Author: rakemag

April 14, 2004

It’s spring sale time, with plenty of fun and informative tastings to go along with the vigorous market. New releases have arrived, the economy is trying its best to support our interest in better wines, and soon, it is promised, our landscape will finally turn from gray to green.

Surdyk’s led the way on the spring sale stage, offering a mostly low-end inventory. Now things bump up a few notches with Haskell’s, and up several more with Byerly’s/Lunds. And one of my very favorite stops, the Tonka Bottle Shop, is also going great guns with its spring fling through May 6t.

Let’s take a closer look at the big boys, with both Haskell’s and Byerly’s having multiple outlets and covering most of the metro area. How do these stores and their sales really compare? First I will start with inventory, where the two giants take a remarkably different approach. Every Haskell’s store carries the same inventory, and its sale can be advertised in a nineteen-page catalogue. Very colorful, I must say, and requiring my little printer a full forty-give minutes to download!

Byerly’s/Lunds, by contrast, vary greatly in inventory, as each store manager stories allowed to buy what he or she prefers to sell. The Minnetonka Byerly’s, for example, leans heavily toward imports, whereas the Plymouth Lunds is very pro-California. (I might add that as Tim Nordland, an eighteen-year Byerly’s veteran, has recently moved on to greener pastures—no he didn’t die…he took a sales position with Cat & Fiddle—the merchandise at the Plymouth Lund’s may slowly change).

How do the two compare on style? They’re somewhat similar. Haskell’s offers its infamous “Nickel” sale in which the shopper pays “regular” price for the first bottle and five cents for the second bottle of the same wine. It’s common knowledge that Haskell’s raises the “regular” price quite a bit more than retail, so that the end result is nothing like two-for-one. An example: a bottle of Covey Run Chardonnay typically runs between $6.99 & $8.49. I saw it recently at MGM for $6.99, its “regular” price. Haskell’s lists the “regular” price for as $12.99, with a second bottle for five cents, yielding a “sale” price of $6.52 per bottle. Not such a great deal is it? One more example: Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio. At Haskell’s “regular” price of $13.99, the nickel sale price comes to $7.02 per bottle. Sam’s Club carries Ecco Domani with a regular price of $6.83; MGM is $8.99. Haskell’s offers a decent deal on the higher priced imports, which is perhaps its specialty anyway, so it is worth checking out. Just be careful!

As for Byerly’s/Lund’s, they offer a “buy one at regular price, get the second bottle at half price sale” through May 1. This makes for an especially good deal on more expensive bottles. And, as far as I can tell, Byerly’s doesn’t jack up its prices before the sale. Another thing to keep in mind: this sale applies to any bottle, even those not in stock. Byerly’s will order anything you want and offer it at the special sale price. At Haskell’s, the sale only applies to store inventory. Enough said.

Free Public Tasting Opportunities

France 44 is featuring Bonny Dune this month, and will show some of its more esoteric offerings this Saturday from 2-5pm. I hope they will pour the Cigare Volant, as this is one special bottle. A domestic “Chateauneufdupape” if there ever was one. Any friend of Bonny Dune is a friend of mine. Check it out.

Haskell’s chain of stores will be featuring a variety of tasting opportunities too complicated to list here, so it is best to visit its website for an overview. Go to www.haskells.com for the full report.

There is hardly ever advance information about the Saturday tastings at the Byerly’s/Lund’s stores, except we do know that Connie will pour selections Thursday through Saturday at the Golden Valley location—as of this web posting they haven’t put together their list. Call them directly at 763-544-8978 to find out what Connie is up to.

Phil, the ever-helpful owner of Henn-Lake Liquors, pours a selection of wines every Friday night, but information about his choices is always “hush-hush.” Stop by and surprise yourself. (Phil also tells me that he will meet or beat any sale price Haskell’s offers (or, for that matter, specials at Byerly’s or anyplace else…).

Upcoming Wine Events

Naturally we must start with Louie’s own extravaganza, Friday night’s Napa Spring Wine Fling, with over 60 wines from Napa Valley, music and magic, and a great raffle on top of it all. Watch a tasting report in my next posting!

Coming in early May, but worth planning for, will be the fabulous Napa Valley Vintner’s Tasting (May 6, $75 per person). I will be at the event’s industry gathering in the afternoon, and highly recommend this event, as there are purportedly 200 Napa wines being shown (not that any of us could sample more than 50, but what the hell!).

Hot Buys!

Before closing up this tidy report, I must mention three fabulous bottles I picked up at Costco this week (for my Napa Spring Wine Fling party, of course):
Flora Springs ’02 Sangiovese—$13.49
Heitz ’02 Napa Chardonnay—$13.99
Cosentino ’00 Napa Cabernet—$18.99

Amazing wines… amazing deals… and you don’t have to be a member!

