Introduction
On this week’s show we covered a grape that does well in New Mexico; Riesling. Our winemakers even won awards against stiff competition. Then we look at my top ten Sci-Fi movies. Since it is my top ten I pondered on it long and hard and I’m still not sure I got it right. All this is on Salon Saturday!
New Mexico Grapes: Riesling
One of the grapes that grows well in New Mexico; surprising as that might be for our high-dessert ecology is Riesling, which has achieved much greater status over the years as it became a global favorite of many winemakers.
Although by now many wine drinkers know Riesling wines can range in sweetness from bone dry to syrupy; others have assumed they are all sweet. That is why many producers mark their wines dry Riesling to clue in those hesitant to try them. Others use a sweetness scale on the back label to indicate where on the scale a particular wine resides. Riesling seldom takes to oak so its rich fruit palate shines through. It is seldom used in a blend if it’s the principal grape.
Riesling: the grape
As one of the noble grapes, Riesling is grown worldwide, but as with many other grapes where it is grown indicates what type of wine to expect. Below is the breakdown.
- Germany 45%: Rheingau, Mosel, Pfalz, Rheinhessen (left bank)
- United States 12%: Washington, California, New York
- Australia 10%: Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley (high elevation)
- France 9%: Alsace
- Ukraine 8%:
- Austria 6%: Lower Austria; drier, richer, great minerality
- Moldova, Hungary, Czech Republic
- Flavor profile: Lime, green apple, beeswax, jasmine, and petroleum
- Serving temperature: 45-55 degrees, Cellar 5 to 15 years
Characteristics by region
- Germany: High in acidity, off-dry and aromatic with apricot, Meyer Lemon, beeswax, petroleum and wet slate. (Many of the vineyards are layered with slate.)
- Alsace: Lean, minerally, dry with green apple, lime, lemon, smoke, Thai basil
- South Australia: Dry and minerally, citrus with lime peel, green apple, green papaya, jasmine, diesel
New Mexico Riesling
While not known for our Riesling wines there are many good examples to choose from within the state; many of which are in the dry style.
Black Mesa: Winery in Velarde has a wide selection of quality wines and ciders
- Velarde Riesling 12% ABV, $22, an off-dry wine with melon and green apple flavors; an award-winner
- Woodnymph Riesling 13.5% ABV, $20, a dry wine with pineapple, tangerine and mineral flavors. An earlier vintage of this wine won a gold medal at the Finger Lakes wine competition.
Vivac Winery: Tasting room located at junction of 68/75, winery in Dixon
- 2021 Dry Riesling 12% ABV, $19 A blend of 50% Riesling from 1725 Vineyard, 38% Riesling from NMV, 6% Malvasia, 6% Abbott White. (1725 is at 6,000 feet, southern exposure on sandy loam.)
- Late Harvest Riesling 375ml, $29.99 at Total Wines
Ponderosa Valley: Winery is located near the Jemez Mountains.
- The late Henry Street loved playing with different Riesling clones and fashioned 3 different versions.
- Dry Riesling: 0% residual sugar
- NM Riesling 4% residual sugar
- Late Harvest Riesling 375ml 12% residual sugar
Wines of the San Juan, located in 4 corners so quite a trip, but a fun locale
- Blue-winged Olive Riesling $15: with aromas of green apple and honey-drizzled white peaches, this semi-sweet Riesling has a palate of fresh pear and stone fruit flavor.
- Dry Riesling $18: A hint of jasmine compliments this crisp, mineral, semi-dry Riesling, that expresses grapefruit, pear and apple.
Milagro Vineyards Old Church Road, Corrales
- 2020 Dry Riesling: Sourced from six vineyards – 30 yr old Old Church, 12 yr old Pierce & Gerhart, 6 yr old Lynn & Fletcher, and 4 yr old Williams – the grapes are harvested at low sugar levels, barrel fermented in neutral French oak and aged on the lees resulting in a crisp dry wine with aromas of citrus, apple and wet stone, flavors of stone fruit and mineral, tangy acidity and long finish. Alcohol 12.7%, 70 case
Science Fiction Movies and My Top Ten
Sci-Fi movies have been with us since the beginning of film. In film, using special effects and later CGI, was a perfect medium for science fiction, which itself was a new genre for books. Jules Verne was one of the first authors of science fiction and the first on film.
Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.
His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Voyage Across the Impossible (1904), both somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films.
- He built the first movie studio in Europe.
- Is regarded as “The Father of Special Effects.”
- He was the first to use production sketches and storyboards, which Hitchcock later used effectively
Although science fiction and fantasy are often lumped together; there are distinctive differences between them and here we are only covering sci-fi. Science fiction either based on existing knowledge or speculative is now in the foreground, not the background. Scientific rules are in place generally, and logic is followed in the best of these movies.
Fantasy does not have to play by these rules and is often based on ideas with no scientific basis. However both sci-fi and fantasy do lend themselves to horror in which the science might be harder to find. The following ten movies are listed chronologically because everyone viewing it would probably change the order as well as adding and subtracting from this list. All the films on this list I’m seen more than once.
Metropolis (1927): Dir – Fritz Lang with Brigitte Helm
An epic masterwork of German Expressionism, a tale of the elite contrasted with the overworked masses, of freedom and control. It’s entirely fantastical and over-the-top, but its social message is still powerful today. A great dual performance from Brigitte Helm as the good and bad Maria.
