Monday, December 11, 2006

The best champagne comes from California

You heard me! I didn't forget to capitalize champagne or put a TM over it, and yes, it is made in California. And although I heartily agree that parmesan cheese does NOT come out of a green cardboard tube, it's not just because it's not made in Parma, but because it tastes like sawdust.

I do not agree with food libel or copyright laws. Food is not free speech, it is food. As Jesus himself is claimed to have said, "Do you not realize that everything that enters the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine?" (NAB Matt 15:17) If it's good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for a Catholic country like France. But no...

In France in 2003, Lyon Mag, a French magazine was successfully sued and ordered to pay 300,000 euro for saying that Beaujolais was "un vin de merde"!

Luckily, sanity and free speech prevailed on appeal!

Oh, the next time some self-important sommelier pronounces "Meritage" like "mirage" with the "it" left out, let the fool know it actually rhymes with "heritage", and is a purely North American invention because the French wouldn't let us call it Bordeaux! Pomposity from French is tedious, but from Americans it's pathetic. I'll think I'll just stick with the Merlot.

1 comment:

bjkeefe said...

There is some question about the correct pronunciation of Merlot, too, unfortunately.

A woman who was usually right about these things insisted it was "Mer-LOT," not "mair-LOH," as it came from a family name, and said family pronounced the "T." I'd have laughed in her face, but she did have the grace to bear lots of my other mispronunciations, not to mention me.

I have also heard that there is a dispute about whether both Ts in Montrachet are silent, or whether the first is pronounced.

Better stick with Chabliss.