That’s all for this week’s brief report. I will be back next week with an expansive, perhaps even over-the-top, unendurably long, insider’s report. Stay tuned.

“Just to get it over with and done.” While that’s the fictional Tyrell Rawls speaking in “Cumberland Breakdown,” from Oates’ latest collection of stories, I Am No One You Know, he could be explaining how his creator has churned out no fewer than forty-three novels by the age of sixty-six. Without a doubt, there’s more than enough Oates to go around, but followers disappointed by the critical flop of Blonde and the mainstream success of We Were the Mulvaneys have long been wishing that she would return to the height of her powers in the short-story form. She has. Dust off a copy of Upon the Sweeping Flood before the reading. 10500 Hillside Ln., Minnetonka; (952) 847-8637; www.hclib.org

Considering her Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres, a deft recasting of Shakespeare’s King Lear in the cornfields of Iowa, Jane Smiley knows very well how to spin good fiction from the human capacity for self-delusion and hubris. She attacks that theme from another angle in Good Faith (due in paperback May 11), in which greed, lust, and a fatal lack of self-awareness gnaw away at Joe Stratford, a 1980s real-estate agent presented with a get-rich-quick plan that, of course, just couldn’t be a scam. Though Joe’s fate is so obvious we correctly guessed it from reading the dust jacket, Smiley’s perspicacious prose kept us turning the pages happily. She’s also just come out with the memoir A Year at the Races, which expands on the love for equines she first wrote about in the novel Horse Heaven. Galleria, 3225 W. 69th St., Edina; (952) 920-0633; bn.com

For a guy who so clearly enjoys a tasty snack, Steve Almond looks awfully thin in his author’s photo. In Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America, the Boston-based food writer waxes rhapsodic on Tangy Taffy, Goo Goo Clusters, Peanut Bing, and a hundred others we’d never even heard of—small wonder, considering that there used to be as many as six thousand candy companies in America. Almond travels across the country in search of rare and obscure sweets, giving new meaning to the term “oral history.” If this gets your mouth watering, you should know that his appearance at Ruminator—which used to be called Hungry Mind, appropriately enough—is both a reading and a chance to sample a variety of candy bars made by small, independent American companies. To heck with the diet! (651) 699-0587; ruminator.com

If a flock of crows is a “murder,” what should you call a flock of mystery writers? An exhumation, perhaps. Whatever the term is, this month brings new books by four Minnesota-based authors of thrillers and police procedurals. In the interest of supporting the hometown team, here’s a rundown of whodunnit and where they’ll be reading from it.
• P.J. Tracy, a pseudonymous mom/daughter writing team, return with Live Bait, a followup to their highly praised debut Monkeewrench, a 2004 Minnesota Book Award finalist in two categories. They’ll be at Once Upon a Crime April 30 and the Maple Grove Barnes & Noble May 2.
• St. Thomas grad Vince Flynn writes potboilers about terrorist-fighting CIA agent Mitch Rapp, including the new Memorial Day. He reads at Barnes & Noble in Roseville May 4, Once Upon a Crime May 5, and Borders Block E May 6.
• Cold Blood is the second novel from former Pioneer Press crime reporter Theresa Monsour. She’s at Barnes & Noble three times: in Woodbury May 11, in Roseville May 18, and in Maple Grove May 20.
• John Sandford’s fifteenth Lucas Davenport novel Hidden Prey teams his sleuth with a Russian cop to solve a killing on Lake Superior; the similarities to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie Red Heat are, thankfully, only superficial. He reads on May 11 at the Barnes & Nobles in Woodbury and in downtown Minneapolis. He and Monsour appear together at Once Upon a Crime May 10.

For its eleventh year, the Walker’s annual celebration of female film directors kicks off with the apropos new documentary In the Company of Women, a look at the vital role of female filmmakers in the nineties’ independent-cinema explosion. Though it sometimes feels like a ninety-minute commercial for the Independent Film Channel (which funded it), it’s still a heartening overview of the inroads women have made in the male-dominated film world. Other intriguing movies being shown include Double Dare, about Hollywood stuntwomen, and a free retrospective of the short works of Minnesota-born director Sarah Jacobson, who died of cancer in February. There’s also a number of strong features from outside the U.S., including the American premiere of At Five in the Afternoon, an intriguing, Spike Lee-like drama about a schoolgirl in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan who dreams of running for president. (612) 375-7622; www.walkerart.org

-Full tank of gas that has appreciated 100 percent

-Cabin polarized into cobwebs versus dustbunnies

-Outhouse tipped over by sleeper cell of black bears

-Hole in cereal boxes, turds on counters, tiny mouse-sized keg of Bud Light

-A startled Dick Cheney reading “Tuesdays With Morrie”

