No Bull

Dry Wine, Sweet Time

Madrid in 24 Hours

By Don Merlot

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

One of my most exciting days ever was in Madrid when, within 24 hours and accompanied by a friend, I saw a bullfight, ate paella marinara with a magnificent Rioja tinto, and saw a Flamenco show at the famous coral de las Morrerias –- a famous tablado flamenco, club that was owned by a childhood friend.

I left Chicago for Madrid on a Friday night and was met in Madrid by an old friend on Saturday morning. I went to the hotel and napped for a few hours. I wanted to make sure I did not get caught in a jet-lag cycle. And by bull fight time I was ready to go. We went to a tapas place that offered my favourite -- Angulas al Ajillo and had a dry sherry, Tio Pepe. What a way to start a day. We discussed the next 24 hours.

I grew up in Mexico City, and my parents took me often to the bullfights. I appreciate them now, and didn't when I was young. But I did to see 'El Cordobes' do a Mano-a-Mano with Carlos Arruza in the Plaza de Toros de Mexico. As a young, impressionable person, I loved Spain and everything about it, as I loved Mexico and the United States of America. Spain in Mexico was the Madre Patria -– the motherland of Mexico and Latin America. To see the tussle between Spain and Mexico, or Mexico and the USA, and or the USA and Britain was not that transparent when I was growing up. All the countries were equal, and we were proud to be part of their history.

Chile: Another View

Being Right Doesn't


President Pinera on Obama: 'Life is tough --
 and you have to be tougher than life
to change the world.

 Always Mean Being Right
By Arianna Huffington
[The Huffington Post]
Brasilia, Brazil
Olá from the capital of Brazil! (I had to drop the "h" when I flew in from Chile). My short South American trip is in full swing, and my head is spinning -- counter-clockwise, of course.

The thing that has turned my head is not the north-south dichotomy but the way the familiar political line between left and right is blurred down here. Again and again I've been struck with the ways that Chile and Brazil, the two countries I'm visiting on this trip, have, on key issues, transcended the tired division between left and right the United States seems hopelessly mired in.

This isn't to say, of course, that the traditional political spectrum has magically ceased to exist down here, but both countries have narrowed the range of issues to be hashed out in the left/right sandbox and widened the range of issues that have become part of the national agenda -- beyond partisan gamesmanship. This is the exact opposite of what has been going on in the United States.

In the U.S., there is now hardly an issue that is exempt from the toxic left/right battles -- not even a bill to take care of the health of 9/11 first responders.

And in contrast to the assumption sweeping Washington that, as Tom Friedman put it, "America is only able to produce 'suboptimal' responses to its biggest problems," at virtually every stop on my South American trip I've encountered the can-do optimism that has for centuries been at the heart of the American dream.

It reinforced the feeling that a country's spirit has less to do with absolute conditions on the ground than with the perception of whether things are getting better or worse. And in Chile and Brazil, the perception is that things are definitely getting better. Indeed, a 2009 Gallup study found that Chileans and Brazilians expect that their lives five years from now will be significantly better than their lives today.

Chile is led by a president from the right, Brazil by a president from the left. But both have transcended stereotypes and shibboleths in order to tackle hard problems.

The first stop on my trip was Santiago, Chile, where I interviewed President Sebastián Piñera. Piñera is a first in many ways -- most obviously, he's the first right-wing president Chileans have elected in the two decades since Pinochet. He's a billionaire; the third richest man in Chile; a former professor with a Ph.D. from Harvard whose thesis was entitled "The Economics of Education in Developing Countries"; and he relaxes by, among other things, skydiving and flying helicopters.

We are only a few minutes into our interview in the blue room outside his office, dominated by a huge painting by the Chilean surrealist Matta, when he tells me: "By the end of this decade, we want Chile to be the first country in South America to have eliminated poverty, to have closed the gap in income between rich and poor, and to be recognized as a developed -- not a developing -- economy." A moment later, he adds: "Instead of just talking about poverty, we are working to defeat it. I always say, 'judge us on our results and achievements, not on our intentions.'"

To produce those results, he is putting more resources into overhauling his country's education system. "Nothing is more important," he told me. "We will win the battle against poverty in the classroom."

