I'm sticking to mostly American wines myself !!!!!

But they make terrific Burgundy in California. I bought a box of it the other day. My next door neighbor, who drinks primarily beer, loved it after consuming a sixpack of his regular stuff. ;-)

Most rivers that I have been around had sort of a fishy smell to them. ;-)

Is this a wine or a woman? I've never heard that term before.

California makes some good cabernet sauvignons. I didn't know that Marlborough made any at all. Oh, now I realize that you are referring to sauvignon blanc. ;-)

Again, California does. Says so on the bottles. ;-)

I agree completely. Good reply to a narrow-minded posting.

Vino To reply, add "x" between letters and numbers of e-mail address.

There are probably some good ones in croissant-land but I haven't tried any since the start of the Iraq war.

Every country has its share of sewage-in-a-bottle. This is where I find "Wine Spectator" helpful.

Regarding NZ wine (haven't tried yet), is the Sauv Blanc really as good as I hear? I never got mad about your country's win in the America's Cup (you won it fair and square).lol

You kidding? I love Mosel, espescially from Piesport. I have a Spatlese in the cooler right now.

Love Aussie Shiraz. Never tried Rutherglen wines - is the Muscat anything like Italian Moscato?

Whoa! I haven't closed off my mind (or palate) completely. I recently got a pleasant surprise when I bought a few varieties I hadn't tried in the past. Like a Mendocino (Calif) Viognier, a Spanish Tempranillo, and an Aussie Semillon/Chard. I was delighted with all of them. But I will say this - my favorite red wine is made right here in southeastern Pennsylvania, US of A. It's called Kog Hill Cabernet Franc, the best wine that my limited budget allows at $15 US. It's a rather small (and new) outfit. I don't know if they export!

Dan-O

Yikes, Dan. KOG Hill Cab Franc? I thought that stuff was awful. I think the wines from Manatawny are easily the best in the Reading area (though I haven't been to many of the wineries in the Bucks/Chest/Mont area. Nillsley is also very nice.

IIRC croissants originated in Belgium!!!

No comment - save to say "You started it!" :-)))))

Are they experts in sewage disposal - are they?

OK - I can be as parochial as the next man ("Little does he know that I am the next man!" Eccles - Goon Show circa 1962)

I don't know what you have heard, but if you get an opportunity, seek out a bottle of SB from either Wither Hills Vineyards; Lawson's Dry Hills; St.Clair Vineyards; Isabel Estate or Cloudy Bay (out of Marlborough) and Palliser Estate from Martinborough and try for your self.

Yes, and I was in San Diego to see them racing - very proud day!

Nope - it is a fortified wine made from Brown Muscat; it is like liquid Christmas pudding, complete with nuts & raisins & brandy - one drop and you'll finish the bottle!!!!

My favourites are from Campbell's; Morris; Stanton & Killeen and also Chambers.

Probably very difficult to find in the US - but, as they say in Australia -

"When you are being monstered by a 7 foot tall Hells Angel, and you're in your Volkswagen 6 volt, and you see a break in the traffic - Never let a chance go by!!!"

-- st.helier

More like sewage _avoidance_.

Cloudy Bay is overrated and overpriced. You can find many good SBs in the $12-14 US range (Kim Crawford, Lofthouse e.g.) that are every bit as good.

A simpler axiom by Yogi Berra: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"

Tom S

Neither, milud. Their creation is credited to Viennese bakers who crafted them to celebrate the end of the siege of Vienna in 1683. Apparrently, the crescent moon was the symbol of the Ottomans even then, hence the shape of the croissant. Or so the legend has it... I do know that one still finds crescent-shaped semmeln on the breakfast tables of Vienna.

Hysterically ewers, Mark Lipton

snipped

snipped

What an odd comment. I still drink Californian and Oregon wines, despite the fact that Bush illegally invaded Iraq.

Ron Lel

Salut/Hi Greg Menke,

le/on 28 Jul 2004 08:56:39 -0400, tu disais/you said:-

Thanks for that. As I am embarrassed by the ignorance and chauvinsism that I find amongst the French (the two Michaels can bear witness to that).

Thanks again.

I'm really sorry about that. In fact I thought long and hard about whether to say anything and if so, what to say. Having waited (in vain) for ANY American to ask these posters not to use the forum to vent their spleen, I thought that as an Englishman (my country was the US's only real supporter in the Iraq conflict), with many friends in the USA (some from this forum) and living in France, (so aware of just how little support in Europe generally the USA had over Iraq) I was almost uniquely well placed to come back.

