RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine: A Gewurtz From East Dell

Both Ontario and British Columbia produce good quality and occasional superb Gewürztraminer. The best I have ever imbibed has been from Meyer Family Vineyards in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Can Ontario rise to the challenge? Let’s see how East Dell can do!

Aroma: Unmistakably Gewürztraminer! Absolutely tropical! Mango, pineapple, Orri tangerine and Niagara peach.

Palate: Apricot, mango nectar, lychee and custard. The fruit shines throughout but the finish is far from fat and sloppy with well defined DISCRETE edges of acidity disciplining the 18 grams/litre of residual sugar. Long lingering finish to this off dry wine.

Personality: You will agree with me that I can stand up with pride as a quality Niagara Gewurztraminer. If you obsess about those flinty dry wines or grapefruit Ontario Rieslings, I am not the one. I represent a challenge to you if you are a newbie to Gewurztraminer. You either love me or you hate me but before you toss me aside you may very well change your opinion when you try me with a seafood curry whether it be Thai or Japanese.

Price: $18.95 CDN.

Cellarbility: Drink by 2026-year end.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine Rating: 92/100.

(East Dell Estates Morgan Vineyard 2022 Black Label Gewurztraminer, VQA Lincoln Lakeshore, East Dell Estates, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, 750 mL,12.5%).

RKS 2025 Documentary Film: “The Chef and the Daruma”: The Mind of a Great Chef of Original Japanese Cuisine

In this Canadian documentary we follow the life of Vancouver chef Hidekazu Tojo from his humble and poor beginning in Kagoshima, Japan to his rise to prominence as owner chef of one of Vancouver’s premier Japanese restaurants TOJO’s frequented by the monied classes of the world. A celebrity chef followed like a rock star by celebrities and the wealthy.

Seeking to escape the stifling bureaucracy and rigid traditionalism of restaurants in Japan after his apprenticeship in Osaka in 1971 he emigrated to Canada first working at Maneki one of four established Japanese restaurants in Vancouver preparing traditional Japanese food for predominately Japanese Canadians.

Canada represented a culture shock for Tojo particularly the English language which he has yet to master. But what he has mastered is adapting to Canadian ingredients utilizing trusted fisherman and farmers with sourcing the highest quality fish and produce.

His personal pinnacle of success is understandably pleased diners which is a constant theme encountered with the chefs in Vancouver and Japan we meet in the documentary which shifts seamlessly from Vancouver to Japan.

Somewhat distracting but nonetheless interesting for some is a sideway discussion on the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War for which the Canadian government apologized and offered restitution to living survivors of the internment.

The Daruma doll featured throughout is a round and hollow Japanese doll seen as a talisman of good luck and fortune for many Japanese. Set your goals and colour in one eye and work towards reaching that goal at which point you fill in the other eye. The process is repeated each year as at the end of the year the doll is burnt and with it the gratitude you have imbued it with goes to heaven. A new Daruma then repeats the cycle.

No doubt an interesting documentary focusing on the creative force behind feeding the gullets of the elite quite similar to the documentary “Jiro Loves Sushi”. I prefer the more accessible ramen heaven of Tokyo’s Bizenti with chef Masamato Uedo in the documentary “Come Back Anytime” where the clientele eat superbly simple cuisine at affordable prices.

Directed by Mads Baekewold and screening 16February2025 at the Victoria (British Columbia) Film Festival.

RKS Documentary Film Rating 86/100.

RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Prison Sentences in Stalinist Soviet Union

“Shukov stared at the ceiling and said nothing. He no longer knew whether he wanted to be free or not. To begin with, he’d wanted it very much and counted up every evening how many days he still had to serve. Then he’d gotten fed up with it. And still later it had gradually dawned on him that people like himself were not allowed to go back home but were packed into exile. And there was no knowing where the living was easier-here or there.”

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1962.

RKS Literature: Freedom of Speech in the Gulag (Solzhenitsyn)

“The good thing about hard-labor camps is that you have all the freedom in the world to sound off. In Ust-Izhma you’d only have to whisper that people couldn’t buy matches outside and they’d clap another 10 on you. Here you could shout anything you liked from a top bunk and the stoolies wouldn’t report it, because the security officer couldn’t care less.”

