Started out the day, tasting wine at Kitsilano Wine Cellar. Met Sarge there. I cycled up while he drove, having a number of other errands to run. Luca Currado of Vietti Winery was there, although we didn't have much of a chance to chat. In fact, we spent most of the time talking with the interesting woman who is the agent/importer for the winery. Following four wines were poured:
Rorero Arneis 2010 $47.99
Perbaco Nebbiolo 2008 $47.99
Barbera d'Asti La Crena 2006 $79.99
Barolo Castiglione 2006 $101.99
I was most impressed with the Arneis, a varietal I know little about. Consequently, Wikipedia helped me out:
Arneis is a white Italian wine grape variety originating from Piedmont, Italy. It is most commonly found in the hills of the Roero, northwest of Alba, where it is part of the white Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) wines of Roero. It can also be used to produce DOC wines in Langhe.[1] Arneis (literally: little rascal, in Piedmontese) is so called because it is regarded as a somewhat difficult variety to grow. It is a crisp and floral varietal, and has been grown for centuries in the region. The white wines made from the Arneis grape tend to be dry and full body with notes of pears and apricots.
I found, as the note above suggests, the white to possess a wonderfully crisp acidity but with citrus and melon flavours. Well-balanced and elegant but too, too elegant for my budget! Reds were delicious and complex but generally too outrageously expensive to even consider thinking about. Agent mentioned that they were having a private dinner party, (14 guests), later that evening, featuring more of the Vietti stable. We found one other Barolo of theirs on the shelf for $312 so we asked to be put on the guest list!
Back on my bike to roll down the hill to Village Wines, arriving before Sarge who had to negotiate Saturday afternoon traffic on 4th! Delighted to discover that Stag's Hollow owner, Larry Gerelus, was pouring seven of their current offerings, four whites and three reds:
Sauvignon Blanc 2010; Viognier 2010; GVM 2010 ; Con-Fusion 2010; SHV Pinot Noir 2009; Cabernet Franc 2009 and The Heritage Block 2008
Have had their Sauvignon Blanc on many occasions and have always thought it was one of the best, if not the best, from the Okanagan, loads of grapefruit, intense with a lively finish. The GVM, a blend of Grenache, Viognier and Marsanne was absolutely stunning. Gorgeous lime and tropical flavors, crisp and well balanced, finishing with a touch of tannin. Apparently, the Grenache never ripened sufficiently to use as a red so Lorenzo, along with his winemaker, decided to try making a white with fruit. Certainly succeeded! The Cabernet Franc was a stunner as well. Aromas and flavours of blackberries along with a hint of smokey oak. Touch of acidity on the finish mingled with some pleasing tannins. Quite a stellar tasting, quite a stellar lineup. Only wine I was not particularly partial to was the Con-Fusion, bit too sweet, too much perfume for me with lycee and ripe melon and not enough grapefruit to balance the almost candied finish. Still, an unexpected, more than wonderful delight especially as I hadn't even known about tasting beforehand!
I asked Sarge to take my purchases back to Harbour Terrace as I was headed for Costco, downtown, needing to pick up a few items for weekend meals. I reminded him that we had yet another tasting, back at Kitsilano Wines, between 5:00pm-7:00pm, that evening, waved goodbye and made my way, via Science World, to do my shopping. I was back at The Island Inn by approximately 5:00pm and set to work, immediately, peeling spuds for dinner. Once I had them ready, olive oiled, salt 'n peppered, I put he chicken thighs I had had marinating in another roasting dish, set the oven for 350 degrees and proceeded to do my crunches and stretches. Finished my exercises by about 6:15pm so set the oven for 350 degrees and popped both dishes in before giving Sarge a call to come upstairs so we could head out again on the wine-tasting trail.
Before we left I asked Clarisse if she would turn the chicken in half an hour and made for 4th Avenue to taste wines from both Tantalus and Laughing Stock. We were both reasonably familiar with the wines from the latter but neither of us had ever tasted the former. I was quite taken with both of the Rieslings, Tantalus Riesling 2010 $27.99 and Tantalus Old Vines Riesling 2008 $37.99 but found the less expensive one to be the more interesting of the two with quite intense citrus and stone fruit, wonderful acidity and very good structure. This release of the Laughing Stock Blind Trust White is a combination of Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Blanc and Viognier, showing luscious tropical fruit with just the right amount of acidity.
I didn't care much for the Tantalus Pinot Noir 2009 $37.99 but always enjoy and marvel at Laughing Stock Blind Trust Red 2009 $34.99 and Laughing Stock Portfolio 2009 $50.99. Bit pricey but wonderful. Sarge splurged and bought a bottle of the Portfolio to share when "there are onlythe four of us!" I settled for two bottles of the Tantalus Riesling 2010.
