Quotulatiousness

May 6, 2015

China’s burgeoning wine industry

Filed under: Business, China, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At The Diplomat, Jack Detsch looks at the rapidly increasing Chinese wine sector:

China has surpassed France, the world’s foremost producer and exporter of wine, in total acreage, but don’t expect to bring a Ningxia over to a dinner party any time soon.

“I think they largely have the wrong grapes planted,” Geoff Kruth, Chief Operation Officer of the Guild of Sommeliers, a Sonoma-based non-profit, says. “They’re trying to model Bordeaux and plant cabernet – things that may not even really grow well there.”

Production is still on the rise, with China pushing through the ranks from the world’s eighth largest producer of wine in 2013 to the sixth biggest in 2016, due to growing acreage and soaring domestic demand. Wine consumption in China has increased by nearly 45 percent in the past 15 years, and vine planting jumped by 5 percent in 2014 alone, up to a total of 1.97 million acres, according to the International Organization of Vine and Wine. Chinese consumers have an especially discerning palate for red wine. In 2013, China became the world’s largest market for reds, a lucky color in folklore, downing 1.86 billion bottles, moving past France in that category. Per capita consumption is also on the rise.

But many Chinese vineyards aren’t producing wines yet, and much of the acreage dedicated to growing grapes is still used for appetizers and brandy, not wine. The majority of wine producers in Eastern and Western China, where companies in Xinjiang, Ningxia, and Gonsu have had success, produce bulk wine. At times, they’ve been competitive on a global level: in 2011, Jia Bei Lan, a winery in Ningxia, took home a coveted international gold medal for its 2009 Bordeaux blend.

January 28, 2015

The great and the good gather at Davos

Filed under: Economics, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

And Monty calls ’em exactly what they are:

Luckily, all is not lost. Our moral and ethical betters have gathered in Davos to light their cigars with hundred-dollar bills while mocking the tubercular bootblack who’s been pressed into service to keep their shoes looking spiffy while they chat and laugh and eat lobster canapes. Oh, wait, I read that wrong, sorry. They’re in Davos to discuss the pressing problem of Global Warming(tm). Because they’re so concerned about Global Warming(tm) that they felt compelled to fly their private jets to an upscale enclave in the Swiss Alps to talk about it. While making fun of the tubercular bootblack who’s spit-shining their wingtips.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big believer in ostentatious displays of wealth. If I had the money, I’d build a hundred-foot-high statue of myself made out of pure platinum and then hire homeless people to worship at it for no fewer than eight hours per day. (I’d pay them a fair wage, though. What’s the going rate for abject obeisance to a living God? I’ll have to look it up.) But this Davos thing is just…rank. It’s a collection of rich fart-sniffers who want to congratulate each other on how socially conscious they are, and how much they care about the Little People. (Except the tubercular bootblack, whom they often kick with their rich-guy shoes.)

July 22, 2014

QotD: Drinking wine

Filed under: Food, Quotations, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Follow the advice of wine merchants, wine clubs, wine waiters, even wine journalists, but never forget that your own taste is the final judge. Like the solicitor who keeps his clientele safely under sedation by the use of fanciful legal jargon — did you know that any fool can do his own conveyancing, i.e. legally transfer property between himself and another? — so the wine snob, the so-called expert and the jealous wine merchant (there are a few) will conspire to persuade you that the subject is too mysterious for the plain man to penetrate without continuous assistance. This is, to put it politely, disingenuous flummery. It is up to you to drink what you like and can afford. You would not let a tailor tell you that a pair of trousers finishing a couple of inches below the knee actually fitted you perfectly; so, with wine, do not be told what is correct or what you are sure to like or what suits you. Specifically:

(a) Drink any wine you like with any dish. You will, in practice, perhaps find that a heavy red burgundy drowns the taste of oysters (though my wife likes claret with them), or that a light flowery hock is overpowered by a steak au poivre. But what is wrong with red wine and chicken, a light claret accompanying a Dover sole? The no-reds-with-fish superstition is widespread and ingrained, so much so that, in the film of From Russia, With Love, James Bond was able to say, in jest but without further explanation, that he ought to have spotted one of the opposition when the man broke that “rule” in the dining-car of the Orient Express. All he should reasonably have inferred was that the chap was rather independent-minded. I myself will even more happily drink a hock, a Moselle, or an Alsatian wine with my fish stems from the other fact that I am particularly fond of hocks, Moselles, and Alsatian wines. The North of England couple I once read about who shared a bottle of crème de menthe (I hope it was a half-bottle) to go with their grilled turbot should be an inspiration, if not a literal example to us all. Anyway, why not start by choosing a wine you know you like and then build your meal round it?

