2007-03 Vital Source Mag – March 2007
South America’s outstanding wine oddities
By Nate Norfolk There is a glut of inexpensive South American wine and just about every other grape-growing region in the world. The best thing about this is that consumers have wider access to inexpensive wine. The down side is that a lot of the inexpensive wine is either just plain bad or redundant and boring. The bulk of South American wine coming in to the U.S. is definitely on the cheap side, but if you are a little adventurous you can find some truly unique bargain wines. Chile and Argentina are good places to find them. Although these two countries are regarded as relative newcomers to our retailers’ shelves, they have been producing wine for hundreds of years. A brief version of a long history The grape vines of Chile and Argentina were planted by missionaries who came from Spain with the conquistadors in the mid-sixteenth century. As the country’s population expanded, wine production moved from the church to European plantation owners. It was so successful by the early 1800s that the North and South American wines imported to Europe began to affect the Spanish wineries. The Spanish government took action to protect the wine industry there. All across Mexico and South America, vineyards were uprooted and heavy taxes were placed on those remaining. This all but destroyed the wine industry in Mexico, but Chile and Argentina continued to produce wines commercially. Argentina Argentina is the fifth largest wine producer in the world, and its star red grape is called Malbec. Originally from southwestern France, it is used in small amounts in the red wines of Bordeaux and as the main component of a rather obscure French wine called Cahors. Although many will argue that Malbec is Argentina’s finest grape varietal, other reds and whites are being successfully introduced, notably Cabernet Sauvignon and the mysteriously floral, yet dry white grape Torrontes. Malbec wines from Argentina taste a lot like Merlot wines made elsewhere, though with the current Merlot backlash that may not be a great selling point. When you taste a Malbec wine for yourself, you will likely encounter a full-bodied wine with a soft mouth feel full of soft silky tannins and dried fruit flavors. There will be plenty of black currant, cassis and red fruit flavors like plums and berries as well as hints of black pepper and other spicy notes. A really good Malbec wine is something to behold. Chile In Chile, almost half the grapes planted are Cabernet Sauvignon, but other reds and whites are grown there, the most important being the red Carmenere. The history of Carmenere wines is similar to that of Malbec. Both were once prominent in France, both were brought to South America in the mid 1800s by the French and both have become a very important part of South American wine-making. They also have both fallen out of favor in their native country of France and are only produced in extremely small quantities anywhere outside of South America. That’s where […]
Mar 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
The Higher
That maddest of alchemists, the music industry, has managed to seamlessly spin the two most popular genres from the two most dominant high school cliques (punks and preps) into SoundScan gold: the Mallpunk Boy Band, personified by fresh-faced and darling (but edgy and badass) kids like Good Charlotte and Fall Out Boy. And now, Epitaph Records has jumped into the game with The Higher, a competent quintet of lads who expertly paint by numbers with their debut, On Fire. This has the makings of a top seller, so I suppose it’s hard to blame Epitaph, formerly home to politically-charged, socially relevant punk rock like Bad Religion, for releasing something this languid and dispassionate. The performances are solid, the production slick, the hooks not out of place on a Justin Timberlake album. The Higher are destined for commercial success, sure to dominate the Warped Tour mid-card for years (and getting close—so close!—to finally headlining over Motion City Soundtrack). And good for them. Having Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump remix one of their tracks (“Pace Yourself” ) won’t hurt, either. It just sounds like a band looking to cash in. With On Fire, one must, at the very least, hope that the kids discovering punk rock through bands like this will take note of the label releasing them, stumble upon Bad Religion and look back at this release with the critical eye of a suddenly more seasoned listener. Perhaps then they will file The Higher away as a band that served their purpose: a junior-high gateway drug to music with substance. Then, in their own special way, The Higher will have mattered. VS
Mar 1st, 2007 by DJ Hostettler
Strong medicine for the healthcare access crisis?
