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Jack, very interesting anecdotes.....I'd like to share mine [& dreaming of how to spend our $$ when gippygee pops]....When I was in psychology graduate school in Berkeley in the '80's, I worked my way through school as a wine taster & buyer...when the other students were done getting their little rearends paddled [figuratively speaking of course] with hard work and books and papers, they went home to their garrets or abusive spouses or lugubrious Freud or interminable Reich, at 3 or 4pm I would go home, shower & shave, and drive to San Francisco's finest restaurants, where the wineries or wine distributers held their "do's"....they would compete to put on the best (FREE!) spread of food and wine imaginable (in SF, no less!), not only to outdo their competitors, but to woo us buyers (or rather lull us into gastronomic and eonologic complacency)....presumably, their assumption was that if I we buyer-tasters had a bang-up evening, we would be more likely to buy that 120 case offer at 20% that would expire in 5 days!!! Well, maybe it worked and maybe it didn't...but we had fun, that I know...5-pound tins of beluga, blinis poured on a mini griddles while you waited.....6 kinds of nova lox.....sometimes they'd (tsk, tsk) smuggle in runny fromage from Normadny or Gascogne or the Dordogne that never even came within un kilometre of a customs official....and the wine!!, OHhhhhh... the wine.......mon dieu....they would send flyers around ahead of time announcing what rarity they'd be pouring -- maybe a '47 Chateau d'Yquem, or a '71 Mouton or a '70 Margaux, served, of course by quelque chose tres jolie........boy I got spoiled and since then mere necessities have become rahwther expensive ....... but then I grew up and got a real job.....yuk....I miss those days sometimes......#;( pas toujours la meme chose - Scott |