(b) Vintages — aargh! Most of the crap talked about wine centres on these. “The older the better” is another popular pseudo-rule. It does apply up to a point to chateau-bottled clarets, especially those known as classed growths. This is a precise technical term, not a piece of wine-snobs’ jargon, but I cannot expound it here: consult your wine merchant or wine encyclopedia. There are rich men who will drink nothing but old first-growth clarets to show their friends how well they know their wines (and how rich they are). These are likely to be wonderful wines, true, but such men are missing a lot — see below. And old wines as such are not necessarily good: they may well have gone off or always have been bad, whatever that bloody vintage chart or card may have said. Throw it away, or keep it in a drawer until you know the subject a bit and can pick up cheap the good wines of a “bad” year.

Kingsley Amis, Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis, 2008.

May 14, 2014

The rich boozehound’s guide to globetrotting

Filed under: Britain, Business, Randomness — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:07

Got lots of money burning a hole in your bank account? Want to show off just how filthy stinking rich you are? Like spending your however-earned-or-inherited loot on fancy booze? Then there’s a million-dollar booze vacation you’ll probably like:

UK-based travel company Holidaysplease is offering a luxury world drinking tour in which you can learn and demonstrate the art of conspicuous consumption.

Starting and ending in London — although pickups are possible elsewhere — the ultimate hedonistic, money-no-object vacation takes in the world’s best hotels, swankiest restaurants and most exclusive bars in 10 upmarket destinations.

En route, drinkers take in the universe’s most ludicrously expensive niche beverages.

In Monaco, members of the bottomless budget brigade will mingle with other surreally high net individuals at the high end Hotel Hermitage Monte-Carlo and party at Flavio Briatore’s Billionaire Sunset Lounge in the hotel Fairmont Monte Carlo, quaffing selections from the $565,000 “in-house Armand de Brignac Dynastie” champagne collection.

It all comes complete with fawning waiters and diamond-filled ice buckets.

“We spend the first three nights in London in the five-star Corinthia Hotel and hang out in the Playboy Club, Park Lane, Mayfair,” says Byron Warmington of Holidaysplease.

Hef once said: “Life needs to be lived with a sense of style.”

As a taste of things to come, surrounded by grinning Bunnies, guests will sample the glam high life and swallow what’s reported to be the second most expensive drink in the history of mixology.

The Legacy cocktail includes 1788 Clos de Griffier Vieux Cognac, which comes in at $21,000 for a 40 ml shot.

It also includes ancient Kummel liqueur, vintage orange Curacao and four dashes of circa 1900 Angostura bitters.

April 18, 2014

QotD: Opera

Filed under: Humour, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:21

Opera, to a person genuinely fond of aural beauty, must inevitably appear tawdry and obnoxious, if only because it presents aural beauty in a frame of purely visual gaudiness, with overtones of the grossest sexual provocation. The most successful opera singers of the female sex, at least in America, are not those whom the majority of auditors admire most as singers but those whom the majority of male spectators desire most as mistresses. Opera is chiefly supported in all countries by the same sort of wealthy sensualists who also support musical comedy. One finds in the directors’ room the traditional stock company of the stage-door alley. Such vermin, of course, pose in the newspapers as devout and almost fanatical partisans of art; they exhibit themselves at every performance; one hears of their grand doings, through their press agents, almost every day. But one has merely to observe the sort of opera they think is good to get the measure of their actual artistic discrimination.

The genuine music-lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it. Most musicians, indeed, prefer to hear operatic music outside the opera house; that is why one so often hears such things as “The Ride of the Valkyrie” in the concert hall. “The Ride of the Valkyrie” has a certain intrinsic value as pure music; played by a competent orchestra it may give civilized pleasure. But as it is commonly performed in an opera house, with a posse of flat beldames throwing themselves about the stage, it can only produce the effect of a dose of ipecacuanha. The sort of person who actually delights in such spectacles is the sort of person who delights in plush furniture. Such half-wits are in a majority in every opera house west of the Rhine. They go to the opera, not to hear music, not even to hear bad music, but merely to see a more or less obscene circus. A few, perhaps, have a further purpose; they desire to assist in that circus, to show themselves in the capacity of fashionables, to enchant the yokelry with their splendor. But the majority must be content with the more lowly aim. What they get for the outrageous prices they pay for seats is a chance to feast their eyes upon glittering members of the superior demi-monde, and to abase their groveling souls before magnificoes on their own side of the footlights. They esteem a performance, not in proportion as true music is on tap, but in proportion as the display of notorious characters on the stage is copious, and the exhibition of wealth in the boxes is lavish.

