Any 'real Beaujolais' being made?

originally posted by Joel Stewart:
appropos of not much...i'd drink more z-h if he dropped his alc. levels a couple points
Click to expand...
And maybe his sugar levels, too? But then you'd have the great wines of his father (some of which, like the 1983 Rangen VT Tokay-Pinot Gris, were made fully dry but were fairly high in alcohol; others, like several Pinot Gris vieilles vignes, had a little residual sugar but weren't that high in alcohol for a PG).
 
I stupidly bought some older Zind-Humbrecht's a little while ago, though not so old to be in the 10-10.5% era. I wish the guy that gave them all those points had mentioned they can't age for shit - trying to get rid of these bottles has been a real chore.

I wasn't aware it was we rabid right-wingers who were responsible for all the American mythmaking. In the future I'll have to adopt some reality-based rhetoric like "HOPE!"
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:

Well, the claim "America was founded as a Christian nation" purports to go back about 225+ years -- that's a start for tradition (especially since wine and food traditions that Europeans talk about are almost all founded in the 20th century, sometimes the 19th, very rarely further back).
Click to expand...

And of course there's always Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli.
 
Keith,

I'm sure you are aware that there is no honor to be found in any side of a presidential campaign these days. That said, I think it is undeniable that the myths of the founding of the American republic (and myths they are) are much more amenable to the politics of the right than the left (although obviously both sides will attempt to claim them for their own).
 
The minimum amount of alcohol in a Beaujolais is 9 degrees, a Beaujolais-Village is 10 degrees.

Not that many years ago, the l'Ancien from Brun would be at about 10 degrees. Nothing has really changed, except global warming and better work in the vineyards. One of the paradoxes of everyone doing better work in the vineyards, not just in the Beaujolais, is that ripeness does tend to be increased (ripeness in the best sense).

Over the past few years, the l'Ancien tends to be anywhere from 11 to 12 degrees. In that sense, in most approximates what Chauvet was talking about in Kermit's book.

This year, we have one 10 degree Gamay we imported from the Auvergne, Domaine Montpertuis, which I liked a great deal. But other cuves like Trinch, which used to be at 10 or so degrees, have all gone up in alcohol as a general rule.
 
originally posted by Arjun Mendiratta:
I think it is undeniable that the myths of the founding of the American republic (and myths they are) are much more amenable to the politics of the right than the left (although obviously both sides will attempt to claim them for their own).
Click to expand...

What are these myths?

Liberty for all? (that seems like a message for both the left and the right - with liberty defined differently of course)

No taxation without representation? (ok, that seems right wing)

A break with aristocratic tradition? (but that seems left wing/progressive)
 
I'm sure you are aware that there is no honor to be found in any side of a presidential campaign these days.
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of this fact. In fact, I find this a dubious and puzzling notion, given a two hundred plus year tradition of peaceful transfers of power. American presidential politics can certainly be a rough-and-tumble game, but saying there's no honor at the highest levels of our political tradition is... perplexing. To me.
 
The equation of taxation with tyranny was my principal argument. I would also argue that the break with aristocratic tradition is more right than left in its emphasis on individual freedom over an arbitrary government.

Regarding 'liberty for all,' the very fact that we mention this in connection with the founding of our country is a great boon for the right in that it conveniently hides the fact that the vast majority of our country's citizens achieved said liberty well after the fact and as a result of massive government intervention.
 
originally posted by Arjun Mendiratta:
I would also argue that the break with aristocratic tradition is more right than left in its emphasis on individual freedom over an arbitrary government.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. But the more general notion of breaking with tradition and seeking innovative politics should favor progressives as opposed to conservatives.

Regarding 'liberty for all,' the very fact that we mention this in connection with the founding of our country is a great boon for the right in that it conveniently hides the fact that the vast majority of our country's citizens achieved said liberty well after the fact and as a result of massive government intervention.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. But 'liberty' is such a vague term that can be defined so many ways, it seems at home both on the left and the right.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
Perhaps. But 'liberty' is such a vague term that can be defined so many ways, it seems at home both on the left and the right.
Click to expand...

Well yes. As I mentioned, any politician will seek the mantle of the founding fathers.

Would you disagree that myth-building is an inherently conservative exercise? One that distorts history in order to glorify the past?
 
originally posted by Arjun Mendiratta:
Would you disagree that myth-building is an inherently conservative exercise? One that distorts history in order to glorify the past?
Click to expand...

There can be plenty of myths about contemporary issues.

e.g. 'Obama is our Savior' or '2009 will be the Vintage of the Century'.
 
Any serious intellectual history of the framers and of the thinking leading up to the American Revolution--and there is plenty of it--will show both the secularist Enlightenment tradition we lefties like to point to and a strong Protestant edge from the original Colonists. When Reagan likened the US to a city on a hill, alas he was not making up the Augustinian reference. The particular tradition of Protestant fundamentalism that has vexed evolution in our country and made a religious right into a political movement not seen in Western Europe is also genuinely ours. My students are genuinely shocked when I tell them that among Victorian and 19th century French and German intellectuals, the general belief was that Christianity was untenable and would certainly be a dead religion by the middle of the 20th century (so much for the predictive power of intellectuals). So it's hardly a myth that the founding of the US has connections with a Protestant mentalit that we have alas not quite expelled, though we are getting there.

I could write an equally long paragraph, of course, about the contradictions in France between highly centralized government and irrational individualism or the clinging in England and France to things that they call tradition that are ornamental hangovers of feudalism. But none of it would get any closer to where to find real Beaujolais. I must say if the usual suspects mentioned around here--Tete, Coudert, Brun, Vissoux--are fake, I don't know how I'd feel about the real ones.
 
are mostly peasants. I wouldn't say as a general rule they are more skeptical. IME, they tend to be a lot more superstitious.

Kermit doesn't seem like the ideal source for technical information about wine.

Bwood is a heathen.

I hate paying taxes.

Why do we subsidize breeding in a world that is becoming overpopulated and environmentally degraded at an alarming rate?

" They're all just polishing the brass on the Titantic." - Tyler Dirden.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
... My students are genuinely shocked when I tell them that among Victorian and 19th century French and German intellectuals, the general belief was that Christianity was untenable and would certainly be a dead religion by the middle of the 20th century (so much for the predictive power of intellectuals)...
Click to expand...

What do you teach, Jeff?
 
originally posted by VLM:
I hate paying taxes.
Click to expand...

Who was the Supreme Court justice who said, something like, I like paying taxes, it's the cost of civilization. Not that civilization is necessarily a priority for you, of course. What do you teach, by the way?
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
... My students are genuinely shocked when I tell them that among Victorian and 19th century French and German intellectuals, the general belief was that Christianity was untenable and would certainly be a dead religion by the middle of the 20th century (so much for the predictive power of intellectuals)...
Click to expand...

What do you teach, Jeff?
Click to expand...

I don't teach Jeff anything. No one named Jeff has every listened to a word I say. I occasionally teach courses in Victorian Literature, in 19th century French fiction, and in various flavors of 19th century intellectual history. This issue comes up most frequently in the Victorian course where, after the students have read Darwin, Eliot, Arnold and Hardy, they wonder if I'm stacking the deck. The question comes up less frequently when I teach German philosophers since it's virtually a given that the whole line from Kant to Heidegger are atheists, or, at best, weird forms of theists.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top