the judgment of paris (10. 763)

Aptly alluding to the myth of a scorned guest and chaos agent, Eris, the goddess of Discord—who was not invited to the marriage ceremony of Greek hero Peleus and sea nymph Thetis and tossed a golden apple into the wedding party to be awarded to the fairest, a bone of contention that sparked the Trojan War, an international jury of wine experts convened in the French capital on this day in 1976 to carry out a blind-tasting—ultimately rating varieties of Napa Valley wines as superior to the historically more esteemed French vineyards. The results of course sparked controversy—top honours going to a 1973 chardonnay from Château Montelena and a cabernet Sauvignon from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars whereas the opposite outcome was rather a foregone conclusion, and marked a pivotal moment in the California industry (see previously) with a follow up match in 2006 on the event’s thirtieth anniversary that re-certified the standings.

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8x8 (10. 612)

scheele’s green: more on the poisonous, synthetic shade—via Messy Nessy Chic 

terroir: BBC’s Jancis Robinson’s Wine Course  

family business: a look at the oldest-continuing operating hotel in the world, by shifting definitions (see also)

contagion: banking stocks drop as investors lose confidence after the failure and intervention for Silicon Valley Bank (previously)  

xerox alto: a half-century on (see previously), we are still living with the legacy of one of the first home computers—via Kottke  

ghostwatch: a BBC mockumentary that spooked viewers

$: the first instance of the dollar sign in print—see previously 

arsenic and old lace: an astonishing murder ring of earlier twentieth-century Hungary

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she keeps her moët & chandon in a pretty cabinet (10. 035)

Though unclear if the attribution is entirely accurate as sparking did not become the dominant style of the wine region until the nineteenth century, this day in 1693 is the traditional date ascribed to the invention of Champagne by Benedictine monk and cellarer Dom Pierre Pérignon at the Abbey of Saint-Pierre d’Hautvillers and our abbot can certainly be credited with innovating the techniques and practises of in bottle fermentation, which beforehand was an acute occupational hazard since if wine was bottled prematurely, they would become literal time-bombs liable to explosion due to an excess of carbon dioxide. Pérignon further championed purity in wine-making and prescribed a set of protocols for harvesting and crushing grapes. The popular quote of Pérignon’s first impression of drinking his Champagne— « Venez mes frères, je bois des étoiles » (“Come quickly my brothers, I am tasting the stars!”)—is also unfortunately a fin de siècle marketing myth meant to distance the drink’s associations with decadence and tie it to the diligence of a hard working monk.

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overnighter: fränkische weinorte

H and I took a drive in familiar territory through the vineyards of Franconia in the Main River valley between Kitzigen and Schweinfurt, taking a couple of ferries that crossed the winding Main as it coursed through the hills and came to the storied vineyard there where we had previously been treated to a wine-tasting tour, after a visit of the town of Volkach with an ensemble of medieval buildings in its walked centre. 

Next we marvelled at the Mainschleife—a closed bend technically but a way to describe a river form with sinuous curves, otherwise a Mäander, Meander, from the vantage point of the Vogelsberg, a small retreat and gastronomy at the top of a promontory. 

 

 

Fording the river with another ferry, we stopped next in the village of Escherndorf—another spot full of character and vintners plus a wedding chapel with a grotto on a hill overlooking the settlement below dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes, built after a Franciscan nun from Volkach made a pilgrimage there and returned with a keepsake, with the support of the original community on the Franco-Spanish border in the Pyrenees. Instead of the usual Stations of the Cross, the path up to the chapel was lined with decorated wine barrels and there was a giant cast that could be loaned out as a tiny party room, complete with coolers for the wine. 

Next we left for our last stop on the Weininseln, the Wine Islands with the village Sommerach, not only known for the viticulture and area monopoly for the Cloister Schwarzach (previously, which we didn’t visit this time around due to a dramatic shift in the weather) but also for the unique character of the estuaries and their protected status as nature reserves. 

Staying at a pitch just outside of one of the more famous wine-producers, regionally known for its Silvaner, I needed to self-administer my first COVID Schnelltests, letting it rest on the floorboard until we were sure it was negative—something unexpected but that I was happy to do to keep us all happy campers. We explored Sommerach some more, which was in the process of reopening itself and everyone was wonderfully day-drunk—last time we visited, it was ill-timed in the middle of their wine fest, a very serious and well-attended undertaking. 

The central part of the Old Town, flanked with cafes and wine-sellers was the church of Saint Eucharius and the monumental fountain featuring the archangel Michael—not Saint George—slaying a dragon. Returning to the campgrounds, we explored the shoreline and encountered a gaggle of strange ducks.