H.L. Mencken, “The Allied Arts: Opera”, Prejudices: Second Series, 1920.

March 2, 2014

Why the EU hesitates to do anything about Ukraine

Filed under: Europe, Politics, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:50

Theodore Dalrymple:

Extreme wealth, whether honestly or dishonestly acquired, seems these days to bring forth little new except in the form and genre of vulgarity. Mr. Ambani’s skyscraper tower home in Bombay is a case in point: His aesthetic is that of the first-class executive lounge of an airport. Mr. Ambramovich’s ideal is that of a floating Dubai the size of an aircraft carrier. Only once have I been invited to a Russian oligarch’s home, and it struck me as a hybrid of luxurious modernist brothel and up-to-date operating theater. I saw some pictures recently of some huge Chinese state enterprise’s headquarters, and it appalled me how this nation, with one of the most exquisite, and certainly the oldest, aesthetic traditions on Earth, has gone over entirely to Las Vegas rococo (without the hint of irony or playfulness).

But it was the luxury and not the taste of Yanukovych’s homes that outraged the Ukrainians, for if by any chance they had come into money they would have done exactly the same, aesthetically speaking. Yanukovych may have been a dictator of sorts, but when it came to taste he was a man of the people. A horrified Ukrainian citizen, touring one of his homes after his downfall, was heard to exclaim, “All this beauty at our expense!”

As to politics, the Ukrainian crisis has once again revealed the European Union’s complete impotence. Physiognomy is an inexact science, but it is not so inexact that you cannot read the bemused feebleness on the faces of people such as Van Rompuy, Hollande, and Cameron, the latter so moistly smooth and characterless that it looks as though it would disappear leaving a trail of slime if caught in the rain. Mrs. Merkel has a somewhat stronger face, but then she has the advantage of having spent time in the Free German Youth (the East German communist youth movement), which must at least have put a modicum of iron in her soul.

Be that as it may, Russia holds all the trump cards in this situation. It can turn off Western Europe’s central heating at a stroke, and for Europeans such heating is the whole meaning and purpose of life—together with six-week annual holidays in Bali or Benidorm. Therefore Europe will risk nothing for the sake of Ukraine, except perhaps a few billion in loans of no one’s money, a trifle in current economic circumstances. If Bismarck were to return today, he would say that the whole of Ukraine was not worth the cold of one unheated radiator.

November 3, 2013

Statue envy

Filed under: China, India, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

Tunku Varadarajan on India’s big statue and what it means:

Narendra Modi is the chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat, and he believes that his beloved India is a land of political pygmies. India’s current prime minister, whose job Modi covets to distraction, is an effete old technocrat who takes his orders from the bossy Italian widow of a former prime minister (who was himself the son of a prime minister, and the grandson of another). The old technocrat’s days in office are numbered, and his replacement as prime ministerial candidate for the ruling Congress party is Rahul Gandhi, the son of the Italian widow (she who must be obeyed), a clumsy “crown prince” of threadbare intellect who would inspire little confidence as the manager of a New Delhi pasta joint, let alone as prime minister of India.

India is a land of political midgets, damn it, and Narendra Modi is going to do something about it. To compensate for the meager stature of those with whom he must rub shoulders, he is going to give his country a giant statue — the tallest the world has ever seen. At 597 feet, this “Statue of Unity” will dwarf a 502-feet tall Buddha built in China in 2002, giving India — which suffers from a desperate form of penis-envy of China — something bigger at last than its massive northern neighbor. The statue, to be situated in Gujarat and made of bronze, iron and cement, will cost a scarcely trivial $340 million, much of which will come, in spite of Modi’s free-market protestations, directly from taxpayers who earn no more than $1,400 per annum. Do the moral math. (The official boast is that it will take only 42 months to build, although you’ve got to believe that the Chinese could complete the task in half the time.) When fully erect, it will be twice the height of the Statue of Liberty and four times that of Christ the Redeemer in Rio. “The world will be forced to look at India when this statue stands tall,” Modi has said. Indeed: But with what kind of gaze?

April 11, 2012

QotD: The silly claims about “capitalism in crisis”

Filed under: Economics, History, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:08

Yes, times are tougher than they otherwise could be; however, to claim that the bumps in the road over the last few years show that “capitalism is in crisis” is absurd.

[. . .]

