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#if you live in the northern region of a certain state in the southwest region of the USA
bustedbernie · 3 years
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When I was a kid, there was a bus company called TNM&O (Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma) that ran buses across the southwest, with decent timetables and serving towns as small as 200 people. Before this, much of Texas and New Mexico were accessible by rail transit - Albuquerque, Gallup, Belen and Clovis all being major train hubs at some point or another. I hate the argument that "Intercity transit can't work in America, it's too spread out." But, places like New Mexico and Texas - vast and empty states - were largely populated by Intercity transit. At a certain point, you could get on a train in Paducah, TX, travel to Lubbock, Amarillo, or Dallas, then connect to the rest of the country, from a town which no longer even has a cargo rail line (though much of that right-of-way still exists, a true story in much of the USA).
Expanding amtrak, reintroducing spur lines (of which there are only a few left, like the famous Princeton Shuttle operated by New Jersey Transit), and offering tax incentives to companies (or budgets to state transit departments) to train and hire CDL drivers in modern coaches with toilets equiped could help connect many of these towns. In rural areas that surround a larger town (like those in New Mexico or Texas, cited above) services could be started with commuter frequencies. These are things we've seen done in peer countries - including the vast and empty Canada.
TNM&O got bought out by Greyhound buses some many years ago. Around 2008, many of those former TNM&O lines were cut - after many had already been cut with the acquisition of the company. From my city to a town i used to live in, some time ago it would've been possible to get a ride across the state in 4 hours, direct, and with several options per day - this is of course in the empty state of New Mexico. Now, though greyhound still serves that town marginally, it would require a bus transfer in a neighboring state and take 9-10 hours. Many other states had their version of TNM&O which could and should make a come-back in some form or another.
We already know America can function on transit and walkability, many of our small towns are STILL walkable and still have historic train stations which in the best of cases could be reopened for amtrak or state-run services, and in the marginal cases be converted to centrally located motor coach hubs. Small towns could use ADA-compliant investments in sidewalks and new streets, bike lanes, and other investments that they can't afford on their own. In the case of New Mexico, many towns are large enough to support fixed-route bus service but simply can't afford that. This is something that Biden's transit plan addresses in towns with over 100,000 people. There's no reason why we can't begin spending that money on small towns down the line. There is a rollover effect of large cities improving transit then encouraging Intercity transit which in turn creates demand for transit and infra investments in rural areas.
On this, i will also propose New Mexico as an example. The State established the "blue bus" network in Northern New Mexico, connecting communities from Santa Fe up through Taos and Rio Arriba. This is one of the most rural and poor regions of the country and includes several tribal nations. Blue Bus is free and though imperfect, is a lifeline for many who can connect with the rail runner in Santa Fe for medical appointments, university and shopping in Albuquerque. Connecticut also has Its CT Transit, and New Jersey it's NJ Transit. These are systems that can be expanded. In the case of NJ, the southern NJ rail links could be rebuilt and electrified. Blue Bus could be expanded. With gas taxes helping to create expanded services and reducing miles travelled by car, it would only lead to more service.
There's also evidence that these small town transit hubs can help induce the creation of small businesses, grocery stores and other amenities. If our goal is to help the rural folks, let's make it less needed for them to make long treks to places like Albuquerque for basic supplies. Let's make small towns nicer places to live which in turn helps keep local doctors and clinics in-place and open (another big issue). Housing grants can also help.
There's so much we can do to make the US a more kind, safe, clean and livable country, even in the wide spaces of the west and Southwest. There's just no excuse not to start making major changes. In the end, we all benefit and share in a more vibrant public common.
