valley, Viña Santa Rita, Buin, Chile, 750 mL, 13%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 19236).
The Greyhound Montreal to New York midnight bus is always a bizarre experience. Invariably Mennonites or Amish are denied entry into the United States. Then that rest stop at Saratoga Springs in New York is like a trip back to a 1950’s diner and the apple pie is almost worth the trip!
I arrived in Port Authority in New York at 08:00 hours and grabbed a taxi to my unit at the Dakota. I ran into Yoko Ono in the elevator and we gave each other a big hug. I didn’t much like her when John was alive but I have warmed up to her lately. I was invited to High Tea the following day with Yoko and that crazy painter friend of hers Kusama something or other?
After a quick shower and putting on the tie and suit I headed over to Bernie Maggot’s office at Bamboozle Towers on Madison Avenue. Maggot was a real dandy in the way he dressed very wealthy, eccentric and just a tad flashy. He later told me his dress style gave some comfort to his wealthy Hollywood clients.
We had a lunch of octopus curry and seaweed salad. Maggot made it clear on my reputation alone I had the job of general counsel for Fleece-Em Investment Management Company. Maggot had researched me well and knew my sizeable net wealth which he found comforting as if the rich can’t trust the rich he said the world would be going from hell to a handbasket. His previous General Counsel Johnny Beluga had “fallen out of a window” while on holidays to Russia and had met his demise. The Russian police had said a toxicology report revealed he had consumed enough vodka to kill elephant. Strange thing was Beluga was a teetotaller.
My job as General Counsel at Fleece-Em Investment Management Company was to run the corporation to the letter of the law. I had Sally Marigold and Faizal Faizal as my two junior lawyers. The salary was attractive and the work straightforward. Maggot made it clear I was to have no client interaction and was not to act as counsel or give any advice to Fleece-Em Investment Management Company’s fund management subsidiary Desfou & Charlatan High Net Worth Fund Management (Panama) Inc.
Maggot struck me as a nervous man who kept looking out his office window to the Manhattan streets below. He had a nervous flinch and a very guilty look when a police siren sounded below. It was wonderful to have a job dealing with “my kind” for once. No drug dealers, mutants, mental hospital patients and veterans many of whom needed a good shower and lots of deodorant. I was working in a pristine corporate environment clean as a whistle and not a hint of contamination! Oh the sweet virtues of Megacorp!
While Malbec may be Argentina’s signature wine Carménère may be Chile’s although why peg a country having a signature wine? It just might create stereotypes. Look at New Zealand’s “signature wine” Sauvignon Blanc. Yet should it eclipse Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Merlot from New Zealand?
What I can say so far this year is that Chile does very well with Carménère. I may have experienced a rare clunker so Chile isn’t perfect and neither can any country be perfect when it comes to producing a particular variety of wine. Here we try an Apaltagua 2017 Carménère from the Colchagua Valley.
Aroma: As is often the case with many Chilean Carménère a strong raspberry presence. Secondary notes of strawberry and black cherry.
Palate: Ripe strawberries, cola and cactus pear. Full bodied with moderate tannins. Long finish with a bit of lingering pepper.
Food Match: I will put my hand up and go Greek with this so a Oktapodi Krasato which is octopus slow cooked in both Samian muscat wine and dry red wine served over polenta. The recipe is here https://www.greekboston.com/food/octopus-braised-wine-recipe/.
Personality: I am quite a serious wine so don’t let that raspberry on the nose trick you into thinking I am somehow related to Pinot Noir! I am approachable now and make a great sipping wine but I really partner well with rich saucy foods like the octopus dish described above. Given my price I kick butt! Chile is kicking butt price and quality wise.
Cellarbility: A couple more years in the bottle will soften the wine somewhat if that’s what you like.
Price: $16.75 (Ontario).
RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 90/100. James Suckling 92.
(Apaltagua Gran Reserva Envero 2017 Carménère, Colchagua Valley, Viña Apaltagua, Curico, Chile, 750 mL, 14%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 481010).