Back home to find both the chicken and kartofellage doing more than nicely so I turned down the heat and proceeded to make a salad. Few minutes later Ragin' Bull arrived and while I was putting the finishing touches to the dinner I set him to work on figuring out what had happened to our wireless network after we switched from Telus to Rogers, a month or so ago. With much moaning and many more imprecations he was finally able to set system straight so that we can now print from laptops. As a reward, I promised him malt for dessert and we sat down to enjoy the meal and catch up on his life aboard The Inside Passage.
Had been a busy day for everyone so we enjoyed a few snorts of malt, interspersed with a dram or two of Bushmills, (Ragin' has a predilection for Irish Whiskey), before lads headed for their respective homes, leaving The Maggster and I tidy up about 10:30pm. Once dishes were done, I poured myself a shot of Generalissimo's bourbon and "attacked" my email Inbox before retiring to bed to read. Day had been so full that I barely had time to miss Coriandre, off on a shopping spree with Flamin' and Girl Robyn in Seattle.
Trust everyone isn't panicking over not having read Panicking Ralph for tonight's session!
Happened to hear an interview with Daniel Kahneman this morning on CBC's The Sunday Edition and found this review from The Globe and Mail, published Friday, Nov. 25, 2011:
We know in fact that they are not, or at least they are no more rational than most human beings in the judgments and the choices that they make. We know this because of the seminal work of Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues, who have transformed our understanding of the way people make choices.
Economic rationality, Kahneman argues in his brilliant Thinking, Fast and Slow, is all about coherence and logical consistency. A rational person, he tells us, can prefer being hated over being loved, so long as her preferences are consistent. It is this concept of rationality that even today informs economics, grand strategy and much of contemporary thinking in public policy.
A reasonable person, on the other hand, is open to argument and evidence and her preferences reflect her interests and her values. Human beings, Kahneman tells us, rarely meet the criteria of rationality even when they are reasonable. Many of the systems we have in place to think about ourselves and our world are simply wrong.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Daniel Kahneman’s contribution to the understanding of the way we think and choose. He stands among the giants, a weaver of the threads of Charles Darwin, Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud. Arguably the most important psychologist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of happiness and well-being. He is among a handful of founders of the field of behavioural economics, a branch of economics that is challenging long-standing economic theory and reshaping the making of public policy. Kahneman’s work speaks to everyone who struggles to understand why human beings think the way they do.
In an engaging and often lighthearted summary of a lifetime of ground-breaking work, Kahneman shows us how our capacity for quick intuitive thought is the origin of so much of what we do right. Our associative memory allows us to distinguish the unusual from the expected in a tiny fraction of a second and almost instantaneously searches for a causal interpretation of the surprise as it is taking place. Moreover, we are hardly aware of this kind of evolved intuitive thinking. We just do it and move on, and it helps us cope thousands of times a day.
Our quick intuitive thinking is also the origin of much of what we do wrong. We are not very good at estimating probabilities. Many of us think that we are likely to die in an airplane crash, especially after the story of a horrific crash is splashed across the newspapers. Yet the likelihood of dying in an airplane accident is very low, far lower than the chances of dying on the highways. We pay far more attention to the likelihood of loss than we do to the likelihood of gain, in part because loss is so much more painful than an equivalent gain. Think how much more pain we feel when we lose $100 than pleasure when we find $100 on the street.
Our loss aversion, Kahneman tells us, is reinforced by the human tendency to value what is ours far more once it is ours. Perhaps that is what explains the longevity of most marriages. These kinds of errors are predictable and systematic. We can compensate for these errors with slow, effortful, conscious thinking, but we are lazy and not inclined to do so except under special circumstances. Our easy intuitive thinking does not warn us, moreover, when it becomes unreliable, and we are intuitively overconfident about the quality of our judgments. What can we do to compensate, to improve the quality of our judgments and choices?
Kahneman is not optimistic. Because these errors are predictable, decision-makers are beginning to design policies that “nudge” us toward better choices. But, Kahneman says, the voice of reason may be much fainter than the unambiguous voice of intuition. Organizations, he concludes, are better than individuals at avoiding large errors because they naturally think more slowly and, when they are functioning well, can impose checklists and procedures to minimize error.
Even here, Kahneman may well be too optimistic. Research in neuroscience in the past two decades has shown how intertwined thinking is with emotion. There is a growing consensus that emotions are first because they are automatic and fast, and that they shape the way we think and choose. We generally feel before we think and often act before we think. Not surprisingly, we then rationalize the behaviour that comes from automatic emotional processes as the outcome of conscious and careful thought. Behavioural economists, working in the tradition founded by Kahneman, think of utility as our lived experience. In this sense of emotion as lived experience, it is illogical to urge people to take the emotion out of their decision-making.
Thinking, Fast and Slow is a magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused with knowledge, laced with wisdom, informed by modesty and deeply humane. If you can read only one book this year, read this one.
Janice Gross Stein is director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and, most recently, editor of Diplomacy in the Digital Age: Essays in Honour of Ambassador Allan Gotlieb