Thanks for Clinton Collins, Jr.’s comments on gay marriage [Free the Jackson Five, March]. It’s admirable that he uses his column in a way that reflects compassion for people in general. I should mention that I’m straight—not that it matters except that it shows that I’m writing purely out of a desire to commend Clinton and not… yeah, you know. I think it’s ridiculous that so many people can hate something which is natural and doesn’t harm them personally in any way. It’s no different than saying that “non-whites” should drink from separate drinking fountains. I’m twenty-four and I can only imagine that someday I’ll have kids and will be embarrassed to have to tell them what the state of humanity was when I was young. Keep up the good work.
Chauncey Peppertooth
Minneapolis

THE VICTIMLESS CRIME
I just read Clinton Collins on gay marriage [Free the Jackson Five, March]. Thank you for writing such a thought- provoking and insightful article. I could not have said it better myself. If two people want to spend their lives together, it is nobody’s business but theirs.
Lisa Carlson-Douma
Minneapolis

CONFESSION OF A SCENE-STEALER
As the opening act for the run of Puppetry of the Penis I appreciate the acknowledgement and kind words of Sari Gordon, or perhaps Jeff Mihelich, regarding my act [The Rakish Angle, March]. To get a blind, gay man to enjoy my show… well, my work here is done. I thought I might attach a name to the middle-aged woman in the boa and cocktail fog. It’s Darlene Westgor. I’ll be here all week.
Darlene Westgor
Burnsville
PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE
Oliver Tuanis writes, “When Oklahoma reinstated the death penalty after a twenty-five-year moratorium, murders increased.” [“Dead Serious,” March] Doesn’t that statement at least deserve a footnote that the Oklahoma City bombing occurred after the reinstatement? How can we take anyone seriously who omits such a relevant fact? The writer also cites the fact that “108 people have been sentenced to death for crimes they were later proven not to have committed” for the assertion that the system does not work. In my opinion, that statistic proves that the system does work. Show me the evidence of the people actually put to death for crimes they didn’t commit. Furthermore, it is worth noting that those 108 would have languished in prison for life if not for the fact that the specter of death garnered them extra attention. The alleged racist application is perhaps best disproved by the fact that the author cites no statistics showing minorities receive a disproportionate share of death warrants. Instead, the author claims that the death penalty is disproportionately meted out to those who perpetrate their crimes on whites. How this statistic is calculated is unclear. There are approximately 350 percent more white people than black people in this country, so if the likelihood of being a victim is spread evenly over the races, one would expect that statistical disparity to exist. Even if the methodology was more sophisticated than it appears, it is folly to try and claim all crimes are identical. A substantial number of black murder victims are the result of gang conflict. While the circumstances might warrant a capital charge, the passions are not likely to rival those when a completely innocent woman is kidnapped and murdered. I respect the opinions (though rarely the facts) of those who oppose the death penalty. Personally, I favor it and I’ll tell you why. I don’t care if it doesn’t deter crime, if it’s more expensive, or anything else. People who commit such crimes are a stain on our society. Viewing the situation from the perspective of a non-perpetrator and a non-victim, I want the death penalty because it gives me a sense that there is justice. My rationale is admittedly visceral, but at least I haven’t tried to prop it up with fuzzy math.
Robert Gust
Minneapolis

Oliver Tuanis responds: The study of the Oklahoma murder rate covered the period 1989-1991. The Oklahoma City bombing occurred in 1995. If there were any deterrent effect to the death penalty, it should be easily observable in Texas, where there are the most executions by far. The murder rate there has stayed relatively constant for the last several years. As for the stats on racism, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund study completed in 2003 found that, in cases where an execution has occurred since the restoration of the death penalty, more than eighty percent of the murder victims are white, even though nationally only fifty percent of all murder victims are white. (The likelihood of being a victim is decidedly not in proportion to one’s race, as Mr. Gust guesses for the purpose of his argument.) So, if the victims are equally likely to be white or not, yet the killers of whites are four times as likely to be executed—well, you figure it out. Maybe, as Mr. Gust implies, the white victims are more “innocent” than the non-white, although to me, it would be hard to find a more innocent victim than Tyesha Edwards, an eleven-year-old African-American girl who was sitting in her living room doing her homework when she was shot dead. I guess she was guilty of living in a worse neighborhood than most white people. Finally, Mr. Gust makes the most bizarre assertion I’ve heard in a long time: that the 108 exonerated people released from death row “proves the system does work,” because of the “extra attention” they got. “Show me the evidence of the people actually put to death for crimes they didn’t commit,” he says. To do that, I’d have to do some more digging—literally, I’m afraid.

Editor’s note: The Death Penalty Information Center has identified five men executed since 1992 whose convictions have since been called seriously into question. The DPIC points out that it’s impossible to know how many more wrongly accused prisoners may have been put to death, since “Courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead.”