Piñera's urgency is accentuated by the knowledge that, in keeping with Chile's constitution, he can only serve one term at a time. When, in a conversation with his wife Cecilia Morel at lunch the following day, I remark on his intensity, the First Lady laughs: "Yes, I know. I've lived with it every day for 37 years! He recharges by working. I, on the other hand, need silence and time by myself."

Piñera took office on the heels of a catastrophe. His inauguration came less than two weeks after the devastating February 2010 earthquake and tsunami that killed over 500 Chileans, leveled or severely damaged 4,000 schools, and left 2 million Chileans homeless. Piñera tried to put the devastation in perspective for me. "The economic damage is equal to 18 percent of Chile's gross domestic product," he said. "In comparison, the cost of Katrina was less than one percent of America's GDP."

Seven months later, 33 miners became trapped in the San José mine -- a twist of fate that tested his leadership and became a defining moment for his country and his presidency.

In the beginning, his advisers told him to keep his distance from the disaster, lest he be too closely connected to what was almost certainly going to be a tragic outcome. But Piñera disregarded their advice, listening instead to what, in uncharacteristic language for a head of state, he describes as "my inner voice." And he attacked the crisis with his signature verve. When his experts offered him three different strategies for rescuing the trapped miners, he ordered them to do all three at the same time. "That," he told me, "is what I would do if it were my children in the mine."

The triumphant rescue has helped rebrand Chile and Piñera. When I talked with rescued Chilean miner #21 Yonni Barrios (he was the one with the wife and mistress both holding vigil outside the mine), he said of the president: "I didn't vote for Piñera, but if he were running again I definitely would. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be alive." I later asked Barrios what his New Year's resolution is. "I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore. I take life one hour at a time."

Piñera's outlook is more long-range -- and unfailingly optimistic. During our talk, he repeatedly used the phrase "the sky's the limit" when talking about Chile's prospects. It's a far cry from the Obama administration's fervent embrace of "politics as the art of the possible."

When I ask Piñera about President Obama, he pauses for a moment then tells me: "Life is tough -- and you have to be tougher than life to change the world."

And Piñera is intent on changing, if not the world, at least Chile. And he's willing to cross traditional ideological boundaries to do so. If his focus on poverty makes him seem less like a conservative businessman-turned-politician and more like a traditional South American social democrat, he'll tell you that's only because you are listening with tired ears. "We've got to move beyond the idea that the public and private sectors are at odds," he told me. "Government has to lay the groundwork for private equity to productively invest in things like education. It's a partnership, not a battle."

Piñera has now been in office nine months and has wasted no time in letting the country -- and his own government -- know that he's determined to get things done. In February, before he even took office, at a press conference announcing his ministers, he gave each of them a computer drive containing his policy goals, which he hung around their necks.

It reminded me of the sticker Winston Churchill would place at the top of urgent items: "ACTION THIS DAY."

To avoid conflicts of interest, Piñera required his ministers to step down from any positions they held in private companies (although he's been criticized for taking too long to do the same). And to make sure they stayed in touch with the people, he's got each of his ministers twittering, and has a young, energetic social media team that I met with at the Palacio de La Moneda, where his office is.

But it's not just on economic issues that Piñera breaks the left/right mold. In August, a regional commission gave the go-ahead for the international company Suez Energy to develop a coal-fueled thermoelectric power plant near a Chilean nature reserve. Environmental groups protested. Piñera intervened and scuttled the development.

And when I met with Antonio Patriota, Brazil's incoming Foreign Minister, he told me that Piñera had "surprised everyone" when, soon after taking office, he sided with Brazil and other countries in pressuring Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, a conservative who came to power in a military coup, to not attend a EU-Latin America-Caribbean Summit. The assumption that Chile's first right-wing leader since Pinochet would side with Lobo was turned on its head, with Piñera saying he wouldn't attend the conference if Lobo was there, since he didn't consider him the leader of "a legitimate government." (It's worth noting that Chile, like the U.S., has since recognized Lobo's government.)

From the Palacio de La Moneda I went to Bellavista, the neighborhood where Pablo Neruda lived. Over 30 years ago, I had read in Neruda's essay "Childhood and Poetry" a passionate summing up of empathy as a guiding principle both for life and for politics.

"To feel the intimacy of brothers," Neruda wrote, "is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and weaknesses -- that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things."

