Call me prescient. Right after I graduated from college, I dreamt that Burger King had opened up a bar, and I was its first bartender. There I was, clad in one of their vapid uniforms, complete with yellow & red beanie, drawing Michelobs and chatting up patrons with the usual “How about them Mets?” and what have you. In a word, not the best use of my Dartmouth education. Lo and behold, the nightmare becomes reality! The first Burger King bar is set to open in Miami next month!
Your West Coast Oenophile won’t reveal how many years have past since that sweat-soaked nightmare, but let’s just say we’re past any statute of limitations for me to allege copyright infringement or make any form of claim to theft of intellectual property. Besides, profiteering from a Burger King enterprise might well nullify my credentials with Slow Food or any other segment of the sustainability movement. Still, even I can appreciate the irony that I am once again dreaming of opening a very different kind of bar, albeit this time with a far more holistic approach.
Irony seems to abound these days. I attended the Post-Holiday Party in Oakland this past Wednesday, a cocktail & networking event hosted by the Green Chamber of Commerce, Green Drinks East Bay and the Sustainable Business Alliance. The event’s sponsor, Alameda County’s chapter of StopWaste.org, came armed with a plethora of printed handouts, most strikingly a 32-page, 8½” x 11″ pamphlet entitled Paperless Express: A Paper Use Reduction Guide for Your Business. At least it was printed on 100% recycled paper (50% post-consumer waste)!
Of course, we all have moments of sustainable apostasy, including yours truly, who drove from San Francisco to attend this gathering—a mere two blocks from the 19th Street BART station. My excuse was I need to get back to San Francisco in time to catch the première of Phèdre at ACT, a feat I managed, despite the rain, in a mere 19 minutes from the time I left Oakland to parking one block from the theater, picking up my ticket from Will-Call, and securing my seat in the loge! Just try doing that on a regular basis!
So far, such milestones haven’t just been personal. 2010 portends to be a watershed year for Sostevinobile and, more broadly, the entire sustainable wine community in California and on the West Coast. At long last, the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance has launched its official certification program. It will still be a while before wines that have earned official certification as sustainable are commercially available, and even longer still before this standard garners sufficient market penetration to become the basis for Sostevinobile to qualify the wines we select for our program, but it does offer a model on which we can base our criteria for gauging the sustainable practices of the wineries and wine labels we consider, particularly with it model of progressive achievement (as opposed to creating a rigid, quantifiable benchmark) for assessing a winery’s implementation of sustainable practices. Still, with all the fealty Sostevinobile has paid to local, sustainable vineyards and wineries, it seemed bewildering that the Wine Institute and the California Wine Growers Association to fail to include this blog at the press conference announcing the debut of this program. But rather than belabor the point, I have sought to ensure that future developments will not reiterate this oversight.
At least the California College of the Arts remembered to invite me, not just to one recept
ion but a pair of openings held on the very same night in different galleries on their San Francisco campus. The first, The Magnificent Seven: Selections from the Life and Work of Michael Bravo, seemed to be an exhibit only someone truly immersed in this métier could fully appreciate. The upstairs exhibit, Route 1: R for Replicant offered a far more accessible, multi-disciplinary display, including some of the most engrossing 3-D photography I have ever experienced.
ion but a pair of openings held on the very same night in different galleries on their San Francisco campus. The first, The Magnificent Seven: Selections from the Life and Work of Michael Bravo, seemed to be an exhibit only someone truly immersed in this métier could fully appreciate. The upstairs exhibit, Route 1: R for Replicant offered a far more accessible, multi-disciplinary display, including some of the most engrossing 3-D photography I have ever experienced.
The truly amazing part of this reception, however, was the complimentary. I have become inured to the frugality of wine selections at art openings, and , historically CCA has offered no exception to the ever-so-predictable Two Buck Chuck, the “official” wine of art openings (or some relatively similar swill). Instead, this evening featured a case of the 2008 Sangiovese Monte Rosso Vineyard from Kenwood’s Muscardini Cellars, which an e-mail I had received only a few days before listed as being pre-release. Ceres, CA and its Central Valley satellites be damned! This handcrafted Italian varietal expressed itself superbly, well worth the $38 one must pay retail for one of these bottles. Donated or purchased—I have no idea, but certainly a standard to which other galleries and multi-billion dollar endowed universities ought to aspire for their programs.
Nonetheless, the true high point since I last posted here was a news report on the latest wave in marital discord—couples whose relationship founders because they have differing adherence to sustainability or in their commitment to containing the sources of global warming and other ecological perils! Imagine actually petitioning the court for divorce on the grounds of environmental incompatibility! Thermal negligence! Carbon cruelty!!
The offer I make now is sincere and has nothing to do with my trying to fill the void in my life after my irreconcilable split with the Ginkgo Girl: come to Sostevinobile with proof that you have been divorced because of your spouse’s lack of adherence to your sustainable beliefs, and your wine will be on the house all evening! Afterwards, if you want to check out my water flow reduction system…