Even with the a few recessions, Real per-capita Gross Domestic Product is a lot higher than it was in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, or 2000. The truly unique fact about the world as it has changed in the last few centuries is that, as a number of economic historians have emphasized, we live in a world where economic growth is taken to be the norm. […]

Indeed, as the economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out long ago, capitalism has given us the time and energy to criticize capitalism. People content themselves by being outraged at working conditions in Foxconn plants in China. However, it is the economic growth we have achieved in the western world that allows us the comfortable working conditions from which we express horror at working conditions elsewhere in the world. Further, not all the workers are greeting the reformers as saviors (HT: Doug Stuart). If people are willing to trade off longer working hours for higher incomes, I don’t see how it’s my right to stop them.

[. . .] Donald J. Boudreaux points out how we have to be very careful with income data if we are going to get an accurate picture of trends in standards of living.

If we’re going to talk about “stagnation” we also have to be very clear about precisely what we mean. Consider the near-ubiquity of the iconic gizmo of the early 21st century and its technological cousin: the smart phone and social media. My Forbes.com colleague Erik Kain reported in February that “472 million smartphones were sold worldwide in 2011.” In a world of 7 billion people, the top 1% would be 70 million people. If all the gains really went to them, that would be about six and a half smartphones each for the members of the world’s Top 1%. I’m pretty sure that isn’t what’s happening.

Art Carden, “It’s the Final Crisis of Capitalism, Charlie Brown!”, Forbes, 2012-04-10

March 30, 2011

For the bacon fans

Filed under: Food, Randomness, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:19

Restaurants have been known to capitalize on food trends, but few dare go as far as Denny’s:

Denny’s is bringing on the bacon.

The all-American diner is about to begin advertising a new limited-time menu of seven bacon-centric items for breakfast, lunch and dinner dubbed “Baconalia.” While the bacon trend has been several years in the making, the $548 million chain is capitalizing on it now because “we truly believe the bacon trend is here to stay” said John Dillon, VP-marketing and product development at Denny’s. “We’re not on the cutting edge, but, we’re really bringing it mainstream by being the first chain to offer it on a fully dedicated menu. No chain has embraced it like we have.”

Among the items included in Baconalia are Bacon Meatloaf, Ultimate Bacon Breakfast Triple Bacon Sampler — with, you guessed it, three kinds of bacon — as well as items that employ more unconventional uses for bacon, such as Bacon Flapjacks and the Maple Bacon Sundae, an ice-cream sundae with maple-flavored syrup and sprinkling of bacon. Mr. Dillon said that so far, the sundae has generated the most buzz and excitement.

February 3, 2011

Urban China: growth market for luxury goods

Filed under: China, Economics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:42

The most liberalized areas of China have become a magnet for the purveyors of ostentatious luxury items:

The Chinese may have an age-old reputation as great savers, but China’s young people are now making up for generations of lost spending time.

Compared with the austere youth of China’s older generations, who went through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and strove to build savings in a nation without a social safety net, the young, raised in an unprecedentedly wealthy China, are spending freely.

[. . .]

As the world’s fastest growing luxury market, China’s appetite for high-end Western branded goods is fast becoming insatiable, with predictions by Boston Consulting Group suggesting that within five years, 29 percent of global luxury product consumption will come from China. And while European and US luxury sales are making a slow recovery after the global financial crisis, China—relatively untouched and still optimistic—remains the most important market for luxury retailers. Indeed, this was the theme behind last year’s 5th Annual China Luxury Summit, which was given the grandiose subtitle of ‘China Luxury Market: An Oasis of Hope and Possibility’.

China as the deus ex machina of the luxury world is a concept familiar to European retailers. Last Saturday, for example, the Italian luxury brand Prada staged its first fashion show in Beijing. Like French cosmetics and perfume brand L’Occitane, which listed in Hong Kong last year, Prada is expected to have an initial public offering in Hong Kong.

No need to reiterate that this is only a phenomenon in the urbanized areas of China: the vast majority of Chinese consumers are unable to access the fast growing markets and still live to a large extent under the direct control of the party.

December 16, 2010

Wine pricing: the trade-off between quality and prestige

Filed under: Economics, Randomness, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 13:02

I haven’t actually listened to the Freakonomics podcast on whether expensive wines taste better, but I suspect the answer will be “no”.

I’ve been interested in wines for quite some time now, but I’ve found something that caps the amount of money I’m willing to pay for a bottle of wine to well under $100. Either my palate is insufficiently developed to taste the differences between a $40 wine and a $90 wine, or there really isn’t that much difference.

