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The Spirit of Paris – The Spirit of France
The Spirit of Paris – The Spirit of France is not dead or diminished. It hasn’t been broken by the inHuman terrorist attacks. It glows and pulses. From Brittany to Corsica. It echoes through the bars and brasseries. Through office towers and supermarkets. It’s message is clear, proud and forceful : ”We refuse fear. ”
Yet, there are those in any crisis who will chose fear. Who will choose to live each moment of their lives dreading when and where the next bomb will go off.
But they are not the majority.Those who refuse fear know, to use my Father’s folksy phrase – ”You never know when you’re going to go.” Terrorism ? Car accident ? Heart attack ? Makes no difference does it ? The end result is the same.
And so, those who have chosen life – go on living it. While the fearful feed their paranoia. Much to the terrorist’s delight.
I’m often asked : ” When is the best time to visit France ?” My answer, always the same, has even more gravity after the events of November 13 : ”Whenever you’re ready.” France is.
See you in 2016 ?
Merry Christmas to all. And to all a good life.
Throw me a bone here people !
What are ya thinkin’ ?
Paris Attacks – The Take Away
Paris Attacks – The Take Away
The take way from the terrible Paris attacks is not that there are people who want to kill you because you don’t believe in their fairytale.
We’ve always had ”those people.” And the majority of these crazed killers are connected to Religion. (Royalty and Government usually being the ”supporting players.”)
Remember :
The ”’Crusades ? Christianity’s (unsuccessful) attempt to get the Arab World to bow down before the ”one true God ?”
The Hundred Years War between England and France ?
The Albigensian Crusade – A 20 year ”campaign” to snuff out the Cathar religion in France which culminated in the massacre of all the inhabitants of the town of Beziers. (pro –” bez-e-a”)
”Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt.”
Papal legate, the Abbot of Citeaux Arnaud Amalric, (from his letter to Pope Innocent 3.)
And today, when we’re rightly horrified each time a hostage is decapitated in prime time, never forget Charlemange, the ”Holy” Roman Emperor, decapitated 4000 Saxons in a single day.
To demonstrate to the remaining Saxons that Catholicism was the tribe for them . (Note : the remaining Saxons did get , and act upon, the message.)
Bottom Line : Crazy people who want to kill you, regardless of their motivation, have always been, and will always be, with us.
The Principal take away from the horrific Paris attacks is that civil liberties are the first casualities in a crisis. (Americans : can you say : ”Patriot Act ?”)
Example : Demonstrations (they’re called ”manifestations” here) against the current International Climate conference in France have been forbidden.
Yes, ”agitators/terrorists” could inflitrate the demonstration. But then, that’s a reality with any demonstration is it not ?
Other than throttling freedom of expression, (ie -”Liberty ”) is not the unspoken sub text here that given the massive security deployment at the conference, the Forces of law lack the confidence they could control an unruly crowd ?
The Environmentalists reponse to the Governments action was to place their shoes, in their place, in the Place du Republic. In effect, creating ”place holders for freedom of expression.”
Take Away : Your liberty is conditional. You have it on the conditions that your government feels it warrants. They can, and, will, take it away whenever it suits them.
By nuking your demonstration. Or the less visible, but more insidous ”security measures ”
Like tapping your phone, reading your email and/or surfing your bank account.
Winston Churchill once said : ”The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Got vigilance ?
THROW ME A BONE HERE, PEOPLE !
What are ya Thinkin’ ?
French Country Travel Life Hot Wine
French Country Travel Life Hot Wine is not the latest, greatest, trendy grape discovery. Nor is it the mulled wine with those marvy spices you’re used to imbibing during the festive seson. (I’m referring to Christmas, just in case there is more than one festive season in your World)
Nada. The French Country Travel Life Hot Wine is to be found in Bordeaux – where searing, scorching, baking, blasting, incendairy, and even higher than normal temperatures this summer have caused producers to search for another grape to replace the Merlot variety.
Which, like the majority of French Wines, is ripening earlier and earlier. The accusatory wine finger being pointed at the obvious suspect – Global warming.
My Wine-o-phile colleague Rudy Ruitenburg of Bloomberg Business has the heated lowdown: (his opening image btw. – nice shot dontcha think?)
In a vineyard on the outskirts of the world’s wine capital, Agnes Destrac, a researcher with France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research, points to shriveled merlot grapes, left to linger on the vine well past harvest time to simulate the effects of rising temperatures.
