Angry Ford dealer in SC calls imports "rice ready...not road ready"

We have a vast number of very nice wineries around here, the best stuff stays here!!
I'm just not really a wine drinker I guess.

 

No, I'm not either. I don't mind a glass at supper though

 

Oh if I'm in the right mood I can polish off a 2 litre cask but other times I would sit on a glass all night. It's amazing how good some of the premium cask wines are these days. 15 years or so ago there was a shortage of grapes so any rubbish made it into the bottle or cask. Another reaction to that was the mass planting of vines, all over the region fruit trees were ripped out and vines went in. The price of almonds and apricots went up but the price of grapes went through the floor a few years later. Now a high percentage of the grape crop rots on the vines but only premium grapes find their way into the wine vats. Even growers with contracts to wineries have found their crops unwanted and unpaid for due to them not meeting sugar levels or some such technicality. As exports have grown so have the wineries and the supply of grapes has been more than abundant to support the expansion. That's why you will have noticed an ever growing range of Australian table wines on the shelves at your local bottle shop.

 

That's usually MY claim to fame!

Yep, I believe all those fruit orchards ripped out and replaced with vine.

Actually, that only helps my local wine selection, not to mention the price. For awhile, I was getting the Outback Traminer Riesling for $8 Cdn a bottle. Present exchange rate, around $9.32 Aud

 

The county where we live has become wine country in the last 20 years. The area is best know for cherry trees, and also apples, peaches, pears, and related fruit, but in recent times grapes have really taken off. The surrounding water moderates the cold weather, which lets grapes do well much farther north than normal.

As for me, I'm a big fan of red wine.

Tom

 

You would love the Barossa then and The Southern Vales where I live. Look up Mt Hurtle Wines and Geoff Merrill Wines

This winery is in my back yard!

I live on Mt Hurtle Estate.

Unlike me to be involved in a thread going off topic!

 

Yep, it's all good

 

Lucky bugger. My landscape is pretty frozen and full of snow, right now

 

That isn't exactly what I see looking out my window but I can see the winery about 400 metres (1/4 mile) across a shallow valley. I'd walk over for a tasting but the walk back is 1/2 a mile.

 

Jayman would run a hose to it.

Tom

 

Yeah Tom, I could fill my pool, the winery is a little higher than my house I think.

 

That would scare me too. The walk there would be easy, the walk back could be interesting!

 

They would probably become suspicious after I became a “regular†of the plant tour groups. Especially if I began showing up with a clipboard, a measuring tape, my trusty HP scientific calculator with “reverse Polish logic,†and my hardhat with the caption:

DANGER: MAD SCIENTIST

 

Never call a winery a plant here, they would hate that. It isn't a factory it is a place where great flavours are grown and blended.

This is how they want you to think of them
and

But the reality for the large wineries like Wolf Blass and Hardys or Penfolds is more like
and

 

RPN. I love RPN. I still have my HP-45 scientific calculator that cost over $300 in 1974 and it still works. My workhorse is an HP-28S. One of these days I'm going to buy one of the new HP models, now that they are back in the scientific calculator business.

Tom

 

Ah, another mad scientist

I still have a couple of HP-48GX units. Back in the day, it was pretty cool to be able to use the IR port to transfer programs back and forth. Naturally, it didn't long for some of us to write a Poker program

 

Oh I have no doubt. Perception and reality are often 180 degrees out of phase

It would be pretty fun to go on a tour of the "public perception" old-timey part, then have me yell out "where the hell are the RTD's? That isn't how you monitor temperature! You call *that* Ladder Logic!? I need a drink!"

 

Yep, you're as weird as I am

For the uninitiated, here is how a "normal" person would add 1 plus 1, with a "normal" calculator

Press the "1"

Press the "+"

Press the "1"

Press the "="

Display should read "2," unless you are too close to a black hole

Here is how a weirdo - eg Yours Truly - uses his fancy-schmancy HP scientific calculator to do the same basic math. Note, the display is also called the "stack"

Press the "1" key

Press "Enter"

Press the "1" key

Press "Enter"

Press "+"

Display should read "2" unless you are about to reach light speed

 

People used to want to borrow my HP-45 for a quick calculation. The exact dialog varied a bit, but usually went something like this:

"Hey, can I borrow your calculator for a minute?"

"You won't like it."

"Why?"

"It's RPN."

"Ahhh...Okay. Let me use it just for a minute."

"Okay, but you won't like it" (handing over the calculator).

(short pause while the borrower punches keys on the calculator)

"Hey, where is the equal key?", says the borrower.

"It doesn't have one."

"Doesn't have one! How can it not have an equal key?"

"Because it uses RPN."

(blank stare, followed by the return of my calculator)

Tom

 

Priceless