At university, my friend set up a cheese and wine society, after sweet talking the local cheese merchant. It was great. The cheese guy would get drunk and go back to his shop for even more amazing cheese. One time, someone's uncle, who made port (in Portugal), turned up with some insanely expensive port, worth four-figure sums.
Those were the days. Didn't stop me drinking a lot of shitty wine in the years that followed, but that was all to do with a low income. But lactose intolerance put paid to the cheese, alas.
As a guy with a really low booze tolerance ( I'm drunk after a few sips of a martini I just made), I really wish there was a class on what to drink cuz I'm experimenting on different types with varying effects. Note I' am quite drunk right now and some how leaing to my right. ( physically not politicly) .
@salthegeek: Haha I think I love your post. "Physically, not politically." Best thing ever. I agree on the having a class on what to drink, esp. with different boozes, rather than just for beer or wine. I guess I could just take a cheap bartending class and learn about different liquors, but I'm too lazy.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed your night of leaning physically to the right! (I am also tipsy off of a very small amount of liquor, which is why I find your post amazing).
I heard that there was a wine-tasting class at my university and got super excited. Until I realized that it was offered by the business school and was restricted to business majors. It was basically a course to teach proto-yuppies how to wine, dine, and schmooze their prospective clients.
I would love to learn more about wine, but in a non-bourgeois setting. I learned a fair bit working as a server, not nearly enough.
@Jack_Burton: It is, but I don't really think this will work. The drinking culture is way too pervasive here, and I don't think giving kids an appreciation of wine is going to stop them going out and getting wasted.
@BiteMeMitchell!: When I was in high school, it was way easier to get pot (etc.) than alcohol. But, once my friends and I got fake IDs, we drank a fair amount. Mostly beer, though. Copious amounts of really cheap beer.
If I'd had more of an appreciation of wine at that age, I might have saved myself a few close calls. Who knows.
I do see what you mean though - centuries of tradition don't just change overnight. I'm an Anglo mutt (Scotch, Irish, English), I have certainly lived up to the beer and whiskey antics of my forefathers...
@BiteMeMitchell!: Yeah, I agree. The binge drinking culture here rules all (I grew up in Ireland, which is even worse). I've appreciated good wine for years but it's only now that I'm a crotchey old person who gets foul hangovers that I actually insist on the good stuff. At 16 I was quite happy to drink bad lager in a field til someone threw up, then do it again the next weekend. Plus, appreciating good wine doesn't mean I drink it less.
If these girls are headed to Oxbridge and the other top 10 unis, which they clearly are at their fancy school, they're only going to waste their good-wine education on buying the nicest bottle to knock back at 7pm before they go out (at least during freshers week)!
We're handwringing over binge drinking down here in Australia, too, and as was pointed out last night on a rather horrifying ABC news piece, all the wine appreciation courses in the world, all the well-intentioned parental attempts to teach teens to "respect" wine, won't turn our teens into polite Europeans because we don't drink like they do in general. We do not have glass or two over dinner and stop there. We drink at the sport, after work, at lunch, when good things happen, when bad things happen, when nothing happens, when we're bored, when we're tired...
Said news program also discussed a study that showed that binge drinking teens were more likely to come from affluent families where they had been introduced to alcohol by their parents. There is also no "safe" amount of booze for a developing liver.
@jenrobe: As a person who comes from a "affluent" family in the NYC, I would like to say that binge drinking is way easier when there is lots of money thrown at you and a doorman to sign for all the booze deliveries.
@fatmonalisa: Sounds familiar. Mummy and Daddy go away for the weekend, leave you a few hundred dollars for expenses, and a liquor cabinet that is always stocked and never checked. I went to private school in Sydney, and some of my classmates threw some amazing parties, with more booze than I could probably afford to buy now.
If these girls are from wealthy families they're probably already being served wine with their meals anyway (when they're at home). All I have to say is "meh."
"Binge-drinking is on the rise amongst young girls, and clearly draconian health warnings and parental punishment isn't doing the trick."
I've always thought that these types of problems that are usually part of teenagehood were a way to weed out the weak (natural selection at work I guess). Those who can get through these types of pressures (being pressured to drink, do drugs, etc.) go on to be adults (fucked up or not). Those who can't don't.
Okay. Let's put this all in perspective. When I was sixteen, I think that I would have benefitted from the offer of a social situation in which I wasn't focused on getting -- for the lack of a better term -- shitfaced, but instead on keeping myself at a normal conversational level of drunkenness.
@futuremrsrickankiel: My all-girls' school had cultish traditions and a paranoia of hazing lawsuits (yes, the two are connected.) I feel cheated as well.
Binge drinking and wine tasting are pretty much on opposite sides of the alcohol spectrum. I think it's wonderful, viticulture is a beautiful science and perhaps it will encourage more girls to enter the field. Come to Davis, we have a big new food and wine center!!
The British men always complain about women drinking. But they hate a woman who can't keep up. And trust me there are as many drunken men lying around the streets as women. Piers is a hypocritical bastard.
piers finally gets it. the attractive women in a strip club taking their clothes off while you drink wine aren't into you and probably don't even like you. they love your money! but not you.
12/09/09
Those were the days. Didn't stop me drinking a lot of shitty wine in the years that followed, but that was all to do with a low income. But lactose intolerance put paid to the cheese, alas.
12/09/09
12/09/09
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed your night of leaning physically to the right! (I am also tipsy off of a very small amount of liquor, which is why I find your post amazing).
12/08/09
I heard that there was a wine-tasting class at my university and got super excited. Until I realized that it was offered by the business school and was restricted to business majors. It was basically a course to teach proto-yuppies how to wine, dine, and schmooze their prospective clients.
I would love to learn more about wine, but in a non-bourgeois setting. I learned a fair bit working as a server, not nearly enough.
12/08/09
12/08/09
12/08/09
12/08/09
If I'd had more of an appreciation of wine at that age, I might have saved myself a few close calls. Who knows.
I do see what you mean though - centuries of tradition don't just change overnight. I'm an Anglo mutt (Scotch, Irish, English), I have certainly lived up to the beer and whiskey antics of my forefathers...
12/09/09
If these girls are headed to Oxbridge and the other top 10 unis, which they clearly are at their fancy school, they're only going to waste their good-wine education on buying the nicest bottle to knock back at 7pm before they go out (at least during freshers week)!
12/08/09
Said news program also discussed a study that showed that binge drinking teens were more likely to come from affluent families where they had been introduced to alcohol by their parents. There is also no "safe" amount of booze for a developing liver.
12/08/09
12/09/09
12/08/09
"Binge-drinking is on the rise amongst young girls, and clearly draconian health warnings and parental punishment isn't doing the trick."
I've always thought that these types of problems that are usually part of teenagehood were a way to weed out the weak (natural selection at work I guess). Those who can get through these types of pressures (being pressured to drink, do drugs, etc.) go on to be adults (fucked up or not). Those who can't don't.
12/08/09
12/08/09
12/08/09
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12/08/09
McDonald's and You: When Throwing Up Just Isn't Enough
12/08/09
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09/23/09
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09/23/09