World Class Wines

As Ontarians or even Canadians, what are we championing? That we’ve got some truly ‘world class’ wines (world class, of course, being Canada-speak for ‘Can we join the club’?)? That we’ve finally got a real opportunity to put our grapes budget into local, rather than distant, economies? Or that our locally-generated hype machine is working at maximum efficiency? Probably all three. At least, that seems to be the case in the context of Malivoire.

The Beamsville winery getting as attention from its gravity pull method as from the taste in its bottles is a case study in the Canadian ‘world class’ phenomenon. There was the much hyped tasting release back in April. There was the Jamie Kennedy event this past weekend in Beamsville. And, for those of us not attending either, there is equal parts buzz at the right LCBO stores. But is Malivoire all it’s hyped up to be?

High scores on both Pinot Noirs, the ‘06 and ‘07. But both, quite frankly, are overpriced. $30+ is a risk for most middle-budget wine consumers to take on a Canadian red and, at the end of the bottle, I’m not so sure wouldn’t have been better spent on something from Oregon or Washington.

$32 for the 2007 Old Vines Foch definitely would be spent better elsewhere. As the label explains these 33-year old vines are “Well into their declining years….” I’d say – declined. There are definitely some jump outs with the first few sips, but a glass later it’s like drinking a bottle of red that has been open for a day or two.

The 2008 Pinot Gris? Sadly, a disappointment. More Grigio than Gris, there’s just no Alsace in your glass. Low juice concentration, very little peachiness and almost the level of acidity that had me take that Anne Boecklin back to the LCBO last week for a refund.

All is not lost, however: the 2008 Gewurztraminer is a surprising stunner with everything you’d expect from the grape, the 2006 Chardonnay isn’t super complex or anything but very fresh and juicy, and the Lady Bug Rosé continues to impress after a number of bottles.

Malivoire is certainly getting much-deserved local attention for its wines, and my uncle from Cali was impressed – maybe more for the gravity pull than the wines, though. Is this enough to believe the hype? Or are we just engaging in another round of Canadian cultural cartography?

 

Summer Hotness!

Thanks to Dger – and almost a year after it first debuted on Britain’s ITV – you can all begin to enjoy No Heroics. Trust me, you need some of The Hotness. If you can’t locate DVDs, watch here.

 

Face Recognition for Ethnography

No, it’s not a wicked new software to partner up with your Livescribe pen. It’s a question: Do you know some of me? If not, that probably explains why you’re still referring to that awesome work you did in California as “ethnography research.” Duh.

 

Design Info on the Hood

more about “Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by desti…“, posted with vodpod

Great info-design spin on a classic fairy tale, tipped this way by Ms. King.

 

Summer’s Pinot Gris #1

My favourite summer grape, hands down, has to be Pinot Gris. For many wine drinkers, maybe neophytes more than others, it’s often mistaken as “sweet,” an off-base description that speaks more to the pear and apple powers in the mouth than the sugar that’s either natural occurring in a wine or the sugar that’s slipped in by unscrupulous blenders. I caught the Pinot Gris bug about 5 years ago when my boy, Stanley, returned from a photo shoot at Nike HQ in Portland and brought us back a bottle of Elk Cove. I think that was the name of it. I’m terrible at remembering wineries and vintages; I never caught the bug for caring too much for those facts – like I did with a Roots Radics discography – and I don’t care much for flexing my interaction competency or subcultural capital as an oenophile. I just enjoy the smelling, tasting and conjuring of what I enjoy. That’s why, every summer, I make sure to taste every Pinto Gris in my general price $15-$30 price range. And so far, the Andre Blanck 2007 has all the pear and apple, touch of smoke, near perfect acidity and life from cork to last sip that I love. At $20 it’s summer’s Pinot Gris #1. Number 2 to follow. Recommendations welcome. Pictures to shop by  welcome.

 

The Summer’s Rosé

Steve Friedmann was right. Malivoire is, arguably, at the very top of the Canadian wine game right now. Their 2008’s are stunning, and well worth a trip to wherever the best of Beamsville is carried. Of the winery’s selection, it’s their Lady Bug rosé that will shine this summer: better than virtually anything in the $14 range – including the best of French or Spanish rosés – it also wins awards for being able to play in the same branding market as all those shitty wines with the ridiculous animals names. Why? Playful and pretty – like the taste – with a simple spin on design that equally reflects what’s on the nose and in the mouth. Congrats to them – another  Canadian producer (and that really only makes 3 or 4) worth writing home about if you live in France or Spain (or Oregon).

