I liked their Group Chief Winemaker but that didn’t stop me from realizing that the acidulation on the Steingarten Riesling was unfortunate (the wine hurt).
I was intrigued by a few things he told me. One was that they started irrigating the riesling vines three years ago.The other that those supposed old, bush vines one sees, are for tourists or special projects. (I haven't been to Australia but I doubt this veracity. Most probably some are for romance but I have faith some old vines are actually in production.) Another? The riesling has a 20-year guarantee on it. I found guarantee an odd word to use in conjunction with the word wine.
I kept on thinking about something I wrote in my book proposal about wines like these: “It’s like Hershey’s posing as an artisanal producer.”
Well, wouldn’t you know, last week several bars of “Cacoa Reserve” by Hershey’s appeared in my mailbox.
Nothing is safe.
Marketing has always been important. Spin has always been important, and I myself have been guilty of spinning--mostly by hyping queries trying to get an editor's attention. But, are ethics totally out of fashion? Am I just a vintage kind of girl in all ways? Or, do people just believe sincerely in their own insincerity?
Take love; love is an arena where people can believe firmly in their own insincerity, consciously or not. In the course of this life of mine, a few men passionately told me that they loved me. Some truly did (and do) and others wholeheartedly felt it for that whole minute or a day.
After some emotional bruising, I've learned the difference between artisinal emotion and the commercial type. If a fashion operation like H&M believes in its style but doesn’t believe it’s couture, wouldn't it be nice if the likes of Jacob’s Creek and Hershey’s followed suit?
Back to the subject at hand: the Hershey's chocolate report is that I prefer the Reserves to Hershey’s Special Dark. I could actually use the stuff for chips in the ice cream. I might even make brownies out of it. I might even take a nibble if desperate. I don't know if I'd use the Jacob's Creek for cooking. I certainly wouldn't use it for vinegar and I'm not sure under what conditions I would sip and swallow.
When Mr. Bow Tie and I left the tasting, he said to me, “You didn’t like anything?”
"No."
”Not even the zinfandel?”
I said to him, “There were no zinfandels. It was a shiraz and a cabernet.”
"Well, the last one," he said.
“That was a shiraz," I answered.
“Oh, I liked it. Are you sure it wasn’t a zinfandel?”
Very sure.
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