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fatehbaz · 4 years
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There is a Nez Perce name for condors: qu’nes (distinct from the word for the turkey vulture, q’ispa’laya, a similar bird locally differentiated by its bent wing profile). And the great bird historically lived here, in the Palouse Prairie, Hells Canyon, and the inland Pacific Northwest along the slopes of the Northern Rockies. The bird was here not during some lost ancient “primordial” Pleistocene past, but recently; the bird lived here relatively few decades ago. “California” condors living quite far from California. These local names for were relayed to scholar Brian Sharp, and there are other condor-names from the Pacific Northwest (also recorded by Sharp). There is a Wasco word for condors, k’unwakshun (according to scholars of the Warm Springs’ Wasco language program, distinct from the word for turkey vulture, q’ispa’laya), evidencing the bird’s presence at the Dalles, along the inland Columbia River, and in the Blue Mountains. From near the sagebrush steppe east of the Cascades, a Yakama word: patsami hu’u, “rough or crooked beak” (according to scholars of the Yakama Cultural Center). There is lakessltl’nos, possibly the word for condor, which is distinct from the turkey vulture, hem-letet (”stinkhead,” according to Johnson of the Grande Ronde Tribe Cultural Affairs Program). Condor bones exist on islands in the Salish Sea. Sonny McHalsie Naxaxalhts’i (researcher of cultural heritage and Salish place names) identifies a Salish Sto:lo name for condor from the Fraser River: sxwe-xwo:s, “opening his eyes.”
The “official” story as reported in most literature from settler-colonial land management agencies is that condors disappeared from the Pacific Northwest before the 20th century. There are records, even from the mid-20th century, of condors glimpsed flying over the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest, sometimes far from the coast.
Why are Native observations of condors -- from the Pacific Northwest as recently as the 1950s and 1960s -- generally ignored?
Because of the locations of the last remaining populations of the bird (the Grand Canyon, Mojave Desert, canyonlands of southern Utah, and southern California), condors might be associated in popular consciousness with arid landscapes and deserts. A distribution map of where condors survive in the 21st century would give the impression that the bird is associated solely with California deserts of the so-called “American Southwest”. (The Hopi Cultural Office references a Hopi name for condor, kwaatoko, “big eagle.”) But as recently as the early 1800s, the bird apparently still lived all along the coast between the deserts and chaparral of Baja California, past the foggy redwoods forests, to the Garry oak savanna of Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the Fraser Delta of present-day Vancouver, on the edges of rainforest and beneath the Pacific Northwest’s glaciers.
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During the early Holocene, the California condor apparently lived across the mountains of western North America (and perhaps some birds traveled father eastward into the continent, with Pleistocene fossils found in Texas and elsewhere). But in recent centuries, condors seem associated with the Pacific coastline (maybe similar to how the bird’s counterpart, the Andean condor, lives in a narrow corridor along the Pacific coastline of South America, which shares the climate and environments -- including chaparral, temperate rainforest, and desert -- of the coast of North America, at mirrored latitudes). Early Russian colonizers, traveling from the Aleutian Islands and Alaska towards northern California, reported the condor along the shores of the North Pacific.
How far inland, away from the sea, could condors travel? There are reports from 1818 of what are likely condors living in Hells Canyon, far away from the coast. Condors were also glimpsed above the Snake River Plain near present-day Boise. Into the 1890s, condors were (possibly/probably?) observed over the Rocky Mountain Front in present-day Alberta, where the prairies of the edge of the Great Plains meet the steep Rockies. (This is reported in a 1951 academic article, “Was the California condor known to the Blackfoot ...?”, which also describes a history of apparent condors feeding on bison carcasses.). In 1897, Fannin (who Sharp describes as “perhaps the most highly respected ornithologist in British Columbia”) caused debate when he reported a sighting of condors near Calgary; that same year, a condor was reportedly observed on the Blackfoot reservation in Montana along the Rocky Mountain Front (just south of the Alberta border).
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Some remain very skeptical of the existence of a few condors in the Northern Rockies, so far inland. What is more generally accepted, though, is that condors were residents in the coastal Pacific Northwest and what is now called “eastern Washington.” However, some settler-colonial scholars continued to doubt the possibility that condors were regular, year-round, permanent residents. Evidence for this permanent residency (as opposed to mere seasonal migration from California) includes Native oral histories from multiple tribes and in multiple languages; great numbers of condors historically seen along the lower Columbia and in Willamette Valley; condor bones from the Salish Sea region; the 20th-century reports of condor roosts from Washington State and the Mt. Hood area; and the Columbia River Gorge would’ve apparently provided ample nesting habitat.
