Back in November 2009 Tahbilk was offering a Marsanne Trophy Six Pack for $115, three wines, two bottles each and remarkable value with two $45 bottles included. The day after the order arrived, this one appeared in Halliday's Hundred, which may explain why it took me so long to get to it...
Tahbilk 2000 1927 Vines Marsanne (5* 20 points $45) Almost transparent pale straw colour, but there's nothing pale or insipid about the nose or the flavour of this one. Complex notes of honeysuckle and citrus up front and a long finish mean that in Marsanne terms this is probably about as good as it gets. Still another bottle to go, probably somewhere around 2015....
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Rick Koster "Louisiana Music"
Under normal circumstances you'd expect to be finished a book before you set about writing a review, but I doubt that I'll ever be finished with Rick Koster's Louisiana Music.
With an interest in the music from around the mouth of the Mississippi that dates back to a various artists' compilation called Another Saturday Night, and Dr John's piano-powered R&B revival Gumbo, and progressed through the Meterfied fonk of In The Right Place and Robert Palmer's blue-eyes Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley, Professor Longhair and assorted bits and pieces, I've always wanted to explore the subject more thoroughly. There are gaps in the collection that could accommodate a transitory Mack truck.
The problem, of course, is always where to start, how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and if it's all good, sorting the stellar and sublime from the merely excellent.
Louisiana Music may not be the only reference volume out there, but it's the only one I've run across to date and certainly offers plenty of jumping off points for further investigation.
The subtitle: A journey from R&B to Zydeco, Jazz to Country, Blues to Gospel, Cajun music to Swamp Pop to Carnival Music and Beyond says it all really, as Koster, who's also the author of Texas Music, takes the reader through the genres one by one, starting with Jazz, as one might expect and moving through Rhythm & Blues, The Blues, Music of Southwest Louisiana (Cajun, Creole and Zydeco), Louisiana Rock and a final section labelled The Wondrous Sounds (Voodoo, Swamp Pop, Mardi Gras and Carnival, Gospel Country, Rap and Hip-Hop, Classical and World Music).
Within each section, he starts with the major names and then trawls back through their antecedents and successors, influences and legacy, linking each into the tradition they've emerged from and referencing the cross pollination you're going to find in a musical environment like Louisiana. At $9.99 for the Kindle version it's remarkable value as a reference and will be sitting on the iPad for the duration.
Unfortunately, 2000's Texas Music isn't available in the same format yet, but I'll be on the lookout for a copy (after I've got into tackling the backlog of music from Louisiana that needs to be explored, of course).
With an interest in the music from around the mouth of the Mississippi that dates back to a various artists' compilation called Another Saturday Night, and Dr John's piano-powered R&B revival Gumbo, and progressed through the Meterfied fonk of In The Right Place and Robert Palmer's blue-eyes Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley, Professor Longhair and assorted bits and pieces, I've always wanted to explore the subject more thoroughly. There are gaps in the collection that could accommodate a transitory Mack truck.
The problem, of course, is always where to start, how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and if it's all good, sorting the stellar and sublime from the merely excellent.
Louisiana Music may not be the only reference volume out there, but it's the only one I've run across to date and certainly offers plenty of jumping off points for further investigation.
The subtitle: A journey from R&B to Zydeco, Jazz to Country, Blues to Gospel, Cajun music to Swamp Pop to Carnival Music and Beyond says it all really, as Koster, who's also the author of Texas Music, takes the reader through the genres one by one, starting with Jazz, as one might expect and moving through Rhythm & Blues, The Blues, Music of Southwest Louisiana (Cajun, Creole and Zydeco), Louisiana Rock and a final section labelled The Wondrous Sounds (Voodoo, Swamp Pop, Mardi Gras and Carnival, Gospel Country, Rap and Hip-Hop, Classical and World Music).
Within each section, he starts with the major names and then trawls back through their antecedents and successors, influences and legacy, linking each into the tradition they've emerged from and referencing the cross pollination you're going to find in a musical environment like Louisiana. At $9.99 for the Kindle version it's remarkable value as a reference and will be sitting on the iPad for the duration.
