We don't even know when our next GINI going to be, and I'm writing this blog (What's going on??)  Actually I've meant to write as soon as we had our last tasting, but somehow I just rather to write something else.  I was more excited than usual coming to this wine taste, reason being, I was bringing one bottle from my "collection" (all of 3 bottles)  I have this Pinot Noir I bought about one year ago.  I bought it because I read it in a wine column from the Wall Street Journal.  The column was describing their wine country trip in Napa Valley.  So of all the wine they mentioned, LCBO carried only one of them, the Pinot Noir from Russian River Valley.  It wasn't cheap, well above $40, but I bought two anyway.  I gave one to my dad, and to my surprise, he finished rather quickly, and I didn't even have a sip.  I can only assume that it was good, him finishing it so quickly.

We had this wine taste on December 29, a Friday night, so naturally we had dinner as well.  To go with Burgundy and Pinot Noir, we went with rotisserie chicken.  We were gonna have Swiss Charlet, but Aaron read an article from Toronto Star, recommending a BBQ place and calls it the best rotisserie chicken in Toronto area.  The place is called "Joe Boo's Cookoos" and it's actually in Thornhill.  It was indeed very good chicken. BTW, thanks to Kwong T for providing his place, allowing us to eat and drink.

We went back to the blind tasting this time, so all bottles with brown bags covered up.  We just know one thing before hand; bottle number two had a broken cork in it (first time happen to us!) So we ended up having to decant the wine (to avoid getting the cork while drinking)  But Vincent W says that you don't usually need to decant Pinot Noir/Burgundy.

First bottle is a Pinot Noir from Oregon.  A few of us were quite certain of it while blind tasting.  It is the youngest of all, and It was quite fruity and acidic; it didn't taste much like other Pinot Noir we had before.

Second bottle was a Burgundy, the one with the broken cork.  The reason we tasted Burgundy with other Pinot Noir is that most wines from Burgundy are made from Pinot Noir.  There is a few things to learn from looking at the label.  One thing is that French for Burgundy is "Bourgogne".  Another thing is that, in most cases, the more specific the place, the better the wine.  So in our case, Givry is the name of a village, quite specific.  1er Cru, or Premier Cru, indicates the status of the wine; only 10 percent of all Burgundy's wine.  It ranks second to Grand Cru, which represents fewer than 2 percent of Burgundy wines.  I also found out that the terms are reversed in Bordeaux, with Premier Cru superior.  A few of us thought this one was quite different from bottle #3 and #4, so we speculate that this one is my California Pinot Noir, not Burgundy.  I'm not sure how others tasted this bottle, leather is the only one thing came to my mind.

Third bottle is the one I brought, Sebastopol Vineyards Dutton Ranch Pinot Noir.  I read it somewhere that a lot of wine drinkers had their first revelation about wine with Burgundy.  I think this might be the case for me, except it's not a Burgundy, it's Russian River Pinot Noir (close enough?)  This was my first time being so decisive and say, "this one tastes really good"  And apparently quite a few others agreed with me, looking at everyone's rankings.  But I'm still not totally sure, as that one great taste only happened to me a couple sip; I wonder if it's the way I'm drinking it.  In any case, I'm glad that I really like that taste... that indescrible taste.  I re-read the column in WSJ, I realize they describe it perfectly; soulful tastes of truffles and strong tea.  Yes! That's what I tasted.

Finally the last bottle is a Burgundy.  Nuits Saint Georges, name of another village, is also Preimer Cru (I believe)  Truth be told, I was so impressed by the previous bottle, I kinda forgot about this one. --KC  

The GINI Burgundy/Pinot Noir Index

Bottle #	Vineyard	Region	Pts	Group Rank	My Rank
1	Iris Hill Pinot Noir 2004	Oregon	35	4	4
2	Domaine Joblot 1999	France, Burgundy, Givry	29	3	3
3	Sebastopol Vineyards Dutton Ranch Pinot Noir 2001	Napa Valley, Russian River Valley	19	1	1
4	Domaine Daniel Rion et Fils 1999	France, Burgundy, Nuits St Georges	27	2	2

MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=64

Ever since I saw the movie A Prairie Home Companion, I got hooked on listening to the actual radio program.  So much so I go back to their archives and listen to their old shows (and wouldn't shut up and keep telling my friends that I'm listening to the program.)  Maybe it's their silly radio-acting with exaggerating sound-effects, but it's more likely because of the music they play on the show.  It's sometimes jazzy, sometimes blues, sometimes folk music.  Anyway, there is this one song I like from the show, I'd like to keep a note on.  The song was performed by Kate Mackenzie in a show about 10 years ago(!) at 1:16:27.

A Grown Woman (A Woman Like Me)
by Greg Brown and Kate Mackenzie

A grown woman, a woman like me,
Walks alone in the evenin'
   thinkin' 'bout her baby,
Not the one who left when things got to where
   they just couldn't understand,
No, the one she used to carry
   who's now grown up to be almost a man.

A grown woman, a woman like me,
Can still see him come a-runnin'
   and hollerin' for mommy,
Hope the love she's given him
   will help him understand,
How to really give love back,
   how to be a kind and a gentle man.

A grown woman, a woman like me,
Turns off the porch light,
   wishes on the first star that she sees,
Oh, please lord, take care of him,
   for I have done all that I can,
Now he's out there with his all kinds of dreams
   of what it is to be a man.

MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=63

Just some more notes after reading the book A New Kind of Christian.

