Thursday - April 26, 2012

Thursday Notes

What does your favorite wine say about you? I have no idea, but I’m wondering. We were talking with Bill from bowling league last week, and he’s telling us how he loves barolo wine. Barolo is an Italian wine from the Piedmont in northwest Italy, an area just east of France and south of Switzerland. The Nebbiolo grape used to make this wine is fussy and potent. When the weather cooperates, barolo is fantastic wine ... for your children to drink. Generally it is extremely sharp stuff, and needs at least a decade to even begin to become drinkable. The good ones are mighty expensive, yet after 20 years of cellaring they’re still a crapshoot.

We tried a bottle, a 2006 vintage from Monchiero. $40, which is mighty spendy for us, but my wife got a 10% discount. It’s also dirt cheap for a decent barolo. After a mere 6 years, the wine was an explosion of leather and spice, with a touch of minerality in the background. Far and away the fullest bodied Italian wine I’ve ever had, it easily cleared the palette from the marinated hanger steaks we had with it. While 2006 was a good year for the region, 2004 was even better, and the good ones will cost you triple what we paid, if you can even find them.

“Mascarello’s 2004 Barolo Monprivato is an explosive wine with an almost Pinot-like expression of purity in its fruit. This round, sweet Barolo is extremely primary at this stage, with tons of dense fruit that almost cover the wine’s tannins completely. Subtle overtones of roses and tar develop in the glass, rounding out this majestic wine. Monprivato is one of the world’s very finest values in collectible, age-worthy wine, and the 2004 is another classic in the making. I was blown away by this wine’s sheer balance and harmony, both of which are remarkable considering the wine’s age. Anticipated maturity: 2014-2034.” - 96 Pts Antonio Galloni - The Wine Advocate

So maybe Bill is a big risk taker with way too much money to throw around. It is a helluva wine though, one to eat with your most intensely flavored meats. If I can find another bottle we’ll try it with some garlic and rosemary roast lamb.

My thought is that you if you like powerful and spicy wines you can get the carmenere grape from Chile, usually for under $15, $40 for the really top drawer stuff. And then drink them.

Woo hoo, the advantages of being a notable blogger. I just got an advance copy of the new Jonah Goldberg book, The Tyranny of Cliches. Fight the meme Jonah says. The bumper sticker sound byte sloganeering of the Far Left throws around all these overworked terms, but many of them have deeper, evil underpinnings, often filled with lies. Terms like Social Justice and Diversity. I’ll write up a review when I’ve read it, but this looks like it will be a nice addition to your Conservative library, if only to serve as a reminder that the first step in debating with Democrats is to call bullshit on everything they say, even their choice of words. Kick the ass of their pet phrases and their robotically parroted talking points will go up in smoke; since those are as close to reasoned thought as they can come, they’ll be reduced to infantile ad hominem and tantrums. This is going to be a fun read.

JJ from over at Summer Patriot / Winter Soldier writes that his semi-wildcat “JJ’s .280 Brit” cartridge is testing just fine. He built himself a rifle out of spare parts and had it set up on the cheap, and away he went. He was able to push a 7mm 140gr bullet to 2550fps with ease, safely getting more than 2600fps with one loading, giving him exactly the muzzle energy and velocity he wanted. More testing to come, and I’m certain that he’ll post on it when he gets back from his trip. Next will come the process of optimizing a load that gives him 2500fps, and fitting that new cartridge of his into an AR platform. I think it will work just fine. Being an AR shooter himself, and a fan of the 6.8 SPC, he’s been neck deep in the debate about a new cartridge for the old poodle shooter assault rifle for years (M-16) and figured that if it wasn’t for politics, the British had the right idea back in 1950. So he brought their old cartridge back to life, with just one or two minor modernizations. And so far it looks like them Limeys had it spot on, and all at fairly low pressures which are great for barrel longevity.

I helped a little on his project, using my tools to draw the pictures and figure out what powder loads would work and so forth. From what he wrote, it looks like my software was only off by 25fps, which is pretty awesome for a relatively inexpensive ballistics tool.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/26/2012 at 11:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner