Grapegate

Someone is stealing the great grapes of Burgundy, according to the Burgundy wine bureau (BIVB). As reported in Decanter, there have now been four separate reports of thefts of grapes across the region. A possible motive underlying the crimes: the 2016 harvest, which has been so devastating (severe frost and hailstorms) that some vintners have 50% to 90% fewer grapes than in typical years.

What well known wine takes its name from Captain Cook on his voyage to the Southern Hemisphere in 1770?

A. Rosemount

B. Penfolds “Grange”

C. Cloudy Bay

D. YellowTail

Widely considered to be the wine that put New Zealand on the map as one of the world’s top wine regions, Cloudy Bay (the wine) is named after Cloudy Bay (the bay) at the eastern extremity of New Zealand’s south island. The bay was named by the head of the British Royal Navy, Captain James Cook (possibly the inspiration behind Captain Hook in Peter Pan). In 1766, the British Royal Society hired Cook to travel the Pacific Ocean. Cook later mapped the complete New Zealand coastline, becoming the first European to do so.

“It’s hard to talk about flavor. Tasting something is such a direct neural jolt; words will always seem clumsy and vague. ‘Spicy’ does not begin to express the riot of electrical fires sparking through your skull after you eat a Thai chile. ‘Sour’ hardly touches the way a fresh lemon grips your whole consciousness and squeezes until it weeps.

So we turn to metaphor. Elderflower kombucha is a bottled Scandinavian summer: mild, light, yellow, easy. Coconut water is a Caribbean afternoon. Chianti, as any sommelier will tell you, is the blood of a mortally wounded Vespa. … Coca-Cola is all the gallons of lighter fluid harvested from discarded Bics in the aftermath of a Bruce Springsteen concert.”

—René Redzepi and David Zilber in The Noma Guide to Fermentation (Artisan 2018)

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