While I had noticed the odd tall—or long duck before, seeing them act as a group, not waddling but marching double-quick time headlong, H and I were amused and a little confused—learning later that this particular breed of mostly flightless, mostly quackless ducks are called Laufente, Indian Runner Ducks (possibly from Jakarta—see also—but no one really knows their origin, bred to be walked to market), which while prolific egg-layers don’t possess the instinct to nest or rear their young and so have to be watched over by their caretakers.

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ferālia

Marking the end of a nine-day festival honouring familial ancestors called Parentalia (dies parentales, ancestral days), as historian and poet Ovid records in his book on Fasti, Romans across the Empire were prohibited in worship of the gods and instead were to visit the tombs of their departed and lay wreaths and leave offers of violets, salt and wine-soaked bread. More elaborate votives were permitted but this was sufficient to appease the spirits and the practice was strictly enforced, lest Rome return to a time when Ferālia was neglected and restless ghosts haunted the streets. As with most Roman holidays, observance was mostly a domestic, private affair and what public rites were held are an obscured and confused accounting, the only surviving description involving a drunk woman holding seven black beans (see also) in her mouth and lighting incense over the grave of a mouse, and sewing shut the mouth of a fish—then proclaiming, “Hostiles linguas inimicaque uinximus ora,” I have gagged spiteful tongues and muzzled unfriendly mouths.

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i got an empty cup, pour me some more

Though attested in the figurative sense to mean unfinished business since the nineteenth century and associated with the deleterious effects of too much drink until the turn of the century and the end of the Victorian-era, it is most likely a folk etymology, a backronym popularised by George Orwell’s 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London that the term hangover came from the Two Penny Hangover—the reported practise of draping the homeless or inmates of workhouses over a length of rope for a night’s accommodations. More comfortable that sitting up for the night or on resting on the cold stone floor—also maximising the number of lodgers per square metre—but the rope was promptly severed at five in the morning with the unfortunates tumbling and sent on their way. Language check and illustration both bookendings from Messy Nessy’s latest peripatetic internet journeys—with a lot more to discover at the link above.

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6x6

glou glou: TYWKIWDBI regales us with an overview of new wine terminology

города́-при́зраки: a visually stunning gallery of abandoned places in Russia, via Things Magazine

voluntarily generated pilomotor reflex: studying goosebumps produced at will is a lot more intriguing than it first appears

i’ve got to break free: Freddie Mercury trains with the Royal Ballet in 1979

der phantashische film: German animator Heinz Edelmann, best known for his work on Yellow Submarine, created a psychedelic opening sequence for broadcaster ZDF

south street squidport: as sort of a reverse trap-street, one online mapping service is creating neighbourhoods and districts according to the branding of advertising agencies

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liquid courage

There was a study, survey published earlier this week—from the British Medical Journal and not some suspect source desperate for some viral break-through—that’s really been cycling around in my head as I’ve encountered different citations on how different types of alcoholic beverages elicit different emotional and physical responses from drinkers.
Despite the authority and confirmation of consensus, it struck me as highly anecdotal and of dubious scientific-value to know that tequila was emboldening or that red wine made one sleepy—sleepy! or that white wine was apathetic, agnostic. I wasn’t impressed as broadly I wouldn’t think those characterisations were that revelatory. The research, however, was an appeal to those who did not share this common fate or those who drank as a means to recreate these deleterious but predictable emotional milieu in order that one better understands his relationship and motivation as perhaps abnormal, unhealthy and destructive. That is a scientific approach that I can support and knowing that one’s efforts might not carry their intended consequences is important—except like in most things, self-medication comes at the cost of self-diagnosis

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an army marches on its stomach

Though the idea has spread far and wide at least on informal terms, the French were the first in the seventeen-hundreds to acknowledge and commission the commissariat corps styled vivandièred or cantinières. These women were for the most part affiliated with those on the battlefield and could provide far better fare and refreshment than what the military was capable of providing. These women at the front also experienced quite a lot of mission-creep—often omitted in histories, figured quite large in the outcomes on the battlefield.

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blue laws or désuétude

Neatorama features an interesting overview of sumptuary laws and practises from around the world that really prompts one to think about the relationship of different societies when it comes to alcohol consumption and how varied those jurisdictions are.
Where and when the sale and imbibing is suffered or permitted has as many or more regulations, regimes and schedules as tax code. From prohibition to the quirky and unenforceable laws, comparing and contrasting the different rules made me think of this mid-century French sobriety campaign that recommends no more than a litre of wine per day, which is debatably désuétudinal—that is, no longer custom and lapsed, obsolete advice. Did you know it is illegal to be found drunk inside a public-house in England? Or that the small-batch absinthe outside of Switzerland is missing rather key ingredients? I can imagine that some of these laws are so codified to encourage domestic consumption and is a matter of pride and patriotism.  What local regulations strike you as odd and byzantine?