Unfortunately, 2000's Texas Music isn't available in the same format yet, but I'll be on the lookout for a copy (after I've got into tackling the backlog of music from Louisiana that needs to be explored, of course).
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Stephen Booth "The Kill Call"
If there's an official checklist of things to do when you're embarking on a crime fiction series the first two items on the list probably involve finding an appropriate setting and a couple of characters whose interactions can give the author a constant subplot to work the investigations around.
As far as settings go, Stephen Booth has struck gold in Derbyshire's Peaks District, a jumble of villages and moorland with enough lanes, walking tracks, disused mine shafts and other under and above ground features to allow a plethora of ways in and out of crime scenes,means to dispose of bodies and so on.
On top of that, in a rural area close to major cities a constant stream of day-trippers and other passers-by provides plenty of potential suspects, victims and red herrings, and a mixture of well-heeled landed folk, wealthy refugees from the urban sprawl and secretive, cloistered villagers who more than likely have something to hide means that you’ve got plenty of potential on the ground regardless of blow-ins from outside.
Booth hasn't done too badly with his core characters either. Start with edgy city girl with nasty things in her past Diane Fry, who’s landed the Sergeant’s position local boy son of much-loved copper Ben Cooper was aspiring to, and throw in if it moves I can probably eat it bloke Gavin Murfin who mightn't add much to the investigative action but serves as a constant source of irritation for Fry as he does a lot of the foot-slogging associated with an investigation and you’ve got plenty to work with.
By the ninth story in a series you'd expect those elements to be more or less down pat, and might suspect the author's going to have difficulty adding new elements to the mix, but Booth manages it well, intertwining contemporary issues about fox hunting (plenty of room for conflict and potential suspects and motives there) and recent historical factors most of the population have conveniently forgotten about.
The discovery of the body of a man whose head has been crushed in one spot along with an anonymous call reporting the same body half a mile away is enough to get things off to a racing start, particularly when you've got a nearby gathering of the local hunt and horseshoe tracks all around the corpse.
As is the way of these things there are a couple of issues that muddy the waters. For a start there's an enigmatic diary that must have something to do with things, but it's not clear what that something is (at least, not at first) and a youthful loner who makes off with the dead man's wallet and mobile phone, but has nothing to do with the presumed murder.
The most obvious motive lies in the confrontational and occasionally violent world of hunting and hunt protesting saboteurs, and investigations reveal that the dead man is involved in shady dealings that probably involve horse theft and the meat trade. It would help greatly of Fry and Cooper were able to track down the dead man's accountant, but he seems to have gone to ground, and in the end, that's the way it turns out to be.
So, as the investigation meanders down a complex trail we have the odd entanglement creeping in there as well. Cooper's cat dies and needs to be replaced, and he's growing increasingly distant from the surviving members of his family. Diane Fry continues to have trouble with her past, which refuses to quietly recede into the background, and we get an introduction to the 'plague village' of Eyam (pronounced 'Eem', just to provide another means to underline the Diane Fry doesn't fit in with the local yokels theme) which is a contemporary tourist attraction.
Then there's the secondary theme that shows the oft-remembered sixties through a different perspective, a time as much about the threat of nuclear warfare and four-minute warnings as it was about Swinging London, Carnaby Street, peace, love and understanding.
As a series, this doesn't quite rate up there with my favourites, but it's good enough to warrant a check through the 'B' shelves at the local library and is something to watch for when scouring the el cheapo display at the local newsagent.
Not, in other words, the greatest thing since sliced bread, but a definite cut above a lot that's out there.
As far as settings go, Stephen Booth has struck gold in Derbyshire's Peaks District, a jumble of villages and moorland with enough lanes, walking tracks, disused mine shafts and other under and above ground features to allow a plethora of ways in and out of crime scenes,means to dispose of bodies and so on.
