Awsome Winemaker or War Criminal, You Decide!

[Botafogo]

I got back home VERY late last night from a Brasilian party and was listening to the BBC on NPR while watching the Cameroon-Spain Soccer final and guess what the subject of a two hour long discussion panel on the Beeb was????

"How is Globalization affecting Cuisine and Wine?"!!!!!!!!

They had several prominent chefs and a Master of Wine that I had not heard of as well as general cultural commentators and it was so interesting I stayed up until four in the morning listening to it (and watching the Indominatable Lions of Cameroon win the Gold Medal).

One of the Chefs (Italian but working in London) thought that fusionista chefs blending Asian and Euro influences were out of their minds: "Who can envision something like Lemon Grass from Thailand with Buffalo Mozzarella from Italy?" (I can: Insalata Caprese delle Anna e il rei di Tailandia). He thought that if you were going to do a fusion dish you should put all the original source material on the menu in its traditional form so one could see what was being fused. Interesting idea but impractical from an actual restaurant operation sense, might be a great idea in a cook book though.

The Master of Wines deplored how the Spaniards are evidently in a race to see which winery can jetison a thousand years of tradition and make Parkerized (bastardized), non Spanish wines the fastest.

As much as I rant about globalization in Wine, I often take the opposite tack in music (I fight an enless battle to drag local radio stations out of the sixties re Musica Brasileira) as adding electic guitars and a turntablist to Samba does not eradicate samba and making a hamburger out of Mongolian Hot Pot Lamb and topping it with melted Brie does not cause the original cuisines to dissappear.

BUT, with wine you have to physically change vineyard and cellar practices (and usually the actual vines which take decades to replace if you get it wrong). So every new "innovation" involving budding over Aglianico or Refosco to Merlot and replacing nonno's revered Slovenian Oak casks (NOT Barriques!) with stinky new french Oak involves making financial and infrastructure decisions which strike the death knell for the established style thus robbing us of diversity.

Whoops, customers approacheth, got to go, Roberto