For most people, most of the time, once you get above the bargain-basement level of wine, you can usually find good, flavourful wine for between $15 and $20. What you may not be able to find is a wine in that price range that will impress your date or your guests. If you’re trying to impress, price will have to be one of the most important part of your decision: fewer people will be as impressed by your really good bargain as will be impressed by the big ticket bottle of “Chateau de Fancy French Name” . . . even if they taste the same.

Believe it or not, the most dominant flavor may be the dollars. Thanks to the work of some intrepid and wine-obsessed economists (yes, there is an American Association of Wine Economists), we are starting to gain a new understanding of the relationship between wine, critics and consumers.

One of these researchers is Robin Goldstein, whose paper detailing more than 6,000 blind tastings reaches the conclusion that “individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine.”

So why do we pay so much attention to critics and connoisseurs who tell us otherwise?

That’s the question we set out to answer in this podcast.

June 7, 2010

The worst drink in America is “Masochistic, but cheerful!”

Filed under: Cancon, Food, Health — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 16:18

Remember when I posted a short item about the worst beverage in America saying “Thank goodness this chain isn’t in operation anywhere near here”? According to Drew Halfnight, I’m not keeping up with the times — it’s apparently available in Canada.

But how does it feel to drink one? A spokesman for Tim Horton’s, which sells Cold Stone products in 40 locations across Canada, told me: “It’s apparently delicious.” But I know a thing or two about ice cream — I inherited a mean sweet tooth — I wanted to experience it for myself.

So, I zipped down to the nearest Cold Stone Creamery location — #2533 at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto — and handed over $5.19 plus tax for a taste of death. The “Gotta Have It” size — 24.5 ounces — is not available in Canada, so I ordered the next best thing, a 20-ouncer.

The things people will do just to get a story . . .

The taste is intense: a saccharine blast of sugary chocolate, sugary peanut butter and just plain sugar, which engenders a third, chalky undertaste. But it only takes a few sips of the stuff before the sugar totally numbs my palate and I can’t really taste anything except richness. I’d liken the overall drinking experience to slurping up melted Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with a little homo milk thrown in. Masochistic, but cheerful!

May 22, 2010

The worst beverage in America

Filed under: Food, Health, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 20:10

Thank goodness this chain isn’t in operation anywhere near here:

April 13, 2010

Expect to read more stories like this

Filed under: Britain — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:01

Britain’s welfare support system was originally designed to provide temporary assistance — at barely-above-survival-levels — to workers and their families until the primary wage-earner could find new work. It wasn’t intended to provide this kind of support:

The Davey family’s £815-a-week state handouts pay for a four-bedroom home, top-of-the-range mod cons and two vehicles including a Mercedes people carrier.

Father-of-seven Peter gave up work because he could make more living on benefits.

Yet he and his wife Claire are still not happy with their lot.

With an eighth child on the way, they are demanding a bigger house, courtesy of the taxpayer.

Hard to blame ’em, really: if you can get substantially more through welfare support than you can by working, what’s the incentive to keep that job? Once upon a time, it was shame that would provide that extra spur to keep people in marginal economic circumstances from claiming welfare or other social benefits, as friends and neighbours would disdain them. These days? They’re probably envied by the next-door and down-the-street folks still dumb enough to get jobs.

At their semi on the Isle of Anglesey, the family have a 42in flatscreen television in the living room with Sky TV at £50 a month, a Wii games console, three Nintendo DS machines and a computer — not to mention four mobile phones.

With their income of more than £42,000 a year, they run an 11-seater minibus and the seven-seat automatic Mercedes.

But proof that material wealth does not translate directly into happiness, the Daveys still yearn for things they can’t yet have. But at least they’re not feeling burdened by feelings of guilt or shame:

She added: ‘I don’t feel bad about being subsidised by people who are working. I’m just working with the system that’s there.

‘If the government wants to give me money, I’m happy to take it. We get what we’re entitled to. I don’t put in anything because I don’t pay taxes, but if I could work I would.’

[. . .]

Mrs Davey, who spends £160 a week at Tesco, says she does not intend to stop at eight children. Her target is 14.

And she adds: ‘I’ve always wanted a big family — no one can tell me how many kids I can have whether I’m working or not.’

It’s true: in spite of all the other intrusions into everyday life by the British and European bureaucracies, there are still things they can’t tell you.

H/T to Jon (my former virtual landlord) for the link.

October 30, 2009

Tweet of the day: Expensive food

Filed under: Economics, Food, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:25

Stephen Fry: A spoonful of paté de campagne Ardéchois à l’ancienne is not really that far distant from a spoonful of catfood. Just notably more expensive

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