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1962.  

RKS 2025 Wine: A Chianti Classico: Bring on the Transylvanian Bear Stew!

Aroma: Virtually screaming “Cherry”. Blackberry, milk chocolate and Coachella Valley date.

Palate: Serious stuffing to this wine. Well built in tannins and tight structure suggesting some ageability. The fruit is busting to escape but not just yet fellow. Chery again but kirsch as well. Long ponderous finish with a hint of sour cherry.

Personality: Do you doubt the ability of a Chianti to be big and brash. But not crude like you know who. And if he puts a tariff on Italian wine may that country drown on its fat and lazy Cabernet Sauvignon! Sorry about my Italian pride.

Food Match: Transylvanian bear stew.  If you are tired of Tuscan wild boar stew!

Ageing: Will sail into 2030 at which time lower the sails and start bailing.

Price: $25 CDN.

RKS 2025 Wine Rating: 92/100. Natalie MacLean 91. Wine Spectator 94.

(Clemente VII Chianti Classico 2020, Chianti Classico DOCG, Castelli Del Grevepesa, San Casciano in Val di Pesa, Italy, 750 mL, 14%).

RKS 2025 Documentary Film: “Death Without Mercy”: Your Trip to Hell

It was a quiet early 2024 November evening in Thessaloniki, Greece and I was holed up writing reviews for films I had watched at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Thessaloniki has survived many aftershocks but in 1978 the city suffered aftershocks from a 6.5 Richter scale earthquake killing an estimated 49 people. Greece is no stranger to earthquakes.

My chair began to wobble a bit thinking I had caused the jiggle but it was far too solid and I steadily rocked to and fro for what seemed like 7 seconds or so I thought. In these moments you lose your sense of time. There was no fear but an apprehension I could be crushed under a pile of concrete and there was nothing I could do about it. Helpless, minute and very fragile. There was no additional aftershock to follow to this 5.2 quake with an epicentre off the coast.

I rose from my chair having to hold onto the wall like I had been on a ship for a couple of days. Then a few minutes later I started to shake. Shock I suppose. Elsewhere with family relatives they had told me they had three more violent aftershocks.

As minor this incident was I would venture to say when I hear there has been an earthquake I tense up and relive my experience. No, not PTSD. I believe a morose feeling of compassion has set in which is deeper and perhaps more intense than sympathy.

I watched “Death Without Mercy” a documentary about the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that in 2023 struck adjacent parts of Turkey and Syria killing an estimated 60,000 souls.

If you are afraid of a trip to hell on earth, please do not watch nor if you are bashful about crying when watching raw CCTV, phone camera footage and professionally shot footage.

Exhibiting the destructive and deadly power of this earthquake and its grisly and sickening aftermath. I had 43 adjectives noted describing my emotions watching “Death Without Mercy” and at points anger why this dreadful 10 days were filmed and the corrupt, inadequate, inept, greedy and a failure of the Turkish government and the “building industry” to prevent this tragedy.

What is the result of this tragedy? A few arrests. An investigation omitting the Turkish government? A great many in the construction community including those in a shoddy Turkish bureaucracy should have been held accountable.

The filmmakers have made their point and safeguarded much of the dignity of the victims and he living. As for me I hope it moves you from sympathy to compassion for human suffering noting compassion can be unpleasant if not painful.

I will not rate this film. How can you rate a trip to hell.

You may watch the trailer here and it underrepresents the obscene violence you will watch in the documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLdwFuBwG74

Directed by Waad Al-Kateab.

It will be broadcast on 6February2025 on Paramount+ With Showtime, the second anniversary of the earthquake.