In 1817, a condor was apparently shot by a settler in interior British Columbia, far from the coast. Between 1805 and 1825, Euro-American surveyors harvested condors which lived between the Columbia River Gorge and the mouth of the Columbia near present-day Portland and Astoria, where the L*wis and Cl*rk expedition "collected” at least four or five condors. Into the 1830s, settler surveyors Douglas and Townsend both reported condors “in abundance” along the lower Columbia and in western “Oregon.” Condors were still regularly seen in Willamette Valley until the 1850s.
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In the “official” narrative of Euro-American institutions, the last certain observation of a condor within the borders of “Oregon” was famously seen in 1904, a bit south of the Siuslaw River in the passage between Willamette Valley and the Umpqua River corridor. But there are other observations of the condor in the Pacific Northwest in recent decades, observations which don’t get a lot of publicity. But, as Sharp reports: “The paleontological record is proof of condors’ long-term presence in the region, [and] cultural connections between the condor and northwestern Native American tribes were [and are] rich and diverse [...].”
Co-author of Birds of Oregon, David Marshall, has asked: “How could such a huge, charismatic species have been missed in the 20th century?” To which Sharp responds:
The explanation is [...] simple: Euro-Americans did not explore parts of the Cascade Mountains until the mid-1900s. [...] The eastern slope of Mt. Jefferson is within the Warm Springs Indian Reservation [...]. The upper Clackamas drainage was rarely visited by [non-Indigenous people] before roads penetrated the Cascades in the 1950s [...] and before logging in national forests increased from the 1960s [...]. That federal and state wildlife biologists “missed” condors in roadless wilderness until the mid-1900s is not surprising. The condors were not really “missed” but were known to Native Americans and early [settler-colonial] forest workers [...].
Condors were still observed near Mount St. Helens in the 1930s. Many of these more recent observations were also reported by Brian Sharp. Multiple times, between the 1920s and 1940s, Yakama communities reported condors near Mount Adams in the Cascades of Washington State. In the 1950s, land management agency fire lookout staff observed several condors near Myrtle Creek in the Cascades of Oregon. In the 1960s, Forest Survey road-survey crews reported encountering condors multiple times at the Collawash and Clackamas rivers near Mt. Hood, east of the Cascades crest. And the communities of Warm Springs also regularly reported the birds near Mt. Hood well into the 20th century.
These observations don’t really get mentioned by settler-colonial land management agencies.
But, if you trust Native communities to know the difference between a turkey vulture and a condor, then there were great birds with a 10-foot wingspan flying over the Salish Sea, the sagebrush steppe and oak savanna of the Columbia River, and these rainforest-shrouded volcanoes in the recent past.
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wihok7 · 3 years
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10 Spot Everyone Loves Tourist Attractions In Thailand
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A couple hours late but I just saw you saying how Jesse and Fareeha are more inverses of each other and I completely agree! I personally see Sombra and Jesse as more paralleled, and would be interested in hearing your thoughts on that idea? You tend to be very well-spoken and are good at analyzing concepts, I've come to notice.
EDIT - NOVEMBER 3, 2018: With the release of “Reunion” and Ashe’s hero reveal, the majority of what I wrote about Deadlock in the first three sections—Sign of the Skull, Those Left Behind, Revolutionaries and Rebels—is incorrect. Despite this, I maintain that the socioeconomic context outlines in Those Left Behind remains relevant to the American Southwest in-universe and maintain my belief that it is applicable to McCree specifically, even if it does not apply to Deadlock. I will be writing a new post on Sombra and McCree soon. Stay tuned.
in reference to this post… from months ago
Lucky for you, I was thinking about Jesse and Sombra the night before you sent this! Deadlock and Los Muertos, actually, but I’ll get to that. I absolutely agree that the two of them make much more direct parallels than Jesse and Fareeha, who are interesting as a pair in their own right but they aren’t direct parallels.
I often joke that Gabe adopted the same child twice: smart-talking, hyper-competent Latine who tote around skull logos and are from gangs with the word “dead” in their names. It’s a joke—I don’t consider Gabe’s relationship with Sombra to be that of a parent-child, for one thing—but I believe that Jesse and Sombra are very similar regardless.
They both have similar backgrounds: joined local gangs at a very young age and earned later membership into a high-level covert organization through resourcefulness and an admirable natural aptitude in a specific desired skillset. Although both at first look to be unserious and overly laid-back, they prove themselves to be precision operators who indeed execute plans and achieve goals with immense gravity. They’re both supremely confident in their abilities, to the point that one can accuse them of having too high an opinion of themselves and being overconfident.
