Wine tasting in Sonoma

It feels good to have a certain clarity about who you are. Sonoma is in a Mediterranean climate of which there are only a handful in the world. These places are good for growing grapes. Any crop is grown where the climate is best. This is true for corn, wheat, coffee, bananas etc. It makes sense then that wine is big here, as the climate is perfect. You would expect this here.

Wine is a luxury agricultural product, not necessary for anything but highly traditional in that the human race demands the ability to get intoxicated. People won't be blue-lawed out of drugs and alcohol; they have to have to have it. Intoxicants are represented also on a class basis. You have Budweiser and Milwaukee's Best for the working class and wine for yuppies on up.

HIgh-end wine therefore comes along with a lot of pretension; it gussies up getting intoxicated and makes it appear respectable, put some expensive cheese around it, a leg of lamb, some nice glasses and a tablecloth and voila, you are not a drunk but a wine taster!  All the boutique corollary agricultural producers depend on this latter equation. The whole tourist scene in wine country here in CA is about getting juiced. It feels good. Getting intoxicated is fun! The Plaza makes the whole scene a gas! Right? Hopefully pot will be next, just think of the dining on the Plaza when everyone has the bad ass munchies! Imagine Uncle Bob getting a ‘shotgun’ on the Plaza, taking a sip of wine and then getting some wicked good dinner! But I digress...

I agree with Danny Fay, a certain embrace of the wine scene is only realistic. It would be stupid to plant all figs and apples now when so many more millions are there for grapes. Wine is here to stay until the bubble pops for one reason or another, drought, disease, recession, depression.  There’s too much money there to stop it. The economy of Sonoma County is like an aircraft carrier, can’t stop it, can’t turn it, just have to wait until it runs aground.

There was New Yorker cover during the 2008 real estate bubble crisis showing the little guys cutting off the end of the boat where the fat cat banker was, the irony: you get rid of the fat guy, you sink too. Sometimes Fate sticks you in a boat with somebody you don't like, just like the Plaza, it's not for locals, but locals have to suck it up on a daily basis, yet the Plaza pays for city services etc; the wine is like an addiction for running the city, you need it but don't really want it. Some kind of peace has to be made with the fat cat in the other end of the boat.

Why can’t we all just get along? Well, the fat cat took all the marbles. Those who drink the wine Kool Aid hook line and sinker should realize there is a legitimate tension with folks who do not like such a one-sided monoculture tourist facade as being their town. The whole thing is associated with greed just like any other run for the money. Who is a town for? Well, there are legitimate opinions and points to be made all around. We’re all in this same boat and like it or not, have to deal with each other.

Yes, Plaza rents are ridiculously high and owners jack rents as high as possible. The whole wine and consumer scene on the Plaza is basically out of reach for any working class locals (if there are any left), or working class tourists. It is the BMW driving tourists who come in and can pay for the $100 dinner and buy all the lujo knick knacks, and so in the end I think it boils down to a class issue, and the Plaza is just so in your face expensive it is basically like giving the finger to anyone who can't go in and just start spending.