Yes, you're absolutely right, it was. If you or ANY of your fellow Americans had asked any of these posters not to try to make political (party or national) points, I'd have said nothing. However, with an election coming up, with the consequent risk of increasing temptation, I felt it in order - this once - to make the point. I accept that for you, I was in the wrong, but for several others who have written privately to thank me, I wasn't. It's a risk I took thoughtfully.

If it means we can keep political differences out of the NG for the next few months, then perhaps it was.

Greg joined in to say

Thanks very much indeed Greg, but please don't do any more to prolong this thread. The very last thing I wanted was to have been at the origin of a Dem/Rep fight. or a pro\contra Iraq invasion fight.

Please point me in the direction of some reputable sources that can demonstrate that Iraq possessed anything that was an immediate threat to the USA and thus justified our invading that country. Fox News, the _editorial section_ of the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, any of the Mellon-Scaife newspapers, and _anything_ for which the current administration has any responsibility don't count.

Sorry for injecting politics into this forum, but I couldn't let this comment go unchallenged.

Vino To reply, add "x" between letters and numbers of e-mail address.

Since I obviously stirred up a hornets nest - let me add another "poke". Last I checked, Saddam and his sweeties were responsible for the murder of thousands of their own citizens, and the torture of countless others. Abul Abbas, one of the world's most-wanted terrorists, was also discovered in the outskirts of Baghdad. Coincidence? I doubt it. By the way, Saddam invaded two of his neighbors during his tenure - were we supposed to wait for an invasion of Saudi Arabia? I have issues with France because thousands of dead Americans are buried in French soil (Normandy, remember?) and the modern-day French peaceniks seem to forget that. Like I said in my previous post, it is France's right to avoid going to war - and it's MY right to tell them to go fark themselves. I have less of a problem with Germany because their country was a wasteland after WW2 - it's to be expected that they have no taste for conflict anymore.

Now I return you to your regularly-scheduled newsgroup.

Dan-O, the unapologetic Bush supporter.

See this is why I was disappionted to see Ian's response to Dan. For Ian I had a lot of respect. Dan's resides in my kill file. Without Ian reply to Dan's inane comments, I never would have seen the post.

You are moving the goal posts. I never said Iraq was an immediate threat. That is something that you added. I was addressing the comment about WMD. Reuters, the AP, CNN, MSNBC and many newspapers have reported the discovery of sarin, cyclosarin, mustard gas and other nerve agents by US and coalition troops. (Fox News and the Wall Street Journal have also.)

I wouldn't just take the word George Bush on the subject. Bill and Hillary Clinton have both said there are WMD's. So have John Kerry, John Edwards and Sandy Berger. Heck, Edwards even called Iraq an immanent threat and Kerry said we should go in without the UN. There is footage as proof.

This newsgroup is about wine so this will be my last post on the matter. I going to pour myself a glass of wine and add "Vino" to my killfile.

Haven't been there, yet. One of the great things about wine, though, is that two people can disagree completely and nobody's really wrong. It's just a matter of taste. Mt Hope Estate (Manheim, Lancaster Cty) has a large selection, and they host an annual Renaissance Fair to boot. Double your pleasure... Manatawny Creek is always worth the visit for their Pinot Grigio.

Dan-O

Just what was he going to invade his neighbors with? His ragtag, ill-diciplined and negligibly equipped army? Please. He could barely feed them where they were. His ass was handed to him in Gulf War 1 and he was in no condition to invade anyone anymore. Yes he's a bad fellow with a lot to answer for, which I sincerely hope he does, but the US has supported worse in the past and probably will again in the future. Just wait till shit really starts hitting the fan in the Middle East and we get to help prop up some of the other equally nasty governments over there- because they're our "allies".

I imagine the US repaid France at Normany and now we're even. Remember the US probably would never have existed- or it would have taken quite a different course without substantial French assistance and involvement. Even disregarding that, why should be France be bound to help the US invade & occupy some other country where there was no good evidence of a threat?

And France was in such great shape afterwards? The US has never suffered the wars and loss of generations of people that western europe has. Lets hope we never do. Meantime, lets also remember the dead & multiated human beings that our foreign policy is creating on all sides of the issue. Is conflict supposed to taste good? I guess it might be a glorious exercise when you're not the one getting limbs blown off- or having to do it to others. Remember the loved ones who are in the wrong place at wrong time. Imagine coming home to find your wife &/or children blown apart. The US is complicit in all those deaths- most times we don't pull the trigger that kills the innocent- but the bombs are there because the United States is the invader and occupier. We'll be paying for this war in all sorts of ways for years. Is it really worth it, or do you just want to feel justified?

