Souvenirs - special notes - Giftshop Paris Bookshop Jean-Thomas Cullen

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About Paris Giftshop Notes by Jean-Thomas Cullen

09. The Wine in Spine Sties Minely in the Plines

A few little asides here. My own observation, having lived for years again in Europe as an adult, is that you want to be careful in transporting wines. Maybe it's just me, but I brought some wonderful wines home from Germany while I was stationed there as a U.S. Army soldier in the 1970s, and when I opened them in San Diego, they tasted rather flat. My theory was that the vibrations of traveling cause the complex molecules in a rich wine to break up, and you end up with a table wine you could have bought at your local supermarket. And, by the way, California wines have in recent generations achieved world class.

A note on beer: aside from the new global corporate ownership of many top brands, in the beer world it was common knowledge that under U.S. law, imported beer had to be pasteurized (have the soul boiled out of it) to be admitted into the U.S. I could drink a perfectly wonderful Becks beer in Germany, which has the world's strictest laws, known as Reinheitsgebote (Purity Laws) regarding the manufacture of beer. These laws were enacted at least as early as 1516 in my birthplace of Bavaria (proud fluffle). A German beer by law may only contain water, hops, and barley. Many of our U.S. beers aren't really beers by German law and definition, but sort of hold-your-nose fruit or rice beverages. My observation has long been that every place has its strong and weak points; weak points in the U.S. have long included knowing nothing about bread or beer. But: de gustibus non disputandum. Just saying. You can't say that about steak, for example. Same with wine anymore. As noted, California today is a world-class wine producer.

A really strange twist (ah, modern world!) is that the pure Beck I used to reverently drink in West Germany years ago is now part of a global consortium that owns U.S. beers (e.g., Budweiser, Miller); Brazilian beers; and other European beers. You can look it up on Google. The conglomerate is so vast and complex that I can't make heads or tails of who really owns Beck now. But I'm sure they still apply the same purity laws in Germany today.

Now back to those tourists on the bus. These people might be in Bavaria the next day, where you are more likely to find a cuckoo-clock than in other parts of Germany. By the time they get home to Vancouver or Seattle, it's all a blur anyway: just a golden glow of memories (try to forget the dark moments, like pickpockets, scam artists, and the like). Oh yes, helpful idea: in our day and age, before going, you can watch YouTube videos to get free advice from (sometimes) experts and (sometimes) dingdongs. Take it all in stride, but try to go prepared.

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