On top of that, in a rural area close to major cities a constant stream of day-trippers and other passers-by provides plenty of potential suspects, victims and red herrings, and a mixture of well-heeled landed folk, wealthy refugees from the urban sprawl and secretive, cloistered villagers who more than likely have something to hide means that you’ve got plenty of potential on the ground regardless of blow-ins from outside.
Booth hasn't done too badly with his core characters either. Start with edgy city girl with nasty things in her past Diane Fry, who’s landed the Sergeant’s position local boy son of much-loved copper Ben Cooper was aspiring to, and throw in if it moves I can probably eat it bloke Gavin Murfin who mightn't add much to the investigative action but serves as a constant source of irritation for Fry as he does a lot of the foot-slogging associated with an investigation and you’ve got plenty to work with.
By the ninth story in a series you'd expect those elements to be more or less down pat, and might suspect the author's going to have difficulty adding new elements to the mix, but Booth manages it well, intertwining contemporary issues about fox hunting (plenty of room for conflict and potential suspects and motives there) and recent historical factors most of the population have conveniently forgotten about.
The discovery of the body of a man whose head has been crushed in one spot along with an anonymous call reporting the same body half a mile away is enough to get things off to a racing start, particularly when you've got a nearby gathering of the local hunt and horseshoe tracks all around the corpse.
As is the way of these things there are a couple of issues that muddy the waters. For a start there's an enigmatic diary that must have something to do with things, but it's not clear what that something is (at least, not at first) and a youthful loner who makes off with the dead man's wallet and mobile phone, but has nothing to do with the presumed murder.
The most obvious motive lies in the confrontational and occasionally violent world of hunting and hunt protesting saboteurs, and investigations reveal that the dead man is involved in shady dealings that probably involve horse theft and the meat trade. It would help greatly of Fry and Cooper were able to track down the dead man's accountant, but he seems to have gone to ground, and in the end, that's the way it turns out to be.
So, as the investigation meanders down a complex trail we have the odd entanglement creeping in there as well. Cooper's cat dies and needs to be replaced, and he's growing increasingly distant from the surviving members of his family. Diane Fry continues to have trouble with her past, which refuses to quietly recede into the background, and we get an introduction to the 'plague village' of Eyam (pronounced 'Eem', just to provide another means to underline the Diane Fry doesn't fit in with the local yokels theme) which is a contemporary tourist attraction.
Then there's the secondary theme that shows the oft-remembered sixties through a different perspective, a time as much about the threat of nuclear warfare and four-minute warnings as it was about Swinging London, Carnaby Street, peace, love and understanding.
As a series, this doesn't quite rate up there with my favourites, but it's good enough to warrant a check through the 'B' shelves at the local library and is something to watch for when scouring the el cheapo display at the local newsagent.
Not, in other words, the greatest thing since sliced bread, but a definite cut above a lot that's out there.
Houghton 2007 C.W. Ferguson Cabernet Malbec
We weren't planning on getting to the Swan Valley when we headed west, so visits to Sandalford and Houghton were a bonus. I first encountered this wine in association with a Vinturi, and based on that experience was more or less forced to buy a half-dozen of these. The Vinturi prompted the purchase and the purchase in turn prompted the subsequent acquisition of a Vinturi.
Houghton 2007 C.W. Ferguson Cabernet Malbec (4.5* 19 points $41.25, at least that's what I paid) Deep purple-red colour, Cabernet varietal notes in the nose modified by the Malbec element. Massive. magnificent, still very young and in ten years time may well be rated at 20. Memo to self: There are five bottles left, get them into the wine fridge.
