Health, Safety & the Environment

Ignore the media hype, relax and enjoy Valentine’s Day.  We all have enough things to worry about these days than to have  to start worrying about whether we have bought the right Valentine’s Day card, the right chocolates, or the right bottle of wine to celebrate the occasion.  Just like last year, the wine pundits are offering their advice about the best wine to drink for a romantic celebration of  Valentine’s Day.  One wine writer, in an article aptly titled “Vino For Valentines!“  urges that we run out a buy a bubbly wine for the occasion. However, he cautions that the bubbly had better not be Budweiser. What nonsense!  If you and your significant other are enjoying the view of Long Island Sound at sunset on Valentine’s Day on Todd’s Point in Greenwich (or some equally beautiful coastal redoubt), listening to music in your (hopefully well-heated) car, a Budweiser might be just the quaff to make the moment memorable.  Of course, pouring champagne into wine flutes in the front seat of the car might make for a more elegant celebration. But the bottom line that it is the spirit of the occasion  that  makes the day special, not what you buy at  the store.  Another wine writer goes one step further. In an article titled “Drink Pink: Ten reasons to reach for rosé (and red) bubbles this Valentine’s Day“, Wine Enthusiast author Kelly Magyarics provides 10 reasons why your Valentine’s Day wine should not only be bubbly, but rosé!   The rose-colored bubbles go with the red roses, is one good reason, among the ten reasons she offers. Another of Kelly’s top ten reasons is that rosé wine is sexy.  A colleague of hers (Jill Zimorski, Beverage Director for José Andrés’ Think Food Group in Washington, DC)  offers,  “It’s like a sports bra versus a lacy push-up; they both achieve the same purpose, but one is definitely sexier than the other”.  According to Jill, the rosé makes for a fuller more voluptuous wine.  Lacy push-up bras and bubby rosé on Valentine’s Day?  I have heard lots of wildly creative ways of describing  wine’s bouquet.  But this is the first lingerie analogy I have found!  What should we expect for next year–”Victoria’s Secret Push-up Pinot Noir”?  Pass me a Bud!

Before over-indulging at the dining room table over the Christmas and New Year holidays, I should have taken stock of Eric Asimov’s New York Times column, “An Italian Lesson for the Over stuffed”, which appeared on November 23, 2009.  “Bloated? Overstuffed? More than a little uncomfortable?,” he inquires. After all of the nibbles and noshes, the hors d’oeuvres, the sides and the turkey, the rolls, the stuffing and all of a second helpings, it this time, according to Mr. Asimov, to take gastric refuge in one of the elixirs intended to remedy digestive excesses.  Italian digestives, or digestivos, are known collectively as Amari. The Amari are not just any after dinner concoction. The proprietory formulas for Amari generally includes various herbs, roots, flowers and spices, which are macerated in alcohol, sometimes blended with a sweet syrup, and tempered in barrels or bottles.  Although there are dozens of Amari on the market in  Italy, in the United States well known brands include Fernet-Branca, Averna and Campari.  With an alcohol content that can range from 20 to 40%, Amari may be just the necessary tonic to address over eating over the holidays.  I confess to not knowing much about Amari but something tells me I should get up-to-speed before the next holiday meal. Both my tastebuds and stomach will welcome the effort.

It used to be that a wine store attracted business by having a friendly and knowledgeable sales staff, an attractive store in which to shop, and a good selection of reasonably priced wine. Some of the larger wine establishments have morphed into something more. In addition to a comprehensive internet search engine, replete with wine glossary and monthly wine club subscriptions, Astor Wines & Spirits  in Manhattan has branched out to provide additional services including formal wine tastings, cooking classes, and even a “Hands-On Pizza Workshop & Walking Tour of Little Italy“, which you can join in on for a mere $175 per person. The workshop and walking tour advertisement promises that soon after participating in the event your friends will begin calling you “pizzaiolo” …..Italiano for pizza chef)!  Astor even boasts several attractive rooms on its premises which can be rented to conduct classes or private events.  Smaller wine retailers are attracting customers by offering informal wine tastings and discounts on wine tasted.  From a marketing perspective, the brick and mortar wine businesses do not want to lose business to internet wine merchants with little nor no overhead, who can offer wines at a steep discount.  Our shop, these merchants seem to be saying, should become a community or neighborhood resource, which an internet site cannot become, no matter how successful.  Buy a book, learn to cook, taste some wine and…..just maybe…..while you are here, buy a bottle of wine!