By Ted Bobrow When Governor Jim Doyle laid out his health care proposal during his State of the State address in January, he dramatically transformed the debate about health care in Wisconsin. He summed it up succinctly: “The simple truth is, the time has come for the wealthiest nation in the world to provide access to affordable, comprehensive health insurance for its citizens – and Wisconsin can lead the way.” It’s an attractive scenario and perhaps very timely. Health care in today’s United States is truly Dickensian: the best of worlds and the worst of worlds. For the very wealthy and for people with good health insurance, there is practically no limit to the quality of available care. Double, even quadruple bypass surgeries are routine. Many cancers can be detected early enough to be treated completely. And promising new treatments are in the works for neurological disorders like epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and depression. What a wonderful world we live in, eh? Well, some of us do. In reality, the U.S. is a nation of haves and have-nots, where 47 million people, including 9 million children, have no health insurance. For many in this group, paying out-of-pocket for a routine mammogram or even going to an emergency room at the onset of chest pains is not an option. And the problem is only likely to get worse. With the cost of health care and the insurance to pay for it escalating at twice the rate of inflation and the primary U.S. employment base shifting from large companies to small (less than 100 employees), fewer and fewer employers are able to offer decent health coverage. Early innovations in our own state served as the model for the nation’s current system of unemployment insurance. The time may be right to turn Wisconsin’s progressive tradition towards the problem of the uninsured. The Clinton plan: a costly lesson While access to basic medical care would seem to be a need most appropriately addressed at the federal level, neither the President nor Congress have shown much interest in comprehensive health care reform since Bill and Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated attempt in the early 90s. When President Clinton took office in 1993, he identified health care as the first big challenge of his presidency and he appointed his wife to head a task force to come up with a solution. First Lady Hillary Clinton, now a senator from New York and the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, assembled a group of the nation’s leading thinkers on health care and got to work. The Clinton task force eventually put forth a proposal that sank like a stone. There were many reasons for this failure, but the most instructive of all was that the Clintons did not build adequate support for the proposal among several key stakeholders including, incredibly, Congress and the American people. The Clinton proposal was complicated, and it became an easy target for opponents, most notably health insurance companies and small businesses, who […]
Mar 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Trouble
By Matt Wild Asked why he decided to dismantle The Pixies, frontman Frank Black once replied that when another bandmate’s lifestyle “starts to irritate you,” it becomes virtually impossible to be in the same room as that person, much less share a stage together. Black was no doubt referring to bassist Kim Deal, whose unexpected mainstream success with The Breeders almost certainly drove him absolutely ape-shit. Likewise, my recent source of irritation – my very own Kim Deal, if you will – has been nothing less than this entire city. I’ve been irritated by the constant closing/opening of restaurants, the conversational shorthand brought on by winter weather, the unspoken disdain of friends and colleagues. I’ve been annoyed with the shoddy state of local weeklies and bored to tears by the meager accomplishments of our hipster elite. I’ve been so desperate for a cure, so anxious for an all-purpose salve that I recently decided to face my fears head-on. Like those episodes of Maury where he cures a guest’s irrational fear of mustard with – you guessed it! – a giant fucking bowl of mustard, I decided to break my anti-Milwaukee funk by attending the single most irritating event I could find: a home-brewed burlesque show. Following a few hours spent at the Nut Factory open house (Kyle Fitzpatrick’s paintings – all the size and texture of burnt-out Buicks – are particular standouts), I’m dropped off at Mad Planet for the Pixel Pussy Ski, Sky and Stage Show. Sponsored by Blam! Blam! – a local publication that provides readers the unique pleasure of seeing full color photographs of their friends and former roommates giving each other head – the scene is pretty much what one would expect: some low-rent fetish gear, a bunch of free lube and condoms (so naughty!), awful music and a $10 cover. No matter, I think, a few stiff drinks and a sharp blow to the skull will be all that’s needed to spice things up. Hell, maybe I’ll even strike up a conversation with the guy wearing a top hat and a strap-on. Notebook and camera in hand, I decide to hang up my coat and dig in for the long haul. It’s then that I see the sign: “Coat Check Begins At $10.” I stare at it dumbly, unable to process a $10 Mad Planet coat check, much less one that begins at $10. In fact, what kind of coat check begins anywhere? Are there better options – sturdier hangers, perhaps – in the $12-$15 range? Complimentary lint-removers? Free pony rides? And what is it about this sign – and now, suddenly, these people, these costumes, these affectations – that seems so horribly wrong, so overwhelmingly depressing? Out of respect for both Mad Planet and my own well-being, I decide to do the only thing a rational person would do after just forking over $10 to get into a local sex show: I leave. Flee, escape, haul ass is more like it, the bitter irritation […]
Mar 1st, 2007 by Matt Wild
