The Friday Fermentable: Wine Quips

No real wine column this week, although you may care (or not) that I am enjoying a glass of 2003 Thorpe McLaren Vale Shiraz Reserve while writing. Australian winemaker Linda Domas is highly favored at my local wine wholesaler and this intense but nicely balanced Shiraz is made even more lucscious by the fact I paid about $20 for a wine that now retails at $35-45.

But I digress.

I've wanted to share with readers my love for The Week, digest of the best of US and international media that has been published for about five years. If I can't get around to reading my local paper, The Week does a great job of giving a good cross-section of how major events have been viewed by both the liberal and conservative media. (If I do get around to reading my paper, The Week still provides me with some great nuggets.) Moreover, they give great insight on international news coverage in their "How They See Us" page.

So what does this have to do with wine and The Friday Fermentable?

Two items from The Week struck me as interesting for The Friday Fermentable:

From the "Only in America" section,

Utah state officials have ordered motorist Glenn Eurick to remove the vanity license plate "MERLOT" from his car, after discovering that Merlot is a type of wine. State law prohibits the names of "intoxicants" on license plates, byt Eurick, who has had the plate for 10 years, said most people in the largely Mormon state were puzzled, not offended, by it. "People usually ask us what the word means," he said.

And a put-down from Fran Liebowitz as quoted in The Washington Monthly:
"Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine."

I have an addendum to that one: "Great people talk about great scientific ideas over wine and wonder who the hell Fran Liebowitz is."

Happy weekend - enjoy some wine with someone you love.

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Well, Fran Liebowitz did come up with one of my favorite lines ever, while describing a pretentiously named cafe in her Manhattan neighborhood circa 1978:

"There's one store called Bonjour Croissant. It makes me want to go to Paris and open up a store called Hello Toast."

Postscript: I understand that there is now an eatery named "Hello Toast" in Toronto.

Actually, Julie, I find Fran Liebowitz quite witty and insightful. Perhaps her wine quote came from being annoyed at snooty wine folks in her neck of the woods. I haven't seen the quote in its original context.