Houghton 2007 C.W. Ferguson Cabernet Malbec (4.5* 19 points $41.25, at least that's what I paid) Deep purple-red colour, Cabernet varietal notes in the nose modified by the Malbec element. Massive. magnificent, still very young and in ten years time may well be rated at 20. Memo to self: There are five bottles left, get them into the wine fridge.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Pfeiffer 2004 Riesling
Pfeiffer 2004 Riesling (4* $n/a) Arrived in the October 2009 C2 Club Dozen and stuck at the back of the wine fridge since, a check with the ubiquitous Halliday suggested that January 2011 was a bit past the drink-by date for a well-made but unremarkable Riesling, probably made from King Valley/Strathbogie Ranges fruit. Seven years in the bottle had certainly rounded out the youthful apple and tropical fruit notes he'd remarked on, and the aged Riesling characters weren't up there with some I've tried recently, but an interesting drink that suggests it's worthwhile sticking a few well-made Rieslings away even if they're not from a premium region. Provided you've got the cellar space, of course.
Friday, January 21, 2011
40: A Doonesbury Retrospective
I can't think of a better argument for the iPad as a reading platform than this hefty volume which at around 4.3kg moves the wrist-breaker descriptor into a whole extra dimension, and the colour portion of the contents would probably come up rather well on the iPad screen..
I've been following Doonesbury from the early seventies, not always with the consistency I'd like as the strip appeared and disappeared through various newspaper incarnations, and over the years I've picked up a fair collection of paperback collections from various stretches of the saga of this bunch of college students and their associates as they've meandered through forty years of American life.
As is invariably the case with these things, there are gaps in the collection that need to be filled, which goes part of the way to explaining the decision to purchase this particular tome.
On the other hand, ever since those first roughly-drawn depictions of early seventies college life with their wry take on the quirks and foibles of late adolescents as they move inexorably towards adulthood, I’ve been a firm fan of Trudeau’s work, and the prospect of consolidating the cartoon collection into one volume was not to be missed.
Forty years of cartoon strips, with six daily four-panel black and white strips each week and a page-sized panel for the Sunday colour supplement means that we were always looking at a hefty compendium, and if you're looking for everything this ain't quite the place to go, folks.
Or maybe it is, since you don't expect 100% genius and perspicacity over forty years, and as I browse trough the close to seven hundred pages it seems like most of the major themes are there and crucial episodes and plot lines get reasonably detailed coverage.
For the uninitiated, Mike Doonesbury, your common or garden nerd, starts off at Walden College sharing a room with footballer B.D., an arrangement that morphs into an off-campus communebeside Walden Puddle, drawing in the other long-term key figures, arch-slacker Zonker Harris, student radical Mark Slackmeyer, B.D.'s girlfriend Boopsie, runaway housewife Joanie Caucus and the rest of an extended family who've all headed off on their own tangents tat allow cartoonist Garry Trudeau to focus on a wealth of issues over the past forty years.
Along the way Mike moves from college student through a career in advertising into software and e-commerce while B.D.'s involvement with the R.O.T.C. military program gets him to Vietnam and subsequent involvement in both Gulf Wars in between a career as college football coach and manager of Hollywood starlet and third girl in shower Boopsie (a.k.a. Barbara Ann Boopstein).
Various factors bring media personalities into the mix as well. Mark Slackmeyer moves from college radio DJ into current affairs talk-back and gay activism, while Roland Hedley Jr turns up to collect details of the student mood early on and meanders through various plot lines as he moves from foreign correspondent to would-be celebrity journalist tweeter and Rick Redfern, heavyweight political journo starts off covering a political campaign, marries Joanie and produces a son who ends up working for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan and tweets his own personal mythology as Sorkh Razil (Red Rascal), bane of the Taliban.
That's the briefest skim over the surface of a cartoon strip that has delivered some of the most biting and insightful coverage of American socio-political and cultural issues, neglecting, among others, the zigzagging career of Zonker's Uncle Duke, archetypal wheeler dealer who appears in various guises from Governor of American Samoa, Ambassador to China, to proprietor of orphanages and bars and skipper of Donald Trump's personal yacht.
40: A Doonesbury Retrospective hasn't quite rendered that pile of paperbacks redundant, but will be occupying a prime piece of shelf space beside mys reading chair for some time to come....