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fontana del vino

Miraculously, as fellow enthusiast Nag on the Lake reports, a fountain that flows continuously with red wine free to any weary souls wanting to slake their thirst has just been inaugurated in the village of Caldari di Ortona in Abruzzo along the Adriatic coast. Hospitably, the local vineyard that supplies and is behind this permanent installation insists that it is not a mere publicity stunt nor an invitation to loiter (but perhaps linger) but a wayside retreat for pilgrims travelling between Rome and Ortona going to see the relics of Thomas the Apostle, enshrined at the cathedral there after his mission to India.

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maison du bœuf

I don’t know if this herd of happy, drunk cows still roams the prairies of Canada, and I don’t think its experiment whose conclusions I’d care to try, but apparently cattle served red wine are not only more contented and healthy, produce higher quality beef, but also release less methane—a greenhouse gas whose contribution to climate change is nothing to sniff at.

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vins de primeur or painting the roses red

Although the concept of organic (Bio) foods has gone through some reversals lately in terms of health, environment impact and efficiency, I was not one to completely discount the label. I did grow a bit leery of the movement, however, when it started encroaching on water and wine—the first was recanted as a gimmick, and as for vinification, I wondered how respectable wine-makers would allow wine-hacks to sully their product, since surely there are standards governing the whole production process as well as tradition. They’d have to call it something else, like Champ-pail or Hwine, if it was too treated, wouldn’t they?
The local grocery store recently, however, had a handbill, a guide for vegetarian and vegan wines (initially I thought it would be about pairing the right wine with a vegetarian meal), that was part informative and part pandering fretful-consumer purists, I thought at first. Apparently producers are allowed a few shortcuts, more prevalent among vintages brought to market within the same calendar year (which is not necessarily a sign of a cheap wine, since only a fraction actually improve with age after that first year), and one such hack involves clarifying the pulp (Must, Most) with natural, albeit animal-derived products, like gelatin (made out of old bones and hooves, like the coating for medicine capsules), fish oil, egg white, and casein (a milk protein).

Some of the selection suitable for vegetarian and vegan diets is identified with an organic (Bio) label, but certainly not all and there was a surprising amount of vintners that are sold internationally and available at many stores, like the French Grand Sud and JP Chenet brands, Australian Badgers’ Creek, Californian Western Cellars and the majority of Italian varieties. Although I don’t subscribe to the strictest forms of vegetarianism, I do respect those who choose to and know it’s hard enough keeping clear of animal products, especially when they are snuck in as part of the refining process. There are more than principles behind this, since people ought to know what’s reliably kosher and be able to choose. In the end, it’s not just about lifestyle, since these bovine- and chemical-understudies, catalysts have unpredictable consequences and probably are cryptic contributors to poor health and over-sensitivity (and the de-sensitivity leading to abusing food and drink as well) and the explosion in allergies.

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colophon

Mostly I tend to think that one should not mess too much with an established look, no matter how basic it is since it’s a part of one’s identity and recognition—although polishing and experimentation within limits, I think is perfectly acceptable.

We’re presented with pretty good and serviceable templates for use, and I suppose too that there comes a point of departure, best taken in small steps mostly, when one becomes a bit more sophisticated and curious with web-design to take strokes at something more than the standard quiver. 

Even if that’s just a bit of kerning and alignment that’s otherwise too subtle to notice. I wouldn’t want PfRC to become too busy and crowded and would like for the page to look sleek and composed. I am getting a little better—or perhaps just more conscientious, about placement and position and hopefully too making positive progress on having the patience and taking the time to fully unwind a thought, which still some times comes across probably as obtuse and obscure.

Content and scope aside, I did want to develop a nice new masthead that worked with the background as it is, nothing very ornate and overpowering but something a little more personal and unique. Matching the weight and character of a typeface to the idea (or lack thereof) that one has in one’s head can grow challenging enough on its own, and I respect those type-setters and artists who can turn out something very professional and know what tools to use with instinctual prowess, but try to add a cohesive image to that and I can certainly see why marketers, free-lance and consortiums, are vying for bids and commissions.

I am also learning why they say imitation is the purest form of flattery, though being derivative is usually asymmetrical. Though after some searching for inspiration and trying on own to conjure up something original and associative, I eventually settled on incorporating a logo from the Independent Wine-Makers of France (Vignerons indépendants de France), since wine and cheese go together, although there are plenty of other good pairings too.

In the process, however, I stumbled across plenty of motivating artwork and posters of a certain vintage and style, like the series on California cultivars (which incidentally replenished a significant portion of French stocks when the parent vines were killed by a blight in the 19th century; these vineyards then took decades to recover from the wanton neglect of the Prohibition Era themselves).

There were also several classic travel posters and campaigns that incorporated local, regional cuisine with allure, providing some good ideas and nostalgic impetus that will be certainly worth revisiting later as well.

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