The people who talk the most about God are the ones most in danger of taking him for granted, of letting God become just a comfortable word in their lexicon, a piece of furniture, rather than a reality, a friend, a constant surprise.  The people who talk the most about loving God are the ones most in danger of being PROUD of how much they love him. The people who speak most vehemently against sin are the most in danger of feeling superior to those whose sins they excoriate, thus falling prey to an even more horrible, subtle species of sin. And since they preach so hard against sin, they are also the most in danger of yielding to the temptation to hide the sins they themselves commit.

I think this is particular true; we have seen some pretty bad church scandals in recent years.  Personally I think I have a different problem, if not opposite; I find it uncomfortable for me to speak or "preach" to others, in the back of my mind, I'm not doing a particular good job of resisting temptation of sin.  Otherwise, it would be like, Do as I say, Not do as I do.

Do you think that God would want a heaven filled with people who cared more about being saved from hell than saved from sin? Who cared more about getting their butts into heaven than being good? Who cared more about having their sins forgiven than being good neighbors? Who in fact became worse neighbors precisely because they became so religious in their concern about their own personal souls?

I could imagine Maggie saying or asking these kinds of questions; in fact, she probably did use some of these exact words long time ago.  Unfortunately I was just getting comfortable being a "Modern" Christian, brushing off her questions and doubts.  I guess I am reading this book 7 years too late (or this book came out 2 years too late, strange relief I found)  It turns out Maggie was ahead of us when it comes to being postmodern. --KC  

MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=62

I sort of got stuck at chapter 11 of the book New Kind of Christian.  Not that I am having trouble with what McLaren is saying, it's just that I want to write down some of the stuff from that chapter, before reading too far ahead.

Modernity had a great insight: every individual is valuable and deserves respect. But our individualism has become unbalanced, and we have lost the realization of how connected we are.

I’m sure most Christians know it. But the following is new to me:

The only kinds of sin we want to focus on as modern Christians are the isolated individual sins committed by isolated individual monads: lying, having an abortion, indulging in pornography, taking drugs, saying naughty words. Not to minimize those things in any way, but that is far short of a fully biblical understanding of sin, and it leads to dangerous truncations of justice and compassion.

Then McLaren went on with an example of how an individual sin (more specifically committing a crime) was really in part a result of him being neglected by his community earlier in his life.  And then with that, McLaren went on to compare this with the Good Samaritan story, how the community failed to be the Good Samaritan. In fact, the community is more like the self-righteous priest or Pharisees.

The issue isn’t who is wrong or righteous; that’s obvious. The issue is who is truly good.

I guess the whole idea of concentrating on sins committed by individuals is that, if no individual commit any sin, then all is fine, at least at that moment. But that doesn’t mean people are good to each other.  So without goodness, people will face temptation to sin sooner or later.  So is McLaren saying that, not being good is just another type of sin? And if the majority of community fails to show goodness, it is the community as a whole commits the sin.

It might be true, as McLaren points out, that people with Post-modern mindset don’t necessary see themselves as isolated monads.  But I think there is still strong individualism in them. I think it is hard enough already to tell an individual to repent, not to sin, will it be any easier to ask one to go beyond righteousness and be truly good most of the time, if not all.

The difference between modern and post-modern is probably most evident in their perspective on lying, one of the individual sins mentioned before. It is black and white for the modern mindset.  Only recently I began to think it is not so clear cut.  Maybe there is a bit of post-modern in me.  But I do think it is reckless to be brutally honest all the time; it could even be mean spirit.  And of course non-believers can always accuse Christians being hypocrites with this issue; it is not surprising that people have a hard time to be a Christ follower if we focus on individual sin, like lying, only. -KC

MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=59

Reading chapter 4 of the book A New Kind of Christian, finally read something I haven't already heard about.  At the beginning it wasn't promising; it talks about how technology and economic changes took the world from medieval times to modern, and how current technology and economic change will be doing the same (in which I still have some reservation on this)  But what got me thinking is this, while talking about those great grand looking cathedrals in Europe:

Ironically, the very stone buildings that expressed the belief that their medieval version of Christiandom would last forever now mock that belief because today, when we visit them in Europe, they seem to us like museums - or mausoleums.  They tell a story of a world that is over

When I was in London and Paris early last year, visiting some of the Cathedrals, I did have trouble understanding what all this is about.  I remember thinking, no doubt Christians back then spent all kinds of resources and effort to building something great for God.  But what about now, with hardly any Christians in there, so all Europeans have moved out of medieval world already.  What about other parts of the world, like Peru I visited a couple months ago, where majority is Catholic, are they still in medieval mindset? or have they moved on to something different, not quite modern or post-modern, because it's still a developing/border-line 3rd world country?  I have also visited a few Mega churches in the states, and I remember thinking if those big grand buildings will become like Cathedrals in Europe in the future, a reminder of the old age called Modern. (I actually don't think so, because it's so multi-purpose, it will just be converted into something else)

Most of your peers live in a different world from you. They have already crossed the line into the postmodern world.  But few of you have.  Why? Because you want to be faithful to the Christian upbringing you have received, which is so thoroughly enmeshed with modernity.

So is this what churches are doing now, trying to have as many people as possible, to keep coming to church, trying to keep them in the Modern world mindset? Is this why many people feeling uncomfortable in church.  And what exactly am I, Modern? Post-modern? Somewhere in between?  I think it's ok to stay with whatever I'm right now, but if I were to have children in the future, they will most likely be postmodern, how will I be dealing with that? A friend of mine has always been saying that he will let me take his kids to church (He himself doesn't go to church) But now I think I better tell him that, in addition to the teaching of Christ and being a follower of Christ, children might be taught in a modern mindset, which could be incompatible with the rest of their peers, i.e. in a postmodern mindset. --KC

MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=58