RKS Literature: Paying Attention to the Gulag Hierarchy (Solzhenitsyn)

“The foreman matters more than anything else in a prison camp: a new one gives you a new lease of life, a bad one can land you six feet under. Shukov had known Andrei Profofyevich Tyurin back in Ust-Izhma. He hadn’t worked under him there, but when all the “traitors” had been shunted from the ordinary penal camp to hard labor, Tyurin had singled him out. Shukov had no dealings with the camp commander, the Production Planning Section, the site managers, or the engineers: his foreman was always there standing up for him: a chest of steel, Tyurin had. But if he twitched an eyebrow or lifted a finger-you ran and did whatever he wanted. Cheat anyone you liked as long as you didn’t cheat Tyurin, and you’d get by.”

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1962.

Press Release: Caravans of Migrant Americans Head to Canadian Border Crossings

2February2025: Spoof News Services: Toronto

Thousands of Americans are flooding to the Canadian border waving state flags and chanting, “Gotta get out now or we’ll be a POW!” Unlike Central American caravans that have lately been repelled by tear gas and machine gun bullets at the United States- Mexican border by patriots Canadians have met the crowds of frightened migrants with warm pancake breakfasts with Quebec maple syrup for morning arrivals, peameal bacon sandwiches for afternoon arrivals and poutine or Le Gros Jean baked beans and freshly pressed apple juice for evening arrivals.

Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs Mabel Jolly was seen at the Vermont/Quebec border crossing welcoming Americans with French dictionaries, health cards for provincial medical care and discounted passes for VIA Rail travel throughout Canada. Special welcome booths were established at border crossings offering jobs to American doctors and nurses to address the ravages of a Canadian healthcare system. High net worth migrants were welcome to VIP tents provided their suitcases and trunks contained a minimum $5 million USD and provided signed agreements of purchase and sale for homes and condominiums were produced before admission to the VIP tents.

Minister Jolly noted the migrants may be just that or they may be refugees fearing persecution. Jolly stated, “We have seen a great many former FBI agents, air traffic controllers, DOJ lawyers involved in the 6January coup attempt investigation, the investigation of certain “politicos” and anyone employed in a DEI capacity or who were hired under DEI principles. We have previously accepted 40,000 Syrian refugees so what difference do a few thousand Americans make.”

The White House press secretary (Jacob Chansley) at the latest briefing in Washington expressed concern with the Canadian government’s attitude and position facilitating the escape of “anti governmental” elements and promised the immediate establishment of a White House Information Line where patriots could advise of those who do not believe in the Golden Age of America in order that they can be re-educated.

(Trumpian Tariff War): Department of Finance of Canada Lists Various Types of American Beer, Wine, Spirits and Alcoholic Beverages Subject to 4February2025 Tariff of 25%

The 25% tariff is effective 4February2025 and will remain in effect until Trump tariffs end.

The Department of Finance product list and backgrounder can be accessed below.

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/02/list-of-products-from-the-united-states-subject-to-25-per-cent-tariffs-effective-february-4-2025.html

(Trump Tariff Wars) News Release – Manitoba- Sales of United States Alcohol in the Province of Manitoba

February 2, 2025

Manitoba Government to Pull American Alcohol Products Off Shelves

In response to United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the Manitoba government is issuing a directive to Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries (MBLL) to stop the sale of American products in the province, Premier Wab Kinew announced today. 

“Trump’s tariff tax is an attack on Canadians,” said Kinew. “We support the federal response to these tariffs and here in Manitoba, we’re stopping the sale of American products at Manitoba liquor marts. How you choose to spend your money is one of the most important decisions you as a consumer can make. There are plenty of great Manitoba breweries and distilleries to support instead.” 

Effective Tuesday, Feb. 4, MBLL will be directed to pull American products off the shelves of liquor marts and will stop ordering American alcohol, the premier noted. 

The premier added the province will roll out more supports for Manitoba businesses and workers throughout the week in response to the U.S. tariffs. 

Manitoba’s U.S. Trade Council will meet on Monday to discuss the impacts of the tariffs and the province’s response. 

For more information, Manitoba businesses or workers impacted by tariffs can contact the Manitoba government tariff hotline at 1-877-827-4330 (toll-free) or 204-945-8011, Manitoba Government Inquiry at 204-945-3744 or visit https://manitoba.ca/tariffresponse/.