They come from similar backgrounds, having been orphaned during the Crisis and suffered under economic disparity driven by infrastructure changes in the rebuilding period. They both similarly drop off the map and resurface under new identities. They both have a deep concern in seeing done a justice that is beyond the reach of the law—or when the law refuses to deliver it.
All this, and more, under the cut. The post is very long.
I would also like to thank @segadores-y-soldados for all he’s written, especially on Sombra and especially recently. I make heavy reference to his writing on Sombra in certain portions of this post. I also must admit that reading his posts on Arturito has motivated me to finish this after three months of slow progress, though I still have a nagging feeling I’m forgetting a point.
Sign of the Skull
To make a quick run-through on Los Muertos and Deadlock Gang themselves before moving onto how these organizations inform Sombra and Jesse specifically. Sort of a section to outline basic things about the gangs that doesn’t neatly fit into other points. It’s mostly to establish their context, and some similarities between their structures and presentation.
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Screenshot from the Sombra Origin showing members of Los Muertos. Each member has painted skeletons onto themselves with phosphorescent paint in varying colors.
Los Muertos is a Mexican gang with apparent regional influence with members in both Dorado and the nearby Castillo, and it even has some international reach judging from the Los Muertos graffiti on the Hollywood map. Little is known to us about their structure besides this, and even in-universe they are noted to be mysterious with little information publicly available about them.
However, Los Muertos openly broadcasts their intentions: to right the wrongs committed by the wealthy and powerful against the disadvantaged of Mexico. They position themselves as transgressors of the law specifically to disrupt the lives of the “vipers” in power. More on that later.
The name translates to “The Dead”, and they are identified by skull motifs, specifically the calaveras associated with the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead. Individual members openly identify themselves and indicate their membership by painting skulls and bones on their bodies with phosphorescent paint.
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Screenshot from the Route 66 map of five motorcycles parked in front of The High Side bar. The Deadlock emblem is spray-painted by the entrance.
Deadlock Gang is an American motorcycle club and organized crime ring occupying a Southwestern town on an abandoned stretch of Route 66 running across Deadlock Gorge. It’s unclear where exactly the Gorge is, and the Visual Source Book’s pin for the map is highly unspecific, but I tend to believe it’s in somewhere in northern New Mexico because Jesse’s base of operations is listed as Santa Fe, NM.
In one lore piece, Deadlock is holding a national rally, suggesting they’ve got chapters nationwide and the founding chapter is in Deadlock Gorge. While it’s unclear what their reach is, there is a possibility of international chapters. (Torbjorn’s motorcycle-themed Deadlock skin may suggest this, but it does not have any Deadlock iconography, notably showing a bear where one expects the Deadlock emblem.)
This does not necessarily mean all of the Deadlock Rebels Motorcycle Club is a criminal organization, nor every single member a criminal, but… y’know, the founding chapter is a weapons trafficking racket. They’re a one-percenter outlaw motorcycle club, and there’s a quick and easy comparison in the real-life Hells Angels, whom the show Sons of Anarchy models itself after.
Deadlock, besides naming itself after the concept of death like Los Muertos does, also uses a skull in its emblem. We haven’t seen any member of Deadlock pictured, but extrapolating from the typical behavior of motorcycle clubs, they likely openly identify themselves and indicate their membership by wearing standardized jackets or most likely vests. Members likely have tattoos indicating membership as well, seeing as Jesse has a tattoo of the Deadlock emblem on his inner arm in his Blackwatch skin.
Those Left Behind
Sombra, orphaned during the Omnic Crisis, was taken in by Los Muertos, a gang that positioned themselves as champions of the underclass ignored during the post-Crisis rebuilding process. They’ve done this most notably by opposing the CEO of LumériCo Guillermo Portero, who they’ve described as having exercised his social influence to have many wrongfully imprisoned and who we know is working with the not-as-noble-as-they-put-forward Vishkar. 