I’ve bought several versions including a digital re-mastering and one with a rock score. That 1984 version of the movie created by Oscar-winning composer Giorgio Moroder included a rock soundtrack with performances from Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler and others, but at 84 minutes made the film less intelligible than the music. Now I have the fully-restored 147min version.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): Dir – Stanley Kubrick with Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins – a spacecraft manned by two men and an A.I machine. Restored and viewed for over half a century, showcasing the most famous jump-cut in editing history and Oscar-winning visual effects. Kubrick’s visionary space epic co-written with Arthur C. Clarke, who became a close friend, is arguably the ultimate science fiction film. The most memorable performance isn’t human at all; it’s artificial intelligence HAL 9000 (voice of Douglas Rain). And a chilling voice it is. “Dave, I know what you’re doing.” And HAL ain’t singing Daisy
Planet of the Apes (1968): Dir – Franklin Shaffner with Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter
An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved. From Pierre Boulle’s novel of the same name, it’s remembered for a despairing final twist that still has the power to shock. Seeing it on first release I think my jaw dropped so far it bounced off the floor. That final image stayed with me a long time. The other shock is when Heston says, “get your hands off me you hairy ape!” which sets him against a foe that cannot permit humans to be thought intelligent. These days sometimes they’re right.
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977): Dir – George Lucas with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher
Following the success of 1973’s American Graffiti, George Lucas switched gears and pieced together a fantasy space opera with wildly varied inspirations including 1950s sci-fi serials like Flash Gordon, which I also devoured as a kid. Some liken it to a western shootout or a rebel uprising. Some critics prefer the darker vision of episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), but this is where the franchise began; even if they had to renumber everything. Although for my money episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) would come second with Princess Leia, chained in slave costume, while Jabba the Hutt purrs contentedly.
Alien (1979): Dir – Ridley Scott with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit
Ridley Scott’s original sci-fi horror masterpiece has been called the best haunted house movie ever made–even if the house is a spaceship. Most monster movies stop being scary and suspenseful as soon as we see the monster, which is why so many films wait until late to reveal it. That doesn’t apply to the utterly horrific Xenomorph in Alien. After the infamous dinner scene, maybe the most ghastly death scene in horror history, we really cringe when his larger, nastier self emerges in the ship’s ductwork. The chest-buster scene was enhanced by not letting the actors know what was going to happen. Their shocked looked are for real.
To quote Newsweek film critic Jack Kroll in 1979, the creature scares “the peanuts right out of your M&M’s.” The grotesque and disturbingly sexualized creature design by H.R. Giger has been ripped off several times since. What a surprise, huh?
Blade Runner (1982): Dir – Ridley Scott with Harrison Ford, Sean Young and Rutger Hauer
This deliberately paced neo-noir received a chilly reception when it was released in 1982, originally butchered in a weird, off-putting cut the studio meddled with. Once the streamlined director’s cut arrived a decade later, critics couldn’t deny the film’s greatness. Blade Runner is likely the 20th century’s most visual influential picture. No doubt heavily influenced by Fritz Lang‘s silent expressionist masterpiece Metropolis, its dark vision of a city influenced many others like Dark City (1998) with its shape shifting city.
It was loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which was an inspiration of several movies. Blade Runner has a dark neo-noir vision, but in the end there is redemption. Decker’s voiceovers reflect the visual despair and hopelessness of the replicants and his narration is even in the soundtrack.
The Thing (1982): Dir John Carpenter with Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley
Surprisingly it was box-office flop and critical disappointment upon release. Some critics speculate it was going against the sunny, hopeful E.T., but more likely not enough sci-fi horror fans got the word. John Carpenter’s ingenious, atmospheric body horror is now recognized as a claustrophobic masterwork. Kurt Russellstars in the icy, nihilistic thriller that pits American researchers against an alien shape shifter in Antarctica.
This was one time the remake exceeded the original (The Thing 1951) with startling special effects, a good cast and production values and body horror even David Cronenberg would envy.
Body horror causes many viewers to shy away. Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly (1986) showed Jeff Goldblum’s slow transition into a fly-human in grisly detail compared to the very tame original in 1958.
Jurassic Park (1993): Dir Stephen Spielberg with Richard Attenborough, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern
Between the sense of awe, inspired by the special effects, and the mounting terror as the T-Rex is first heard by the thud of giant feet and crashing vegetation. By the time a mouth full of nasty teeth arrives we’re close to wetting our pants. If you watch this at home remember to crank up your sub-woofer. The basics of dinosaur rebirth are handled well in an introductory scene by Dr. Hammond (no relation). Devouring the lawyer like an afternoon snack was met with loud applause when I saw the film in a theatre.
The Fifth Element (1997): Dir Luc Besson with Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich and Gary Oldman
A scantily-clad woman is the ultimate weapon against an unstoppable evil presence. Who knew? Bruce didn’t because he was in love with Leeloo; who dropped into his taxi unexpectedly. That’s a scene you won’t soon forget. The future Alice in the Resident Evil series, besides being the highest paid supermodel and fashion maven, immediately caught my attention and it has never wavered. There are visionary elements of Blade Runner, and Oldman is not the only one going over the top, but the humor throughout assures a fun viewing.
After rapidly viewing human history in like 20 minutes (Leeloo is a quick study)
- Leeloo: Everything you create, you use to destroy.
- Korben Dallas: Yeah, we call it human nature.
Matrix (1999): Dir – Wachowski sisters with Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss
This movie could be called a metaphor for life in the US now as it focuses on the idea of technology overpowering humanity. The hidden hand of a dominating government power is unveiled in dramatic fashion. Unplugging from the matrix can be likened to unplugging from the TV. This film gives us a chilling look into the future and it’s clearly dystopian.
Dystopian: relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice. Sounds like we are there now, doesn’t it?
Recent Comments