And finally, my apologies to the group for this diversion.

Gregm

"Mark Lipton" corrected this antipodean, self proclaimed peer thus......

Bugger!!!!! IRI!!!!!

Nothing worse than humble pie crammed into one's mouth with one's own foot!!!

Truth is painful. As much as I dislike the US Prez & his cadre of chicken hawks, I believe there were WMD & chemical weapons in Iraq at one time, and when Bush's rhetoric heated up they were moved to other countries. Also if you look at the geography of the region you realize that one of the next logical place for the Taliban an Al Quaida operatives to go when fleeing Afghanistan is Iraq. A light bulb moment-could it be that Bushies used to the wrong argument to further their ill-timed and conceived invasion of Iraq-it was Al Quaida, stupid-not WMD. At some point in time we would have had to confront Saddam because eventually he would have allied himself with the terrorists, but first we should have one priority, the elimination of Al Quaida. The chicken-hawks in the Pentagon and Ms Rice never calculated the depths of Anti-American feelings in Iraq even without big bad Saddam.

All nations act in their own interests and the post war mentality of big brother American who must be obeyed is no longer germane. That was the message DeGaulle sent us in the late 50s and 60s-Thank you for saving our ass (again)but now get outta our face. In a bottom line world, we should realize and accept that France & Germany are sovereign nations not our flunkies. The second tragedy of 9-11 is that as a result of the cold blooded murder of innocent civilian by terrorists we had most of the democratic world by our side and the support of the American people. By allowing this support to be minamilized by divisive domestic policies, a stupid economic game plan and international blunders, George Bush, big Dick Cheney and their minions have frittered away their political capital. If after this election, Big Dick's Halliburton becomes the 51st State and does for the US Government by taking over most Federal agencies by contracting out, what it is doing in Iraq, our economy will suffer and VA, Social Security and other Government funds will be used to prop up a dying economy and most vets & pensioners will be forced to go on the dog food and Ripple diet aka the South Bronx diet. Hopefully I can get to St Helier's country or Canada before this happens and I can escape gulag Ashcroft. Even Ms Rosephilia would be better for the world then this bunch of hypocrites and religious zealots. Its gonna be a real George Pal production folks, the zealots of the right here in the good ol' boy US of A vs the equally fanatic religious zealots of the Muslim world. In the words of the noted philosopher Samuel Goldfish aka Goldwyn, "Include me out".

-- Joe "Beppe" Rosenberg "Furious Shepherd" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de...

Despite your plea to not prolong this thread (today was the first time I even bothered to open up the series), let me agree wholeheartedly.

Alt.food.wine is an exceptional rarity in Usenet in that it stays close to the topic, doesn't degenerate into name-calling flame wars and provides a wonder exchange of information from a lot of very knowledgeable folks.

International relations happens to be the field of one of my graduate degrees. I've got an intense interest in the subject. But, that means that I'm usually appalled by the over-simplification and rants of the general public.

Wine is international (see I got back to topic finally!) and I judge it on the merits of the product, not the politics of the local government. I'm an equal opportunity employer when it comes to enjoying the wines of the world.

I buy tires, cheese, whisky (no "e"), cars, beer, wine and a host of other products based on their quality and value.

Unfortunately, last night I was reduced once again to Rex Goliath PN, probably as penance for cancelling an order for some '03 Bordeaux futures yesterday AM. It wasn't a political move, it was an economic one--couldn't see having the money tied up for two years waiting for something that I might be too old to drink. Did, however, order a couple of cases of '01 Bordeaux that I saw recommended in last Friday's Wall Street Journal.

Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled" "Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights" Both from Smithsonian Books

I have not commented on this thread, not because I disagree with Ian but because that is my usual (almost) reaction to OT posts and any comments just serve to prolong these things. I thoroughly agree with Ed and I hope that my extensive snipping does not offend.

It often amazes me that everyone (apart from those of us in Australia) forgets that it was a *3-partner* coalition.

Australia was also a member of the initial coalition. Just thought I'd point that out. I didn't agree with it, but that's another story.

Ian, I have always found your posts to be informative and polite. I have even seen you make many pro-American posts (one or two of which I've had to control myself from replying politically). I doubt you were being deliberately political, rather ambassadorial.

Anyway, the point is, for what its worth, you've made great contributions to the group, you've often voiced pro-American sentiments (just in case any believes you are anti-US generally), and gently reprimanded others for not controlling their political posts. I even recall you every year wishing everyone a happy 4th of July etc etc etc.

So from an occaisional visitor, and *very* minor contributor, good on you and thanks for all the great posts we all I'm sure enjoy greatly.