“You have to keep in mind the limits of the grape,” Destrac said. “We’re not going to keep merlot no matter what.”
A few years ago, such talk would have been heresy in a place where merlot vines cover more than 60 percent of the red-wine area. But now Destrac is at the forefront of a race to hunt for grapes that can better withstand heat, helping Bordeaux’s $4.2 billion wine industry adapt to a hotter world.
Merlot is Bordeaux’s earliest-ripening red, and its character would change if a warmer climate meant fully ripe berries in August rather than September, said Bernard Farges, a winemaker and president of the Conseil Interprofessionel du Vin de Bordeaux, the local wine board.
Overripe merlot loses its class and freshness, becoming “a fruit bomb with no hard edges,” Master of Wine Clive Coates wrote in his 2004 book, “The Wines of Bordeaux.”
An alternative ideally would yield a wine that still is typical of Bordeaux, Farges said. That means a deep red that’s easy to drink with meals, not too high in alcohol and elegant.
Reliable Producer
Farges is already looking for that grape. He’s experimenting with petit verdot, a traditional variety whose late and often unreliable ripening has held back its cultivation in the region. As temperatures increase and the grape becomes a more reliable producer, the variety can add tannins, color and flavor to Bordeaux reds.
France’s wine regions are organized in controlled designations of origin, known by their French acronym AOC, with rules on growing areas and grape types based on centuries of growing experience.
Global warming means tradition may have to go out the window. Bordeaux has heated up almost 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) since the 1980s, and more increases could push merlot outside its comfort zone. From Champagne in the north to the Rhone valley in the south, vines are flowering earlier and fruit is maturing more quickly than a generation ago.
In all four scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific intergovernmental body overseen by the United Nations, the region is expected to continue warming through 2050. In its scenario of rising greenhouse-gas emissions, average temperatures may be about 4 degrees higher than the 1975-2005 average by the end of the century.
Eight-Year Experiment
The Bordeaux wine board has asked to change the regulations of the AOC so growers starting in 2016 can try out grape varieties now barred under the label of the world’s most famous wine region. It’s proposing to add four red-wine grapes to the six allowed in the AOC as part of an eight-year experiment. The plantings would include regional varieties as well as Marselan, a cross between Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache developed in 1961.
At the research institute’s vineyard, 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) south of the wine board’s 18th century headquarters, Destrac oversees a plot of 52 grape varieties — including vines from Portugal, Greece and Italy — as part of the Vitadapt experiment. Touriga nacional, a grape from northern Portugal used in port wine, held up well despite heat waves this summer.
“Portuguese varieties could be good candidates,” said Destrac, who previously studied tomato genetics. “We know they can stand high temperatures and they’re on an ocean front.”
Counted, Crushed
Every week, she gathers grapes for analysis at the nearby Institut des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin, tracking sugar content as the fruit progresses. The berries are counted, weighed and crushed into juice that fills trays of test tubes with colors from pale yellow to deep red.
An extremely hot July pushed up sugar levels and reduced the acidity that provides freshness to wine, Destrac found.
Studying new varieties will give wine makers more tools to confront climate change — and with vineyards typically planted for 30 years, the time for research is now, said Vincent Cruege, wine maker at Chateau La Louviere in Bordeaux’s Pessac-Leognan appellation. To make great wines, you need to be at the northern growing limit for the variety, he noted.
But Cruege isn’t convinced that global warming presents as big a problem as others believe. While sugar content has changed in the past 25 years, that’s as much the result of new agricultural practices as warmer weather, he said. Pruning, defoliating and thinning out unripe bunches can control crop development, meaning overripe merlot isn’t his biggest concern.
“How we work the vines can have more effect than the vintage,” said Cruege, who started out as a trainee at domain La Louviere more than 25 years ago and became head oenologist for owner Vignobles Andre Lurton in 2013.
Changing Environment
Even so, winemakers “will have to manage a changing environment,” said Herve Le Treut, a lead author for the most recent report by the intergovernmental climate-change panel. “Nature reacts extremely strongly to changes in temperature. We’ll need to know, for various wine-grape varietals and cultivation methods, what has to be preserved, at what price.”
THROW ME A BONE HERE, PEOPLE!
What are ya thinkin’?