 

The Finger…for plagiarists

Today, I’m giving a proper Ape Notes finger to a blogger who decided to change 5 or 10% of the words from one of my postings last month and call his/her most recent post his/her own. Ironic that this person chose to do so using one of my posts (there have been a few) where I write about the value/effect etc/ of Google alert keywords. Duh, fucker – you didn’t think that shit would be key-worded for me to bump into? Names and URLs we won’t use, lest he/she get more hits at my expense. Bottom line: lame. Main line: get a comments section so I can call you out direct.

 

Talk Isn’t Cheap

If he were dead, Dell Hymes would roll over in his grave every time a so-called ‘authentic’ ethnographer or a client suggested that conversations were a shoddy way to conduct research.

Observing people doing things is a great – and sometimes ideal – way to probe for insights, but to suggest that asking consumers about their behavior, patterns, beliefs, relationships, attitudes, ideologies and cultures or even to engage them to collaborate on where insights on those areas might lie has no value is ludicrous.

There’s more than a few reasons why 100 years of anthropologist in the field figured it might be a good reason to learn the local language – conversation, comeraderie, categories of experience, expert status, and the list goes on. Without these ethnographic foundations we’d have but a paltry few pages on kinship, barely a door ajar to the phenomenological, next to no narrative and auto-ethnography, perhaps zero activist anthropology and a data chasm in the ethnography of communication.

Then there’s social media ethnography or, as some colleagues have tagged it, netnography. Lots of methodologies there and, for those of us who conduct research in the spaces and places between the internet and mobile know, talk ain’t cheap. It might not be the only currency, but it’s value is undeniable.

So the next time you decide to pitch a client or you’re on the receiving end of a contractor’s pitch and ethnography – couched as ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ – is invoked alongside some methodological mumbo jumbo that ex-communicates conversation, try to remember Dave Chappelle’s rant on Keepin’ It Real. Between his take on how that phrase had imploded on hip hop culture and  the late-80’s-and-onwards post-modernist implosion of, arguably, the most of-epic proportions myth of our time, I am un-chuckling over how ‘authenticity’ can be used to refer to anything other than signatures on traveler’s cheques.

P.S. Pulling chimps from their natural habitats and making them wear ties is fucked up. I’d bite and kill people if they did that to me, too.

 

Why no anthro on Academic Earth?

Wikipedia has given everyone the keyword-game to act like they know. C’mon – like you haven’t been at a cocktail party with someone dropping action-network theory into the mix?! Now, in the Ted vein, Academic Earth steps it up by offering viewers the confidence and cadence to talk like an expert. Lectures, lecture series and courses in a variety of disciplines delivered by profs around the globe, it’s cool(ish), useful(ish) and occasionally very engaging. It’s also a little amiss: in this most liminal of ages, with so many reconfigurations of social symbols, rife with pregnant rifts in how we communicate, gestative of new rituals and performances – the topic list has a glaring absence and a Search comes up with the unthinkable…”No Results Were Found. Try A New Search.” Sort by Relevancy? Ouch!

 

NEC Beta launches Carbon Diet

There are a number of products creeping on to the market that allow (and encourage) consumers to measure the energy being sucked out of the ether and into their homes, but Japanese electronics behemoth might just be taking the prize – along with Japanese IP Biglobe – for Carbon Diet. The deal? Install a wifi device to the home’s circuit breaker. It measure power consumption. Data is transferred to the home computer and sent to an online server where users log on to check the daily and hourly energy consumption, compare themselves to other houses participating in the program, and see how their monthly carbon footprint compares to the same month last year. Those who reduce get eco-points that can be traded in for virtual plating soil, water, flowers and grass in an online nature restoration game. And to keep users come back there’s Carbon Ball, a dung-beetle avatar game to keep the competition amped up. users motivated and focused on reducing energy consumption.

In a 3-month trial period and in social Beta right now (only in the homes of 100 NEC employees), the plan is to take it public and make a run for $20 million over the next three years