The social context of Los Muertos and Sombra is very directly told to us. From Sombra’s official bio:
After ░░░░░░ was taken in by Mexico’s Los Muertos gang, she aided it in its self-styled revolution against the government. Los Muertos believed that the rebuilding of Mexico had primarily benefited the rich and the influential, leaving behind those who were most in need of assistance.
From a lore post published to the website:
…its members style themselves as revolutionaries who represent those left behind by the government after the widespread devastation of the Omnic Crisis.
And Michael Chu on Los Muertos at Blizzcon 2016 (transcript):
Mexico really suffered a lot at the hands of the Omnic Crisis. The war destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. […] They claim to be kind of revolutionaries fighting for people who were left behind during the rebuilding of Mexico after the war.
Despite their noble stated goal, they seemingly also cross a line in their illicit activity enough to earn the ire of Jack, who isn’t exactly on the straight and narrow himself but still seeks the right side of things. As Chu added:
Whether or not that’s really what they are up to, because they’re also engaged in a lot of other shady activities. It is up to you decide.
Given a lot of other suspect activity they engage in, that noble work might not be the only story to be had on them—especially depending on where you’re standing. Saviors with their thumbs in certain pies not meant for them, possibly.
The social context that Sombra rises out of is made very plain for us. But what does it have to do with Jesse?
While we know few specifics about his circumstances growing up, other than he also lived through the Crisis and was likely similarly orphaned during it, the description and in-game environment of the Route 66 map suggest the area is one of difficult social and economic circumstances, emphasis mine:
Though the travelers and road trippers who used to cross the US on historic Route 66 are gone, the Main Street of America still stands, a testament to a simpler time. The gas stations, roadside shops, and cafes have gone into disuse, and the fabled Deadlock Gorge is mostly seen from the comfort of transcontinental train cars. But amid the fading monuments of that earlier era, the outlaws of the Deadlock Gang are planning their biggest heist yet.
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Concept art of The High Side, showing the abandoned bar in disrepair with boarded windows and faded paint.
At least one building, the Cave Inn (ba dum tsh) in the streets portion of the map, is visibly abandoned, and the theme of disrepair and long-gone halcyon days is especially prevalent in the concept art for the map. This all paints a portrait of a Deadlock Gang that operates out of an area that suffered immense economic hardship in recent years, likely particularly after the introduction of the transcontinental train cars, one of which is featured in “Train Hopper”, a comic which takes the time to emphasize the wealth of the passengers traveling on them. So, the Deadlock chapter is localized within a region that suffered economically under infrastructure changes that largely benefit the wealthy and powerful. It’s possible that these infrastructure changes were made possible because of efforts to rebuild after the physical devastation of the Crisis.
Without going off on a tangent about it, there’s a bit of a difference between “Deadlock comes out of the lower class in a geographic region beset by poverty” and “Deadlock gang itself currently has no money”. Apparently, well after the effects of financial misfortune set in, Deadlock was and is making enough money to maintain long-distance shipping, as suggested by their semi-trailer truck, and keep an entire town functioning well enough as a cover for their criminal enterprise. Also, missiles don’t sell for cheap. Deadlock might be financially comfortable now, but their context still involves deep socioeconomic disparity.
This is especially poignant against the Route’s invoked nickname, Main Street of America, which conjures images of the average American person. Those average people who owned gas stations, cafes, diners, roadside trinket shops, dive bars are the ones who are forgotten while the more affluent folks pass them over, traveling in style. There’s also a historical precedent in poverty and social disparity as driven by infrastructure changes specifically affecting the way people travel across regions and the country, specifically in the history of the freeway.
To sort of make the clarification, Jesse’s tattoo states that Deadlock was established in 1976—happy centennial, Deadlock—so they’ve certainly changed a lot as their social context and membership make-up changed. There’s much to be said about social non-conformity, outlaw motorcycle gangs, one-percenters, community integration, and how these intersect with both the politics and economics of the local communities along Route 66, especially given how the Route was recently listed as one of the country’s most endangered historic places, even in Deadlock’s apparent founding in a period of American social unease after the Vietnam War and during the late Cold War, and extrapolate a lot about Deadlock from all that, and even about Jesse himself from some of it, but that’s for a different post.
