luka

Well-known member
I have never been a subscriber to the ABC club which, to younger readers won't mean much, but those of drinking age in the 1990s will know it as Anything But Chardonnay.



Since I first started getting into wine I loved Chardonnay, and as I learnt more about wine I realised I loved all the incarnations Chardonnay could take.



I first got into wine through Oddbins, which in the 90s brought us the unalloyed joy of Australia, and with it some of the best Chardonnay one could hope to taste; Coldstream Hills, Petaluma, Leeuwin Estate, Tapanappa.



The memory of the streak of lime green acidity dancing through the flavours of fig, pastry cream and roasted nut of a Reserve Chardonnay from Coldstream Hills still lingers to this day. Dynasty was on TV and a gutsy Chard with shoulder pads and a sassy attitude was de rigeur. But things were about to change.



Just as Chardonnay got popular suddenly it wasn't cool. The wine world was changing fast, and a tidal wave of generic Chard flooded the market. The ABC Club was born and New Zealand Savvy B was the height of fashion.



I was never one of those. Too shrill, too loud. I prefer a throaty baritone. The naysayers took aim at Chardonnay, even if they still loved Chablis and drank Champagne. Too everywhere, too bland, too oaky, too fat!



Yes it's versatile, not too fussy, highly adaptable, wears make up well, curves in the right places, looks good naked. But the fact is that really good Chardonnay is just as difficult to make as any other wine, and finding wines with backbone, balance and power depends on soil, yield, sensible farming, and sensitive cellar work, just as much as a temperamental Pinot Noir does, let alone a droopy Viognier.



Gloriously rich, mouthfilling, and tremulous like the swell of a Wagner overture, or bosom of a Titian muse, that's Chardonnay. At its edgiest it has the steely thrust of a rapier as in the blanc de blancs Champagne of grand cru Le Mesnil. At its most unadorned it evokes pastoral joys on the cool hills of Chablis, rivulets of Chardonnay flavour splashing over pebbles, a cow's heavy udders ready to burst for milking nearby.



At its most regal it blazes gold like the midday sun. Radiant, layers of peach chiffon under nacreous satin, topped with brass buttons, pompadours, ostrich feathers, screaming absolute power.



Even the simple little Chardonnays cooked up with not even a barrel, just a teabag of oak sawdust steeped in the tank, offer a degree of comfort, and a whiff of decadence, something very few cheap wines can. Which is why, when push comes to shove, whether I've got a fiver or £50, I'll take A Big Chardonnay.
 

mixed_biscuits

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British 'multiculturalism' is atm broadly successful because there is one dominant culture which sets and polices the rules. So, really, it's a monoculture with some room for allocultural expression.

However, if the numbers change and you end up with an Ulster-like situation, some other culture might rightly wonder why it has to play by someone else's rules any more.

So yes, diversity is our (the dominant culture's) strength because it's diversity that prevents any opposing culture becoming too influential.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
elections coming up in the german federal states of sachsen, thuringen and brandenburg next month. afd was already polling around 30 percent before the attack in sollingen so i'm afraid it will turn out even higher. those states are kinda lost anyway tho, basically no go areas for non-white people.


i wonder what it means if you publish something like this, is the german soul predisposed to commit genocide, as if it is a subconscious process. the imagery is almost a copy of the anti-semitic content of the nazi-magazine der stürmer. or are they actively trying to see how far the people have been radicalized already and if they are ready for this stage.
 

mixed_biscuits

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i wonder what it means if you publish something like this, is the german soul predisposed to commit genocide, as if it is a subconscious process. the imagery is almost a copy of the anti-semitic content of the nazi-magazine der stürmer. or are they actively trying to see how far the people have been radicalized already and if they are ready for this stage.
What do you think @thirdform?
 

mixed_biscuits

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A liberal democracy should safeguard other people's freedoms but not the freedom to restrict particular people's freedoms.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
You haven't answered the question.

What gives you the right to demand I answer your questions? The difference between me and you is I am willing to pursue my politics to their end, whereas you lack the necessary stoic masculinity to do so, and are perpetually stuck in agnostic turpitude, akin to craner.

But you are mistaken, my friend. I did answer your question. Liberal democracy cannot functionally curb the patriarchal excesses of religion, precisely because it is a metaphysics of the amorphous mass. Hence why all it can do is resort to the contempt of the enlightened élite. The only way to consciously enact this is a despotic atheist state, although the impersonal mechanisms of capital can do this unconsciously if it comforts you — it seems not though as you want to cherry pick the good bits of religion whilst failing to acknowledge it as a totalising worldview. Pussy cowardice, in other words.

In fact liberals were initially delightfully despotic, when liberating women from feudal patriarchal dependence. But as they transitioned from antiformism to reformism and conformism, they lost that despotic enthusiasm. A pitty, in fact. We really do need more liberals like Oliver Cromwell and Robespierre to teach you what is what!
 
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