Tea at Trianon: Napa Wineries by Bike

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Napa Wineries by Bike

I enjoyed this article from Food and Wine. Wouldn't it be fun to bike from winery to winery? To quote:

My wife loves a great glass of wine, but she had never wanted anything to do with an actual winery until that moment when we walked our bikes into the cool, quiet shade of Ladera's old stone building, built in 1886. If hunger makes everything taste good, then sweating gallons on a country road has the same effect on wine; and if that wine happens to be excellent, then a little thirst can make it taste downright life-changing. Ladera's 2006 Howell Mountain Cabernet, with its velvety, fine-grained tannins, bright acidity and succulent fruit, made us decide right then that either winemaker Karen Culler was a genius or that we were very thirsty people indeed. Or both. (Read entire article.)