Revolutionaries and Rebels
In that context, it’s worthwhile to note that in their insignia, seen in the graffiti all over the Route 66 map and in Jesse’s tattoo in his Blackwatch skin, they calls themselves the Deadlock Rebels. Generally, outlaw motorcycle clubs are also known for their contempt for social convention and disdain for status quo.
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Screenshot of the Deadlock Gang hideout with their insignia, which includes the words Deadlock Rebels, spray-painted onto a wall.
Deadlock is quite the opposite of Los Muertos, though. Deadlock maintains a law-abiding public face—holding innocuous and even advertised national rallies and hiding their illicit activity under numerous cover businesses—and are more discreet in their disrespect of law. One can double down on this by looking to how successfully real-life one-percenter clubs maintain their public image: openly contemptuous of social norms but keeping public knowledge of any legal transgressions to only the small indiscretions while hiding the major ones.
Taking a look at Deadlock’s primary targets, military installations: the train cars on the map are military-related, the gang traffics military hardware and weapons including missiles. Although Deadlock comes from a similar social context as Los Muertos, these aren’t targets seeking to effect a change in society like how Los Muertos seeks to. Deadlock appears largely self-interested, with little interest in changing the fortunes of anyone else in the American lower class. Los Muertos bills itself as other-interested, seeking to change the fortunes of the Mexican underclass as a whole.
Archetypically, Los Muertos are revolutionaries, Deadlock are rebels. While they both groups reject the status quo, the revolutionary seeks sweeping social change but the rebel rejects the status quo on a personal level. The revolutionary wants society to change to suit their vision of what it ought to be while the rebel positions themselves outside of society and will redefine themselves as society changes.
The difference is apparent in their choice of targets. Los Muertos targets institutions and people who directly have a hand in the building of their social context, and attacking those targets will potentially affect a social change. Deadlock targets institutions and people who may have a hand in their social context, but such targets are chosen primarily for the gang’s financial gain.
Los Muertos is politically motivated. Deadlock is financially motivated.
Admirers in the Shadows
Sombra and Jesse don’t remain in their gangs. They both end up joining shadow organizations with global reach, the terrorist organization Talon and the covert ops organization Blackwatch, respectively. Both organizations were wooed by their specific skillsets.
Sombra launched an even more audacious string of hacks, and her exploits earned her no shortage of admirers, including Talon. She joined the organization’s ranks…
With his expert marksmanship and resourcefulness, he was given the choice between rotting in a maximum-security lockup and joining Blackwatch, Overwatch’s covert ops division. He chose the latter.
A young Jesse McCree was recruited into Blackwatch after Gabriel Reyes saw his potential and gave him a choice: join Blackwatch, or rot in prison.
The difference here is that Sombra was offered a place, but she did not necessarily need that offer to continue on with her life. She takes it because Talon resources allow her to more effectively pursue her goals. If McCree did not take the offer to join Blackwatch, his life effectively ended. (There’s a whole thing to be said about this offer, why it was the best offer that could have been made to him at the same, and criminal rehabilitation—but that’s another post.) McCree’s decision to join Blackwatch isn’t motivated by pursuit of a specific goal. He just didn’t want his life to be over before it started. In that regard, his entire life is shaped very directly by his relationship to Overwatch as an individual and Blackwatch, even more than simply its role in ending the Crisis and overseeing the rebuilding efforts.
Sombra, as someone who survived the Crisis, similarly has that more distanced influence of Overwatch in her life, but there’s the possibility she may have a more direct one.
With the recent spawn interaction between Sombra and Hammond showing a sentimentality for her stuffed Overwatch bear, seen in her den in Castillo, there is a possible picture to paint of a Sombra who may have some sentimentality toward Overwatch and might be aiding individual members on the sly not only because she wants to uncover the Grand Conspiracy they’re caught up in but also because she has a personal motivation.
segadores-y-soldados has a lot of good and very recent speculation on what this could mean for Sombra, either working with the room in her background for her to have worked with Blackwatch or having her as never having worked with Overwatch. If she worked with Blackwatch, which is admittedly a shakier theory, it creates a direct and clear mirror with Jesse: given a second chance at life through working with Overwatch and Blackwatch. If she did not and the influence is only the distant one, and she simply remained on the edges of society and making use of the space available, it is an inverse of Jesse. I recommend reading these two posts on the idea: one, two, three.