And this widening out of the boundaries of our being is what turns statecraft into soulcraft. And as Piñera has so far demonstrated, it is definitely beyond left and right.

Gallery

Chile Caliente!

Easter Island? No, Santiago center

Salvadore Allende

What was that about sleeping dogs?

On Guard

In front of the Presidential Palace, Moneda 

A Banner Day

Photos: Writers Clearinghouse

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Don Francisco National Treasure

 Without Mobiles and Table Napkins,
Chile Eases into New Age

By Richard Carreño
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
Santiago, Chile
Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda.
Author Isabel Allende.
Chilean and South American 'liberatador' Bernardo O'Higgins.
President and freedom fighter Salavador Allende.
President and labour champion Eduardo Frei.
Michelle Bachelet, the first democraticaly-elected female president in South America.

That was then.

In the new Chile, South America's and the world's southern-most country (and, yes, pepper-shaped), the biggest name on the national stage today is none other than native-born Mario Luis Kreutzberger. Mario, who?

To world-wide Hispanic television audiences, that would be, of course, mega-personality 'Don Francisco,' the loud-mouth, blow-hard host of El Sabado Gigante, the hugely popular weekly TV variety show that blankets Latin America from its Miami-based production home like a mushy Ricky Martin singing tour.

The show? Think I-Love-Lucy-'Honey,-I'm-Home-humour combined with curvaceous, pulchritudinous young women in tight frocks. And the somewhat tawdry, salacious over-the-hill El Don as leering jefe-in-chief. But Chilean? Who knew?

For me, not until earlier this month when my mountain-climbing son Justin (he was en route to an Argentine peak) and I visted, on a late spring sojourn, this capital city, Santiago de Chile; Valparaiso, the country's historic Pacific port city; and Vina del Mar, a Pacific beach resort easily likened to the best of Cote d'Azur playlands. (Mid-day temperatures hovered in the 80s). I had always pegged the paunchy 70-year-old El Don as Mexican, as Dominican, even as Cuban, at best. But hardly someone who would mirror the European beau ideal tipo who personifies the suave Chilean caballero.

'Chil-lay,' a land that stretches rubber band thin from Peru in the north to Cape Horn in the south, is, as they say, a study in contrasts. And shares an eerie unanimity. Its citizens, united by a semi-official national slogan, 'Chile. Un Solo Corazon' ('Chile. A Single Heart'), practice a kind navel-gazing solipsism that's almost an art form. Never mind the national obsession with fast food. (More on these topics later).

In all, consider this place a modern, 21st-century enigma: A country hamstrung by a curious history of banana republic turbulence and the physic powers of geographic isolation. (By land, the Andes virtually landlock the country).

Mostly, Chile is a nation that the rest of world hardly ever sees -- unless there's an occasional mining disaster (even the recent month-long epic hardly made a dent in international perceptions or understanding); the unfortunate trope of a strong-man dictator overthrowing democracy (the late General Augusto Pinochet and his military thugs deposing President Allende in 1973); or the infrequent recognition of its literary stature by a faraway country such as Sweden (Neruda's laureate in 1971).

Still, Chile is also a place which prides itself on its strong Spanish colonial patrimony and deep European roots. Immigrants, many from Germany, France, and Italy, flowed into the country in the 19th century when Valparaiso was South America's chief Pacific port city. European Jews came later -- in the diaspora fostered by fears of Nazi terror.

Local arts are also flourishing, including opera, theatre, and symphony, all offered at the Teatro Municipal, and all, oddly, short of world-class stature. Polo, as is the case in neighbouring Argentina, also has a strong following.

Among these strengths, the Museo de Bellas Artes is a stunning disappointment. Though housed in an elegant early 20th-century beaux arts building, the museum's collection is thin and badly curated. (A current exhibit of photographs is, in a de facto way, even 'curated' by the German government. The show, by German photographers, has been mounted by Goethe House, a government cultural agency. How lazy is that?)

Santiago, with a head count of about 5 million, a whopping third of Chile's total population, can tout affluent self-confidence, architectural vigour, and historical grandeur. Since its founding in 1541 by Conquistador Pedro de Valdiva, Santiago has grown from a outpost of Spanish conquest to the dynamic high-rise city of today. Meantime, aligned with Buenos Aires, Argentina, it has become the regional transportation hub of this part of the southern hemisphere.

The city's public transportation system, marked by a sprawling bus and subway system, is arguably Latin America's best. Its rubber-wheeled subway, or Metro, is the continent's largest in number of daily passengers (2.4-million) and in the size of its network -- and it rivals any similar system worldwide.

Getting around is equally safe, efficient, and cheap (an adult one-way Metro fare is about $1), and its 101 stations easily access top spots for visitors (the Moneda, the presidential palace where Salvadore Allende shot himself rather than surrender to Pinochet); the Plaza de Armas, the chief urban square; Santa Lucia, spectacular urban gardens overlooking the city; and the Biblioteca National which, unlike the Museo de Bellas Artes, gets it right.

Innovation is also a hallmark. Metro cars are not self-contained tubes, divided by sliding doors connecting car to car. Rather than this industry standard, the norm in North America and Europe, carriages are open-ended through the total length of the train length, on average about 10 cars. However shameless, even Metro's advertising has flare: Some entire trains are shrink-wrapped. The train I caught on several occasions was the Coca-Cola special. Even all interior ads were for Coke.

Stations, many decorated with art, are spotless.

Not surprising, in that all public spaces in Santiago are groomed, pruned, and immaculate. The city even deploys street cleaners whose duties include chipping away gum embedded in pavements.

For Americans, life in Chile provides an added bonus: Chile is one of the few countries where the American greenback is strong, about 500 pesos to the dollar. The result, even for a skint writer like myself, is that, in Chile, I'm a 'millionaire.'


Yet, despite all of Chile's virtues, there is also something sadly evocative about a national character that embraces the buffoonish Don Francisco, a caricature in himself, as a national model. Francisco is a pervasive advertising fixture, barking everything from a mobile phone company, to a home products chain, to the maker of feminine products. Most telling is Don Francisco's role as the host of the nation's annual televised telethon on behalf of handicapped children. His face is plastered on posters throughout the country, ostensibly promoting the 'teleton.'


No doubt, Francisco's role -- something like that of Jerry Lewis and his Labor Day telethon in the United States -- is a selfless act. But there's also a kind of huckerism associated with the teleton. Even an unseemly festive air surrounding it, as was the case for 48 hours earlier this month, when Francisco and other personalities tugged at the national heartstrings as they sang, danced, and pleaded for donations. Even President Sebastian Pinera, a US dollar billionaire, showed up. He gave a speech. "If not now, when? If not us, who?' (For real. He said that).

The teleton is almost a national obsession, underscoring what I and others I spoke with agreed is a kind of inwardness shared by the nation at large. For two days, Christmas was trumped. A pending strike by Metro workers was thrust off the front pages. Never mind international news. Other than for sports, overseas events get little coverage. CNN is Chile based. Fox is Chile based. During teleton days, both networks were all Don Francisco all the time.

'Chileans are very self-centred,' an Australian educator, in Chile for almost two years, told me. 'To them, Chile isn't part of South America. There's Chile and there's South America.'

In small measures and in significant ways, Chileans -- despite their seeming refinement -- seem to be a people myopic to a larger world. Though diverse in ethnic and racial makeup, hardly any native -- even in the capital of Santiago and in a tourist town like Vina del Mar -- speaks English. My hotel concierge was hard-pressed to do 'Good Morning,' much less offer directions in any comprehensible form of English. Picture Indiana with palm trees.


As remarkable, during my week-long stay, I spotted only about a half-dozen native English-speakers. Maybe. Though I had many conversations and interviews, I had only one in English, with that Australian educator, who I had simply bumped into at a Starbucks near my hotel.

Worse, newspapers and magazines on newsstands are all Chilean.

By now it's a cliche that everyone reads news on the Internet. Yet, there's something unsettling, especially for a newspaper reader of my -- er, older -- generation, about being in a huge capital city (in many ways so otherwise cosmopolitan) with the public reading habits of Akron, Ohio.

Until Santiago, I'd yet to be any Western capital where the International Herald-Tribune wasn't on offer. Moreover, this homey journalistic orientation didn't just exclude Anglophone publications. As far as I could tell, even Argentine and Spanish periodicals don't see daylight.