John Mariani, a writer for Bloomberg.com, provides his ten predictions for wine in 2010, in a piece titled “For Wine in 2010 Expect Price Drops, Screwtops, Thirsty Chinese“.  Among the predictions: continued price drops for wine across the board; more on-line wine buying at sites such as wine-searcher.com and vinfolio.com and an increase in the popularity in wines costing $10 or less per bottle. Ominously, for this author, he also predicts an increase in wine blogging and cautions that readers should be wary of these bloggers’ recommendations.

I subscribe to  a couple of  internet wine buying sites.  One of my favorites is winestillsoldout.com.  The Los Angeles Times published an article in June that described how winestillsoldout and other similar sites work.  Winestillsoldout sends subscribers blast emails on a daily basis offering  wines at an incredibly steep discount and offers the wine for sale until the supply of that wine is gone–usually within a few hours.  The price per bottle includes the cost of shipping.  The prices of the wines may vary from anywhere between $9 to several hundred dollars for a bottle of discounted Chateau Petrus!  I have puchased some very nice Italian, Californian and French wines on the site and have been pleased with my purchase and the price I paid.  As with all good things, there is some marketing hype at winestillsoldout.  On the plus side, wines offered for sale are painstakingly described.  If the wine has been reviewed by Parker, the Wine Spectator or the Wine Enthusiast, the review is reported verbatim.  On the negative side, some of the wine reviewers quoted are not as well known as others.  For example, if a wine scores a 94/100 from “Bill’s mother-in-law” who says to “steal this wine” you may want to raise a skeptical eyebrow.  If you are not personally familiar with a wine, you should take the raves of lesser known wine experts with a grain of salt.  There is also the familiar pressure sales tactic that combines scarcity, price and a limited time in which to make a decision.  It is easy to pull out a credit card and make a purchase of a “must have” wine on the internet. Resist that urge!

Stephen H. Devoto, writing for the Middletown Eye Blog, offers a cognent analysis about the lack of transparency and accountability among our legislators in the State Capitol.  Mr. Devoto, in the course of discussing the release of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters‘  long awaited scoreboard on the environmental voting records of our legislators, states as follows:

Commentary:

As Greenwich residents went to vote at Riverside Elementary School this morning, they were greeted by political advertisements for Lin Lavery the entire length of the driveway. Standing just outside the school gymnasium where the voting takes place, political candidates and their supporters harangued voters and passed out political literature. I found the signs and the politicking just outside the voting venue offensive and boorish. This view was shared by virtually every Riverside resident with whom I discussed this matter. One of my neighbors asked a candidate standing by the school entrance whether it was legal to politick within feet of the polling place. His response was “Are you a lawyer?” My neighbor isn’t a lawyer, but he made sure not to vote for the candidate who gave him the waspish response. I leave to others the legality of placing signs on public property and forcing literature on voters immediately outside the polling precinct on Election Day. If the candidates seek a captive audience, I would encourage them to meet Riverside residents at the train station waiting for their Metro North train. There, I would even accept a free cup of coffee from the candidate, if offered.

After the tragic death of his son, Reid, Tim Hollister, a Hartford attorney, launched a blog to provide an educational forum to enhance parent awareness of the risks involved with teen driving. The blog, From Reid’s Dad, is written  purposefully by a parent for parents of teen drivers and focusing on good, safe, parent decision-making about when and how they should supervise teen driving, as opposed to providing instruction on how to handle a vehicle.  The blog provides the grim statistic that driving fatality is the leading cause of death in the United States for people under twenty years of age.  If you are the parent (or friend) of a teen driver, this blog is an excellent source of practical information concerning accident prevention and driving safety.  Tim Hollister discusses how the loss of his son resulted in his becoming involved in teen driving issues in an article appearing in the October 12, 2009 edition of the Connecticut Law Tribune.