It took two years out of my life with the class action lawsuits resulting from the “disturbances” at the Queen Fairy Hospital for Veterans and the Mugless Mental Hospital. The biggest victory was against the United States Government for conducting covert LSD experimentation on certain Mugless patients. The judgment was for $120 million USD divided amongst 24 patients. There was also the judgement against McGill University for facilitating the LSD experimentation and that amounted to $1 with 46 million in punitive damages. The class action against the Montreal Police Force for excessive violence in supressing the revolts was a $6 million payment into court. The Government of Canada settled for $1 and a contractual promise to bring up the standard of service based on measurable KPI’s (key performance indicators), including the installation of a lawn bowling court at the Queen Fairy Hospital for Veterans.
Aside from being totally exhausted there was a restlessness setting in. Yes I was doing society a good turn in bringing to account authorities abusing their power and neglecting their duties. I started giving thought to my wealth and perhaps it was time to move into the social circles dictated by my station in life. In one of my calls with Don Lupara, the father of my assassinated sweetheart Ginevra, mentioned that one of his “moneymen” Bernie Maggot in Manhattan was looking for an accomplished lawyer to assist him running his investment management business catering to high-net-worth clients. I mean the creme da la crème had accounts with him and they were raking in fabulous returns.
I called Maggot and arranged a meeting with him in his ritzy offices in mid-town Manhattan. I had my condo at the Dakota waiting for me and the bad memories of the shooting of my friend John Lennon unfortunately were lurking but not as painful as they used to be.
It was off on the midnight bus from Montreal to New York’s Port Authority.
“Love is simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion: love is our sympathy with organic life, the touchingly lustful embrace of what is destined to decay-caritas is assuredly found in the most admirable and most depraved passions. Irresolute? But in God’s good name, leave the meaning of love unresolved! Unresolved-that is life and humanity, and it would betray a dreary lack of subtlety to worry about it.”
“It was one of those Russian kisses, the sort that are exchanged in that vast, soulful land at high Christmas feasts, as a token and a seal of love. But even as we record this kiss exchanged between a notoriously ‘subtle’ young man and a charming, slinking, and still equally young woman, we cannot help finding in it a reminder of Dr. Krokowski’s elaborate, if not always unobjectionable way of speaking about love in a gently irresolute sense, so that one was never quite sure whether he meant its sanctified or more passionate and fleshy form. Are we doing the same thing here, or were Hans Castor and Clavdia Chauchat doing the same thing with their Russian kiss?”
Barossa Valley wines are seldom tame. Most often they are concentrated and bold and every once and awhile can be most enjoyable. But isn’t that true of most wines. Different wines constantly rotated should be the name of the game unless you are stuck in a rut and happy as a pig in mud with the same varieties from the same set of countries. Whatever makes you happy “good on you”! No need for a pontification from a Pontus Pilate wine writer!
This time an Oscar’s Estate Vineyard Shiraz from Australia’s Barossa Valley. It has spent 20 months in a combination of French and American oak.
Aroma: No dilly dallying here. Forceful if not muscular strawberry, raspberry and black cherry with a cola note.
Palate: Spicy, blackberry jam, black cherry with a hint of red pepper jelly. Moderate and hot finish. At 15% no wonder a bit of hot. Serve slightly chilled.
Personality: Feisty and argumentative like Elizabeth Taylor but her performance in “Who’s is Afraid of Virginia Woolf” was a joy to watch as is this wine to consume.
Food pairing: Hunan Beef or Szechuan crab.
Cellarbility: The wine is in its prime now but will hold nicely until the end of 2025.
Price: $19.95 (Ontario).
RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 89/100.
(Oscar’s Estate Vineyard Shiraz 2018, Barossa Valley, B&B Wines, Marananga, South Australia, 750 mL, 15%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 225631).
There is much high-quality Pinot Noir emanating from New Zealand but as usual here in Ontario we see very little of it. As we have in British Columbia and in Ontario some very decent Pinot Noir we needn’t cry too much. But on occasion why not dip our feet in a different pond and we do so now with a Trinity Hill from Marlborough.
