December 17, 2003

• MoFi: Wine Fi*hic* Filter.
• Monkey's head goes "Oo-oo!" adding to the percussive complexity of the ensemble.
• *succumbs again to temptation* It's jazz like real life!
• under the "name that band" link i learned this about the band leader: Bix Master of the trumpet, cymbals and xylophone, Bix is the definition of "monkey business." He can't resist a good prank -- watch out for banana peels.
• Our winery is not open to visitors, but you can learn about our wines by visiting the Our Wines section of this website. Darn. I was going to say, Monkey Road Trip! It would've been a good excuse for a Monkey Party. I'll just have to keep looking for another excuse.
• Damn. There's a lot of monkeys on the web.
• Wine, jazz, and monkeys: what's not to like? Actually, I suspect I wouldn't care for the wines, based on the statement "Papio wines are all about fruit." (That goes for a lot of California wines.) But the site is monkey-rrific!
• They sell this at Trader Joe's. The Merlot is *awesome*. *hic*
• "Our winery is not open to visitors, but you can learn about our wines by visiting the Our Wines section of this website." That's because the winery exists nowhere but in the imagination of some marketer. This stuff has all the earmarks of a 3 dollar bottle with a hip label and 10 dollar price tag. Then again I could be wrong.
• Oh, and languagehat, they aren't too fruity. The merlot is very smooth with some black cherry accents. Quite pleasant actually.
• An' whaz wrong witha . . three do*hic* dollar bollah of whi*hic* - wine??! HAh?! . . Smart guy?! . . *hic* I juzmn havf some merlot! Too! . . *Brupp* /grumble_wander_weave
• There's nothing wrong with three dollar bottles, as long as you don't pay ten for them.
• Papio exists, alright, apparently as the left-handed redheaded stepchild of Robert Mondavi, which doesn't want to be associated with a $5 bottle of wine. I say that as a left-handed redhead myself.
• Good info Ambrosia, thanks.
• >>Papio, which is the name of a species of baboons egad! not even monkeys! i, for one, am appalled at the complexity of this charade.
• Now let's talk about Two Buck Chuck.
• Does red wine go with Excel? I'm sure a fine $2 red goes with Mozilla, but I wouldn't want upper management to think less of this report because of an improper wine choice.
• If you have steady and constant access to two buck chuck, how do you avoid a state of constant stupor? Or maybe I should rephrase and say a state of increased constant stupor?
• We only buy a bottle or two at a time. That's the only way we don't get drunk every night. That stuff is good.
• I was at my boyfriend's company's holiday party last weekend, and they served up some awful crappy wine, and I thought to myself, "In the time of Two Buck Chuck, there is simply no excuse to serve crappy wine at a party." Does this make me a wine snob? I'm not asking for much- there's a Trader Joe's less two miles from where the party was held. (I know, I could have posted this comment here as well.)
• Ambrosia-- I'm terribly jealous-- earlier today I drove an hour EACH WAY for 4 cases of Trader Joe Liquid Yumminess. My wife isn't a Charles Shaw fan, actually, but she swears by their Chiantis and Cotes du Rhone.
• From Slate a couple of days ago ... Take, for instance, the new-wave Australian shirazes and cabernets now washing ashore. Many of these wines taste like spiked blueberry milkshakes that have been blended with a two-by-four. (The oak is, shall we say, pronounced.) If your preference is for wines that leave elephant tracks on your tongue, you probably adore them. But if asked to drink, say, an Elderton shiraz alongside a roast leg of lamb, even those who enjoy these Jerry Bruckheimer-in-a-bottle wines will probably be reaching for the Maalox. Why thank you, squire! I'll drink a good Oz shiraz or shaz cab
• In my experience, Chilean wines are overrated. They're cheap (though not as cheap as they used to be), but they don't do much for me -- especially when right next door there are the wonderful Argentine wines, which have a much higher quality/price ratio (doubtless because there was a flood of wine-savvy Italian immigrants in the late 19th century). Try an Argentine malbec and you won't waste your time on bland Chilean cabs and merlots again.
• Okay, it's on the list. (Two Buck Chuck is not.) "Chuck", in Australia, means "vomit".
• So "Chuck" is never a nickname for "Charles"? Do Australians chuckle (pun?) at famous people named "Chuck"? If we ever have a MonkeyFilter party in California, I'll bring a bottle of Charles Shaw, in Wolof's honor. /derail/
• We English say chuck for sick too, sometimes. We also say Chuck for Charles sometimes, too. We never mix them up with each other, either.
• Please excuse outbreak of wine snobbery. But in a good glass of wine, there are worlds of flavour
• Point taken, Wolof, and I'm in complete agreement. Given a choice, I would much rather enjoy one really good bottle of wine than five bottles of cheap swill. Your investment of $1.99 at Trader Joe's will not buy you a wealth of sensory information, but it will buy you a bottle of wine that is surprisingly drinkable. It's not complex or sophisticated-otherwise, it would cost a bit more that $1.99. So here's my offer: at the above-mentioned as-yet-unscheduled Monkey Party in California, if you show up for it, I'll bring a bottle of seriously good wine in your honor (the least I can do, considering how far you'll have traveled.) If you're not there, however, I'll bring a few bottles of the Two Buck Chuck, and my fellow Monkeys and I will toast you (and Tracicle!) in absentia.
• Cheers!
• Well, I just spent 5 minutes googling for a link to this, and I'm fed up now. So, text only. After reading today's Oz, I'm lining up for the Two Buck Chuck. Here's why ... "Southern Chinese believe rodents are safe to eat or turn into wine if caught wild in the countryside". Turn into wine? A little further down the page ... "Rats served by the restaurant can be as big as 20cm long. The restaurant skins the rodents by putting them in a pot of melted asphalt. Their skin comes free when the cooled asphalt is peeled off."
• Sardinia, it seems, may be the cradle of European wine culture.
• Mmmm! Chinese fish wine!
• Since when can one classify Jamiroquai and Moby as jazz?
• (Yeah, yeah, that's not the best-written sentence in the world, but you know what I mean by it.)
• Since when can one classify Jamiroquai and Moby as jazz? The door was opened when they decided Kenny G was acceptable.