I've been following Doonesbury from the early seventies, not always with the consistency I'd like as the strip appeared and disappeared through various newspaper incarnations, and over the years I've picked up a fair collection of paperback collections from various stretches of the saga of this bunch of college students and their associates as they've meandered through forty years of American life.
As is invariably the case with these things, there are gaps in the collection that need to be filled, which goes part of the way to explaining the decision to purchase this particular tome.
On the other hand, ever since those first roughly-drawn depictions of early seventies college life with their wry take on the quirks and foibles of late adolescents as they move inexorably towards adulthood, I’ve been a firm fan of Trudeau’s work, and the prospect of consolidating the cartoon collection into one volume was not to be missed.
Forty years of cartoon strips, with six daily four-panel black and white strips each week and a page-sized panel for the Sunday colour supplement means that we were always looking at a hefty compendium, and if you're looking for everything this ain't quite the place to go, folks.
Or maybe it is, since you don't expect 100% genius and perspicacity over forty years, and as I browse trough the close to seven hundred pages it seems like most of the major themes are there and crucial episodes and plot lines get reasonably detailed coverage.
For the uninitiated, Mike Doonesbury, your common or garden nerd, starts off at Walden College sharing a room with footballer B.D., an arrangement that morphs into an off-campus communebeside Walden Puddle, drawing in the other long-term key figures, arch-slacker Zonker Harris, student radical Mark Slackmeyer, B.D.'s girlfriend Boopsie, runaway housewife Joanie Caucus and the rest of an extended family who've all headed off on their own tangents tat allow cartoonist Garry Trudeau to focus on a wealth of issues over the past forty years.
Along the way Mike moves from college student through a career in advertising into software and e-commerce while B.D.'s involvement with the R.O.T.C. military program gets him to Vietnam and subsequent involvement in both Gulf Wars in between a career as college football coach and manager of Hollywood starlet and third girl in shower Boopsie (a.k.a. Barbara Ann Boopstein).
Various factors bring media personalities into the mix as well. Mark Slackmeyer moves from college radio DJ into current affairs talk-back and gay activism, while Roland Hedley Jr turns up to collect details of the student mood early on and meanders through various plot lines as he moves from foreign correspondent to would-be celebrity journalist tweeter and Rick Redfern, heavyweight political journo starts off covering a political campaign, marries Joanie and produces a son who ends up working for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan and tweets his own personal mythology as Sorkh Razil (Red Rascal), bane of the Taliban.
That's the briefest skim over the surface of a cartoon strip that has delivered some of the most biting and insightful coverage of American socio-political and cultural issues, neglecting, among others, the zigzagging career of Zonker's Uncle Duke, archetypal wheeler dealer who appears in various guises from Governor of American Samoa, Ambassador to China, to proprietor of orphanages and bars and skipper of Donald Trump's personal yacht.
40: A Doonesbury Retrospective hasn't quite rendered that pile of paperbacks redundant, but will be occupying a prime piece of shelf space beside mys reading chair for some time to come....
Leeuwin Estate 2005 Art Series Riesling
When we visited Leeuwin Estate in August $260 for a dozen Art Series Rieslings across six years seemed like a reasonable way to build s small stock of older Rieslings while I waited for the stocks of Holm Oak and Grosset to round out. We've got through the '03 and '04 and this was the last of the...
Leeuwin Estate 2005 Art Series Riesling (4.5* 19 points $n/a) Near-sparkling pale gold, aromatic with developed Riesling character in spades through the nose and across the palate, youthful acids have rounded out into complex elegance with a lengthy finish. Delicious, and a powerdul argument for keeping a couple of bottles in the cellar (assuming you can keep your hands off them).
Leeuwin Estate 2005 Art Series Riesling (4.5* 19 points $n/a) Near-sparkling pale gold, aromatic with developed Riesling character in spades through the nose and across the palate, youthful acids have rounded out into complex elegance with a lengthy finish. Delicious, and a powerdul argument for keeping a couple of bottles in the cellar (assuming you can keep your hands off them).
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