Aroma: Raspberry wins the struggle of the fruit. But some bright red cherry and a tad of mocha.
Palate: Gentle tannins initially that quickly augment to the moderate range with a deep penetrating lightning bolt of raspberry shocking with the deepest purity. A gentle raspy acidity but I emphasize gentle but perhaps discrete might be a better adjective. A long finish.
Personality: In Canada we once had a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation children’s television show “The Friendly Giant”. Assuming that show was still playing this wine would be a suitable guest star!
Food match: Many Pinot Noirs are delightful as a sipping wine. Of course, you are free as a bird to sip and slurp this Pinot Noir but it would welcome some duck rillette, with paté and a big chunk of Morbiere cheese listening to France Musique jazz with Nathalie Piolé. Yes when last in Paris in November 2019 at my friend’s condo way out of the tourist zone many a dinner frequently consisted of all sorts of “nibbles” including cheese from the supermarket 5 minutes away at prices that would cause a Canadian to weep…with joy and of course cool jazz.
Cellarbility: Whilst neither aggressive or sensually elegant there are enough tannins and a lack of dangerous acidity to surmise this will coast into 2027 without any aborted landings of which I just had one in Ponta Delgado in the Azores three weeks ago. If I was a cat that was my eighth life used. One more to go.
Price: $22.95 with LCBO Manager Discount otherwise $28.95.
RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 90/100. Sam Kim 90/100. Try and find an equivalent Burgundian Pinot Noir at this price!
(Trinity Hill 2020 Pinot Noir, Marlborough, New Zealand, Trinity Hill Wines Limited, Hastings, New Zealand, 750 mL, 14%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 25802).
“Scrap” can be interpreted as the anatomy of a FU. But its awfully hard to pinpoint where the bad luck started that sparked the FU or are there innate personal characteristics that create a FU irrespective of a trigger?
Poor Beth (Vivian Kerr) is in a downward spiral perhaps commencing with the loss of her parents in a plane crash. Older brother Ben (Anthony Rapp) assumed a fatherly role in raising Beth. After being “downsized” Beth sleeps in a car and has abandoned her bad toothed daughter Birdy with Ben and his wife Stacey (Lana Parrilla). Beth is a liar, cheat, selfish, slovenly, egocentric and so forth. She is not a likeable character. Yet her brother Ben is a successful author with a big shot infertile corporate lawyer wife living the good life in Beverly Hills. In a series of lies Beth crashes at Ben and Stacey’s house.
As with many FU cases there are many, “I’m sorry” lines from Beth. She is not only a FU but it seems a loser to boot. Is she nothing but “scrap” in the United States homeless capital Los Angeles? There are a couple of scenes of homeless tent cities and an occasional mentally disturbed homeless person. Beth is the precipice of being homeless so the symbolism is germane. Being compassionate hopefully the viewer can spare a bit of compassion for Beth despite her loathsome character?
The film is engrossing as its conclusion is going to be messy right? Or are there tears of happiness that might amount to a Hollywood cliché ending? It is not particularly enjoyable to watch the disintegration of Beth but what is the logical conclusion of a downward spiral? Quite frankly I don’t have the heart to tell you but given the direction of 96% of the movie the ending is not pleasant and I kind of mean that in a different way.
There are no weak links in the acting here. As I said Beth is not particularly likeable but who needs a likeable character! She is a delightful FU and plays that role quite well. I like her because I don’t like her! Lana Parrilla as Stacey is a very polished and convincing actress. Although most of her credits are in television do I sense a breakthrough into mainstream Hollywood film?
An impressive soundtrack with Billie Holiday and Al Jolson adding an appreciated unique twist.
It is making a run in the United States next showing at Phoenix Film Festival 31March-2April.
Yes Beth (Vivian Kerr) is the writer, director and producer of the film and Kerr is no FU in making this film and there seems little justification for not having a film like this on the “big screen” national release.
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 