Fault is easy to find in this instance. Pie wrote a fine piece this week on Romanian wines, and showed me a category of wine I haven’t tried and you may as well show me the smooth body of a young girl. I’m there. So SP and I made the trek up to Milwaukee, the closest source of the intriguing Feteasca Neagra (Pie will forgive my inability to get the funny accent marks correct), a red wine made from the eponymous grape, a native of Romania (rather than an adapted variety from elsewhere). The first place we went, the salesman was helpful but somewhat befuddled. “I could have sworn we had some bottles of this, and our inventory shows there’s five of them somewhere…” After much digging and consultation with the store manager, they figured out that the inventory was a mistake. FUCK! But, they helpfully determined at another store nearby had stock and sent us in that direction, after observing, “No-one has ever asked for that wine before.” Extra points to the salesguy for not misusing the word “varietal,” one of those nails-on-chalkboard things for me.

At Store #2, the salesman (after overcoming surprise from people actually asking for this) found their stock quickly, two different ones from the same producer (Cramele Recas) and upon observing the low prices, we grabbed half a dozen bottles. Since Pie liked the La Putere cuvee, and the name was vaguely reminiscent of prostitution, we started there. The good parts: very full bodied, smooth despite the relatively high alcohol, big fruit and spice, quite distinctive. It smoothed out a bit with air, and paired with dinner, it came across as almost sweet. The bottle drained rapidly. The bad parts: screwcap (that is not a closure which is good for development with aging), American oak (that was a bit jarring- why not Slovenian?) with a bit too much new wood. It’s very slick and commercial. Nonetheless, for ten bucks, we were happy. I’d love to try this variety made from perhaps a cooler area, not as much wood, lower levels of manipulation (e.g., more barrels, fewer chips), and cork-finished. But that said, we’d drink this regularly, and several hat tips to Pie for expanding our horizons.

OK, enough wine talk, let’s have links!

Trump actually gets off a few good lines. There’s even some self-deprecation, which is more than Obama could ever manage. My favorites:

“I just want to say this, this is one of the best times I’ve had with the media — this might be the most fun I’ve had since watching your faces on Election Night.”

“We were late tonight because Jared could not get through security.”

“As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s [Kim Jong Un’s] problem, not mine.”

 

“President for Life.” Figure that only happens in dictatorships and shitholes. Or maybe other places as well…

 

This sort of thing has always ended well… I hope that the vicious bigot Bishop Desmond Tutu is smiling.

 

His ex will unveil the statue so she can set him up one last time.

 

They’ve learned how to manipulate the media from the Parkland puppets. Two people quit and it gets headlines.

 

Old Guy Music! This is a guy I used to see regularly in Austin, and has made a pretty decent career for himself. Here’s a rollicking little number from one of his Japan tours. Oldsters will remember Shakey’s.