While I was watching the Olympics last night I happened to channel surf onto a program on PBS called America’s Test Kitchen. Does it make sense that I was watching the Olympics and channel surfing? Yes and no. I was interested in watching some of the events, but NBC is doing everything they can to broadcast the Olympics, but drive away any viewer with a brain between their ears. The color commentators are simply useless and the human interest stories videographic representations of vomit. Anyway, I was watching America’s Test Kitchen and they were making a stew. The whole point is that they used of bottle of Rex Goliath Pinot Noir in the recipe. It’s not a terrible wine. It’s not good either. Of course one of the few places you’ll find it is Trader Joe’s. Later I watched the movie Drillbit Taylor. The main character is a bum and guess his wine of choice? Two Buck Chuck. Another one Trader Joe’s offerings.
Has TJ’s been working on a product placement marketing plan, am I just starting to notice these things that have always been going on or was it just a coincidence?
I think wine customers are rather odd in Wisconsin. Many will shy away from a bottle that costs $8, but will happily grab a six pack of beer for $7.99. The price and quality relationship for wine and beer is fairly similar. Not all costly offerings are great, but almost all cheap offerings are garbage. The area between is where you can make those great discoveries at a great price. Make no mistake, if you buy a bottle of wine for less than $6.00, it will taste like it cost less than $6.00. It won’t necessarily taste bad, but it won’t taste surprising or pleasurable. If you’re just looking to get buzzed, go knock yourself out. Just don’t buy a few bottles of cheap wine and tell your friends that it makes a great cooking wine. Your friends will either assume you have poor taste in alcohol (which you do) or that you don’t know a damn thing about cooking with wine (which you don’t). They may also think you’re a closet alcoholic and you buy cheap booze so you can afford the habit.
Here’s a hint for those of you out there on the internets. When you cook a wine into a food, the flavors of the wine go into the food. If you use a bad wine, you’ll get bad food. Makes sense right? So why do so many people still insist that a cheap crappy wine is good for cooking? The answer is simple. People are idiots. They have poor taste, don’t think and repeat the dumbest things they’ve been told in their unenlightened miserable lives.
Which brings us full circle right back to the Olympics. Each one is worse than the last. The controversies, the network coverage and IOC nonsense. The commercialism of the Olympics is the dumbest thing. Does McDonald’s really expect us to believe that world class athletes have been waiting their whole lives for the perfect chicken sandwich which now available at a rat infested shack with a drive-thru window? Does it make any sense that Visa is the only card accepted at the Olympics? Wouldn’t a promotion like that only serve to irritate people that are trying to spend money at the events? The sad thing is, these promotions and commercials obviously do work. It’s been the norm for decades and these businesses are thriving. People are stupid and I hate them.