A dash of the old, a dash of the new – that’s the theme of this year’s Top 100 Wines.
The Chronicle Wine section tastes wine from all over the world, but our Top 100 Wines are a showcase for the most compelling winemaking on the West Coast. We tasted thousands of wines this past year from California, Washington and Oregon. We recommended hundreds. You may recognize some of the lucky 100 from our weekly Wine Selections, but instead of simply choosing the best of what our panels tasted, we sought out a balance between quality, price and innovation – particularly innovation. So while many of our top contenders are familiar names, this year we also kept an eye out for new faces, new locales and new types of wine.
Consider, for example, the Pinot Noir made by Stewart Johnson of Kendric Vineyards in San Anselmo. A few years ago, uttering “Marin County Pinot Noir” would have prompted the same stare as “San Francisco suntan.” Now Marin has proven its potential as a wine region. (No such luck on the San Francisco suntan part.)
Monthly Archives: December 2007
Snowblower Zeitgeist, or the Best Urban Snowblower
I’ve manually moved snow for the past 14 years – my entire post UW time in Madison. Always thinking that the act was a bit of exercise until a neighbor mentioned his back difficulties and said “it’s not worth it”.
Last spring’s deluge, a particularly wet and heavy snowstorm, was the impetus to turn over the shovel, fire up my browser and shop for a snowblower.
My first stop was Ariens’ website. Ariens is a classic family owned Wisconsin based firm that manufactures snowblowers and lawn mowers.
Most serious snowblowers, defined as two stage models from the likes of Ariens, John Deere, Honda and Toro among many others are at least 24″ wide (Toro has a 22″ model). That width is a problem for small garages like mine.
Ariens offered a useful 20″ model that featured a multiple speed transmission – perfect for a variety of snow conditions and available at a reasonable price. Conveniently, their website offers online ordering which made it simple for me to enter a bit of information and a few days later the snowblower arrived at my home. Ariens customer service was great, as was their local dealer – Middleton Power Center.
About the snowblower zeitgeist. The owner of a working, somewhat powerful snowblower on a day like today (crunchy, heavy snow) quickly has the opportunity to converse with the neighbors. Typical conversations include:
- “Can I pay you to clear my driveway (no, if I have enough gas and time, I’ll be happy to)
- “My snowblower won’t start.”
- “I attempted to purchase a snowblower yesterday, but just before I said that I’ll take the last one, someone else grabbed it.”
- or, Chaplin moments when a neighbor is somberly pondering the large, heavy pile of snow recently deposited by the City plow in his driveway as I’m clearing another neighbor’s walks and driveway.
There you have it. Living in a cold climate subject to snow, we should never turn away from neighborhood social opportunities. Buy a (two-stage) snowblower.
I would be remiss if I did not point out the powerful prose at work marketing such machines. Arien’s description of their model 624E:
624E Compact
After 9 months of hibernation, this compact monster, has an appetite for the cold and crystallized.
When the white and fluffy flakes begin to fall; the corners of the 24” clearing width begin to salivate. The 120 volt electric start quickly awakens the 6HP Snow King® OHV Engine. You fear nothing! Snow fears this trusted Sno-Thro® midsized monster. Keep the snow afraid and out of your way.
A Glimpse of Pottersville
THE 1946 MOVIE IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE has become a holiday favorite for many Americans. The heart-rending story of George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart), who in his hour of despair is vouchsafed a glimpse of what the world would be like if he’d never been born, holds great meaning for many Americans. So does the drama played out between George and his father, Peter, and their professional nemesis, rich old banker Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore), which provides a vivid look at the dramatic changes that had taken place in American finance in the years leading up to the time the movie was made.
The recent problems in the mortgage market bring the story and its characters to life once again. The Baileys and Old Man Potter disagreed about a number of things, but principally about the credit-worthiness of what Potter calls “the riff-raff,” the average citizens in their home town of Bedford Falls. The Baileys believe they are credit-worthy, and Potter generally does not.
Potter remembers the recent past, when lenders made the rules, insisting on repayment in gold coin or its equivalent, on big down payments and short terms. Most important for middle-class folks, Potter sees residential real estate as illiquid, mediocre collateral. George and Peter Bailey and their Building & Loan envision a future of suburban development, of small down payments and decades to pay. When George looks at the world had he never been born — and sees a vacant field instead of the Bailey Park housing development financed by the Bailey Building & Loan — he is looking at what would have been Pottersville.