Pink bubbles in a broad glass

S

Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
Last night, I drank two and a half coupes of a pink sparkler with the amusing name "Tant Mieux." (Note to self, when poured a taste, do not swirl a coupe vigorously, because your taste will go all over your hand and the cocktail napkin, making for a damp rag under your drink for the rest of the evening.)

This was a wine made in the Jura by an Arbois producer, from poulsard grapes.

NV Philippe Bornard VdT "Tant Mieux" - Intense amounts of foam froth up upon pouring. When they subside, sip tactically from the wide-mouthed coupe (not that I'm advocating using such a piece of stemware; it was simply the one from which I imbibed this particular wine), and discover an explosion of racy fruit; spicy, zingy, slightly off-dry (9% abv and some rs), yet sour with bergamot. Glorious and so very easy to drink down, such that one must call for another pour.

I am being reconciled with this producer, whose (still) 2005 poulsard had made me wrinkle my nose last fall.
 
I think I may need to get some. I just sort of like the aesthetic.

2.5 coupes, you were headed home after that, huh?
 
originally posted by VLM:
Coupes
I think I may need to get some. I just sort of like the aesthetic.

2.5 coupes, you were headed home after that, huh?
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You're just probably subscribing to now-discredited idea that they were modeled after Marie Antoinette's breasts.

Mark Lipton
 
Perhaps the linguistic mavens here could tell me how the word coupe came to mean both a broad glass and a svelte car.

Also, Domaine Labet makes a very nice sparkling Rose as well.
 
Actually, for cars it was originally coup, i.e. "cut" these cars were shorter than the usual models. The accent (and finally its pronunciation) got lost.

Good to hear about Labet. Nice producer, too.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Actually, for cars it was originally coup, i.e. "cut" these cars were shorter than the usual models. The accent (and finally its pronunciation) got lost.
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Originally the term was used for carriages. Coupes are missing the rear facing seats, hence they are "cut." It later became shorthand for a low slung style of carriage, and later cars following the same general aesthetic.
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Actually, for cars it was originally coup, i.e. "cut" these cars were shorter than the usual models. The accent (and finally its pronunciation) got lost.
Click to expand...
Originally the term was used for carriages. Coupes are missing the rear facing seats, hence they are "cut." It later became shorthand for a low slung style of carriage, and later cars following the same general aesthetic.
Click to expand...

Wow, this bored is a great source of useless info. I love it. I swear, I would never know these tid-bits if it wasn't for the disorderlies. Thanks.
 
I'm still working on integrating useless nerd trivia with the art (or lack thereof) of synthetic organic chemistry. With very lackluster results.

cheers,

Kevin
 
I don't see the difficulty, but maybe that's because I've always thought of synthetic organic chemistry as just a large, slightly organized, compendium of useless nerd trivia.
 
originally posted by Arjun Mendiratta:
I don't see the difficulty, but maybe that's because I've always thought of synthetic organic chemistry as just a large, slightly organized, compendium of useless nerd trivia.
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Therein lies the problem, and one that I confront every Spring semester with a large group of traumatized ChemEs attempting to learn sophomore organic. To the extent that the student views organic chemistry (or synthetic organic, if you prefer) as a set of disjointed facts, it becomes: a) a burden to learn; b) impossible to retain, recall and remember long term and c) frustrating for the student. The trick is to impart to the student enough of the underlying logic that they can then attempt to learn from first principles rather than by rote memorization (ultimately, a doomed strategy). It is true that there are many facts that one must be able to recall, but the same can be said of many other subjects, too. The successful student/practitioner of organic chemistry reasons by analogy, using facts already mastered, to solve unfamiliar problems. The unsuccessful one, by contrast, merely attempts to shoehorn a known answer into the unfamiliar problem.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
Therein lies the problem, and one that I confront every Spring semester with a large group of traumatized ChemEs attempting to learn sophomore organic.
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Pedantry (but therefore very appropriate on this board), but aren't Chem/ChemEs normally traumatized only *after* they take a semester of Orgo?

Synthetic organic was really fascinating though, once we got through the period where nothing made sense and everything hurt our heads. Plus our synthesis and characterization/spectroscopy lab was pretty awesome.

Salil [partly an exception to that first point; physical chemistry and quantum mech. are what had me shaking and screaming in pain]
 
originally posted by Salil Benegal:
Pedantry (but therefore very appropriate on this board), but aren't Chem/ChemEs normally traumatized only *after* they take a semester of Orgo?
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Yep. That's why they were traumatized in my second semester O-Chem offering in the Spring. Adding to this year's trauma was a first semester treatment taught entirely using PowerPoint slides with unreadable copies handed out to the students: Exhibit A in How To Lose A Classroom of Students.

Mark Lipton
 
I seem to have hit a nerve, and perhaps I overstated things.

My only point was that a life of pedantry and a life of chemistry are not incompatible.
 
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