Check it out
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Happy 50th Birthday to the Flintstones
50 Years ago today was the first episode of the Flintstones…..you gotta love these retro commercials.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Bordeaux and Anime…
…two words I thought I would never type in the same sentence
Chateau owner Jean-Pierre Amoreau is a celebrity in Japan -- a privilege he owes to a wine-obsessed cartoon he had never heard of until diehard fans started calling him at home.
Amoreau, owner of the Puy Chateau near the village of Saint-Cibard in southwestern France, said he did not know what to think last year when he started getting calls from Japanese buyers who wanted to buy his 2003 growth bottles at any cost.
His agent explained the reason for the calls: a television show broadcast in Japan.
Named "The Drops of God," it is a cartoon about wine that has won a passionate following in Japan and has the peculiar trait of referring mainly to real bottles.
It tells the story of a famous oenologist who, upon his death, bequeaths a vast wine cellar to one of his two sons on the condition he can solve 12 riddles about 12 bottles.
After completing the challenge, the heir has to track down a 13th bottle -- the ultimate, perfect bottle of wine -- known as the "Drops of God."
"For the last episode ... millions of Japanese people were in front of their TVs about to find out the name of the chateau which Tadashi Agi thought produced the best wine of thousands he had tasted the world over," Amoreau said.
The cartoon gave birth to a comic book that boosted the success of his wine with Japanese consumers. "Today we are the best-known wine-makers in Japan," he added.
The owner of the 17th century estate is the 14th generation of wine-makers in his family, as well as being a firm believer in chemical-free agriculture in the tradition of his ancestors who banned chemicals in the 1930s.
Despite the frenzy surrounding the 2003 bottle named in "The Drops of God," Amoreau kept the 18 euro ($24) price tag even when bottles were selling in Japan for 1,000 euros.
"We stopped selling the 2003 until the excitement had died down to avoid penalizing our regular customers," he said.
ASIAN OBSESSION
Thanks to the cartoon, Chateau Le Puy gained access to lucrative Asian markets in China as well as Taiwan and South Korea. About 80 percent of the 120,000 bottles produced at Saint-Cibard are destined for export.
Among the other Bordeaux vineyards to have benefited from a cameo appearance in the cartoon are Chateau Calon-Segur, Saint Estephe, Chateau Palmer, Margaux and Chateau Poupille.
Philippe Carille, owner of the Poupille vineyard, is still enjoying the windfall, three years after his wine was mentioned in the fourth volume of the series.
"I increased my sales in Asia by 20-30 percent. In Taiwan alone, my business went from being close to zero to 100,000 euros this year thanks to the manga (cartoon)," he said.
Asia is now one of the main destinations for Bordeaux wines, which saw export volumes slump by 14 percent in 2009 and are just starting to recover from the financial crisis, according to the CIVB, a study group devoted to Bordeaux wines.
At end-June, exports beyond the European Union had grown 11 percent from a year earlier while exports to China -- now the top buyer of Bordeaux wines outside the EU -- grew a whopping 94 percent, the group said.
The fact that Chinese buyers showed up for the first time in April to taste the year's new wine is another sign of the trend. Japan, which for a period was the top Asian buyer, is now importing more wine from Bordeaux, the CIVB said.
The "Drop of God" effect, surely.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
A readers submission about Sports Illustrated
SkinnyJ sent me a cryptic message via FB and a Link -
Check out #29.
And others.
My interest was piqued.
Number 29 was this one
You gotta love the cigarette. The paragraphs below are even better.
This is comedy writer Will Shepard’s favorite cover: “I mean, come on,” he writes. “He’s just leading the league in all kinds of amazing in this picture. It may actually be the rarest cover in sports journalism history, only because I’m fairly sure we will never see something like this ever again. And I love — LOVE — the fact that they obviously re-touched his batting helmet, but not the cigarette.”
HA….retouched the helmet but left the cigarette.
This was actually Johnny Bench’s least favorite SI cover; Bench really didn’t like that SI put Dick Allen smoking a cigarette on the cover where all these innocent and persuadable young kids would see him.
This is kinda surprising to me, as I KNOW I have seen a picture of Johnny smoking…but I get he saw players as Role Models. In fact, JB was one of mine growing up and we loved the Big Red Machine. Johnny got his own cover at number 7.
I also want to add, this is a really good list and I suggest you check it out. Who/What is number 1? I won’t spoil it…..but it was perfect.
http://joeposnanski.si.com/2010/09/23/32-great-sports-illustrated-covers/
Monday, September 27, 2010
Research we can believe in
I hope they publish the recipe too
Marauding Vikings' ale packs a real punch
A team of archaeologists has recreated the heather ale drunk by marauding Vikings to boost their ferocity in battle.
Galway archaeologists Billy Quinn and Nigel Malcolm and businessman Declan Moore have been involved in their "great experiment" for the past three years, sampling Bronze Age brews and unearthing Ireland's ancient recipes and beer-making traditions.
The intrepid trio have just brewed their first heather ale using a recipe believed to date back to the 8th century AD.
'Bheoir Lochlannachis' is made from heather and barley; and instead of hops, which only became common in brewing in the 9th century, the herb bog myrtle is used to add flavour and preserve the potion.
Some sources believe the word 'ale' comes directly from the Viking word 'aul', and, according to legend, Norse invaders downed substantial quantities of the heather brew to whip up their battle frenzy.
The trio brewed the Scandinavian ale with barley from the Oslo Hotel Microbrewery in Salthill. The heather was gathered at Maumeen Lake in Connemara.
"We're using a recipe that was recorded in the 'Ulster Journal of Archaeology' in 1859," explained Mr Moore, MD of the Moore Group, an environmental consultancy firm. "It dates back, we would estimate, to the early Christian and Viking period."
Unlike the Moore Group's previous beer experiment, which involved using a prehistoric cooking pit heated by stones, the Viking beer was heated in a large pot and is now fermenting.
When the brew is ready, the team plans a private beer-tasting party next month. "We're going to produce around 150 litres and by the time that's filtered and sieved, there'll be 100 litres -- plenty to go around," said Mr Moore, while Mr Malcolm, general manager of Moore Group, said the finished product was eagerly anticipated.
This is not the trio's first foray into bygone brewing techniques. In 2007, the team produced a Bronze Age brew using a prehistoric cooking pit, which overturned the belief that brewing was only practised here from the 6th century onwards.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