What this means for political discussion and rivalry in the marketplace of ideas is less than sanguine. I found only one political satire weekly, The Clinic, on newsstands. (It was named sardonically, in English, after The Clinic, a English rehab institution which was Pinochet's home away from home while the British government diddled with his deportation status).

In fact, 20 years on since the rebirth of democracy here, there still seems to be low-grade tolerance of, if not for the overt apparatus of an authoritarian state, at least for some of its trappings. The brown-uniformed Carabineros of Chile, the national police force that had been a bedrock element in the Pinochet junta, still provide an uncomfortable -- even a menacing --presence, something akin to that intangible, creepy feeling that Franco's Guardia Civil used to exude in Spain.

It's not surprising, given the country's singularly mono-linguistic emphasis, that governmental and commercial efforts to accommodate a polyglot tourism base range from slim to none. The main tourism office is located in upmarket eastern barrio, Providencia. (Something like Beverly Hills, with pedestrians). No tourist materials are in sight, however. One requests maps, etc. A satellite, yes, satellite, office, located downtown at the Plaza de Armas, doesn't even stock the maps. A tour I wanted to join had been canceled.

Moreover, it took almost three days of poking about before I found a shop offering time-honoured tourist gear. (A 'I Love Chile' t-shirt and the like).

It took me less than a day to realise that something was horribly wrong when I waded through the mid-day throngs around the Plaza de Armas. Young women were actually talking to each other. Businessmen actually seemed to go to lunch appointments to converse. In other words, also welcome to a world where the mobile phone still has not conquered all.

I never did find anything approaching a decent shopping street, a Fifth Avenue or Walnut Street, say, anywhere in centre city. (There is a Brooks Brothers branch in a mall in Las Condes, a swank neighbourhood of gated communities and villas on the city's eastern outskirts).

What's even more remarkable in a city of 5 million - and a Latin one, as well -- is that restaurants are hard to find. Proper restaurants. With tablecloths. Offering three-course meals. Virtually all restos are fast-food joints, ranging from McDonalds, to home-grown variants like The Coffee Factory, to fast-food dives that just so happen to have waiters. (Piccolo Italia was one of these).

Highlighting Chilean dining is another peculiarity -- no linen napkins. All restaurants -- that is, all restaurants -- provide only paper servilletas, the size of cocktail napkins. If you're like me, figure on about 10 of these for a typical meal. Or, as some foreigners are said to do, bring your own 'linen' napkin when eating out.

I can disspell the truth of one Chilean habit, the country's alledged addiction to instant coffee, particularly the Nescafe brand. I read this 'fact,' in a reputable, widely-circulated guide, while inflight from Panama, and I was instantly levitated from my stupor. 'When ordering coffee,' we first-time visitors were told, 'order the real thing by emphasising, "cafe, cafe" Otherwise, you'll probably be served wind up with Nescafe.'

True, I spent most of my coffee-drinking time at my nearby Starbucks (free WiFi). But even on my excursions to local cafeterias, mostly around the Plaza de Armas, I got the real deal. The exception: My four-star hotel, where my continental breakfast delivered by room service each morning featured Nescafe. (By the way, the hotel's WiFi cost a price-gouging $17 per day. Whither, Starbucks).
I finally figured it out. The Chileans don't really care. They didn't care whether I was a happy camper, or not. And they don't really care if you or any other norte americano tourist eventually shows up.

I should've known that as soon as I touched down at Santiago's Arturo Merino Benitz International Airport. Even before passport control and customs, I was steered to darkened area off to little-used area where I had to pay the tax, a $142 entrance fee. Cash, in dollars, would do nicely, I was told.

Does everyone pay? Not exactly. I could see why the Albanians might be targeted. It was a harmless gesture; they wouldn't be chartering planeloads anytime soon. Americans? Of course. Goes without saying. But Canadians! What in God's name had the Canadians done to bring down the wrath of the Chilean people?

Fly on the Wall

Fine Local Wines, from Canada,

South American 'Cone,' to USA West Coast

By Don Merlot
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

Montevideo, UruguayI've been busy going from port to port collecting new wine growth news. Wine in general where ever I go is doing well in the Americas (the New World) menus. There is a vibrant feeling from the Pacific Northwest (North America) to the Southern Atlantic (South America) that wine expectations are focused on value and pocket book budgets. But quality is still first.

During a recent trip to Canada, I ran into a very pleasant wine country. Canadian wine vineyards in Kalowna, BC, are really flexing their muscles and vineyards have tripled in the last 36 months. On my first visit to Penticton, BC, I will never forget dropping out of the Rockies and coming to the Okanagan Lake and marveling what a beautiful patch of nature.

For geographers looking for new terroir (wine) targets here we were at that 50th parallel in Central British Columbia. One could be in Switzerland or Germany and see such a patchwork of wineries. This sitting, no less, next to northern Washington State and Idaho. (We recall that the 50th parallel crosses Europe where Champagne and Alsace are located in France.) That does not guarantee success, but it is an excellent launching pad.

The Okanagan valley has one of the most beautiful settings on the lake and it is Paradise reincarnated.

Western Canada has become very pluralistic. Pan Asian food and wines are new in metro areas like Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. The varietals that are most sought after are the European stock types: Riesling, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. On the coast seafood is very popular, and times have added a splash of Asian spices and/or Indian spices. Okanagan vintners do not export a lot of their wine as it is consumed locally by the restaurants in Vancouver and Victoria.

There has been a large immigration into western Canada of Chinese, filipinos, Indians, and Pakistani. From the East Caribbean: Jamaican and Haitian. The great news for the wine drinker is that there is a Canadian wine that goes with each one of these cuisines. The reds are merlot, pinot noir, shiraz, and some great blends of shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. Taxes on wine are very high, but if you get a chance to visit or see a bottle from the Okanagan, despite cost, give it a second thought.

Grilling beef as in steaks and roasts that match up to wine and compete for world desire to have the right match up, then Canada has its perfect marriage in western Canada with the pinot noir of Quail Ridge and Alberta beef tenderloin. This especially, in the US and Canada where the famous Alberta beef matches up with the best reds of the West.

My next stop was in Uruguay, not knowing what to expect. I tried hard to get rid of any preconception I had about the southern part of South America. El Cono or the cone -– Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, and Paraguay. Castilian speakers are aware of the double “l” and “Y” sound differences, and need to remember to focus on the differences –- and not the similarities.

On my visit to Montevideo, I was introduced to another first for me. During my first lunch, I was introduced to a new grape: I was served the varietal Tannat with Uruguay’s noble Bife parillada, the national dish. It was a huge wine, and I experienced a wine epiphany –- a muscular, but not an over powering red. I had plenty of tannin, but, at the same time, it was a smooth as silk. The chef -– master chef -– prepared a meal for a king. Beef tenderloin made “al punto” (to the point) “con poco de sangre.” Truly one of the best pieces of beef I have ever eaten. Though the the wine was, as I said, of the Tannat varietal, but I never heard of it. I had to wait to Google it.

Uruguayan vintners are betting that this wine will make this the No. 1 varietal of Uruguay wine and best match for its famous cuisines. I have the impression they are betting the farm on this one.

Argentina has its malbec, Chile has carmenere, and now Uruguay has the tannat. I thought of the USA and its choice of beef and wine: the culinary state duo and I think that all the experts got into an argument and nothing was decided. But I remember American wine back in the ‘70’s was pretty much Zinfandel. This was before some digital techie made sure analog guys lie me were told that this Zinfandel was primitivo.

California Zinfandel is without peer. Pimitivo is a blender and has no real character (today at least). But Zinfandel has made a comeback and 'to each his own.' If you're hosting a foreign guest, do not be afraid to serve him American beef paired with California Zinfandel.

French Basque immigrants to Uruguay brought Tannat with them from the southwest of France. It is found as the Madiran AC in French wine AOC hierarchy. It is rich and powerful, but very drinkable. The varietal has been used to blend with cabernet sauvignon. Uruguay vintners are creating a single grape varietal culture. In France, tannat is also used to make Armagnac, one of the finest brandies in the world.

My mentors taught me that I should learn something new every day. It certainly was a day to remember when I found a new wine in a country that was previously largely unknown to me. I researched the wine in libraries to learn more about the new wine, and recognized how difficult it must be for the wine purveyor, or the grower to market a new wine.

(Don Merlot, the pen name of Ron Alonzo, is a Chevalier, Confrérie Des Chevaliers du Tastevin, depuis 1991; and a Professionnel de la Table, Chaine des Rotisseurs).