Name: REDACTED
One could compare Sombra attempting to eradicate her identity as Olivia Colomar and later returning as Sombra to Jesse going underground after leaving Blackwatch and later resurfacing to work as a bounty hunter. Their decisions to drop off the map have different motivations and different degrees of extreme, and there is a different tenor in how one disappears as Olivia and returns as Sombra and the other disappears as McCree and makes a resurfaces in a return to that identity.
Sombra accidentally stumbled onto a massive conspiracy that controlled the world and drew their attention, compromising her security and forcing her to destroy all trace of Olivia Colomar to go into hiding. She came back as a completely new person with no trails to her old identity, a transformation so complete that it took years to connect the two.
It is possible to draw a stronger parallel between them here. Jesse similarly has parts of his identity that he’s hiding (but which Sombra knows about):
Sombra: Pleasure working with you, McCree… if that is your real name.McCree: Don’t know what you heard, but my name’s not Joel. Best remember that.
There’s a strong case for the Jesse is the journalist Joel Morricone theory: at some point in his life, he created a second identity for himself and is working to keep the two separate. It’s currently unclear exactly what the details of the arrangement is or why he goes to these lengths. Given that he disappeared for “several years” after quitting and before reappearing again as Jesse McCree, gunslinger for hire, it stands to reason he spent the intervening years living quietly under the Morricone identity. 
We don’t really know much about the specifics of what motivated Jesse to go to ground, but based on his official bio, it seems related to the infighting following the Talon infiltration at Overwatch and Blackwatch that also drove him to quit. It could likely be motivated by security reasons—in a similar but less drastic way that Sombra burned her old identity to protect herself.
Justice Against Law
One of the building blocks of McCree’s character is his stance on justice. He makes it very clear: he is concerned primarily in dispensing justice to the point that he only accepts jobs as a bounty hunter if he believes the cause just and constantly gets involved in vigilantism, putting a stop to crimes both petty and serious.
Through this dogged pursuit of seeing justice done, he seeks a self-redemption for the wrongs he committed early in his life: “he came to believe that he could make amends for his past sins by righting the injustices of the world”. At the same time, he makes it clear that he believes justice and law run on different wavelengths. He appreciates Blackwatch for its “flexibility” to move “unhindered by bureaucracy and red tape”. The Morricone article seems to suggest a belief that justice can be defended by law, but everything else about him strongly states that he does not believe justice is exclusively defended by law.
The short version: McCree has a rigid sense of justice and dedicates his life to seeing it carried out, but he does not equate it with the law. Both of those points are amply evidenced and are at the forefront of McCree’s character. 
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Edited sequence from the “Searching” comic where Zarya and Lynx-17 go door-to-door, showing everyone a photo of Sombra. Zarya’s internal dialogue in the last panel: “But no one has seen Sombra. Or nobody admits it. They see her like our Stepan Razin—attacking the rich to defy the czar.”
Sombra is (perhaps surprisingly) similar. As stated previously, she was brought in by a gang who billed themselves as seeking a justice for the Mexican underclass that they believed could not be achieved through legal means.
On her own? She holds to those ideals and that goal. She attacks and exposes the CEO of LumériCo, creating an opening to see some justice done for the Mexican people. (The attempt failed, and Portero is reinstated, but that’s besides the point.) Her continuing interest in seeing the Viper Portero removed only makes sense if she continues to have a personal investment in seeing justice for the underclass of her country.
This leads to Sombra being seen as an extrajudicial force of change and good by the Mexican people, particularly those in the Castillo and Dorado region. Zarya compares her to Stepan Razin (Wikipedia), who as I understand it led force composed in part of peasants in uprising and, though he failed, was immortalized as a folklore hero.
Though her methods are different and her goals much more specific, her actions, at least in Mexico, are similarly driven by a search for justice that cannot be delivered by the law.
The Enemies of Talon
I don’t have a lot to say about this, and segadores-y-soldados has summarized it quite better than I have, but it’s important enough to get it’s own section. But, Sombra working against Talon actually puts her technically on the same side as Jesse is—even though Jesse as of “Train Hopper” doesn’t seem that interested in actually ending Talon’s activities or denying them what resources they want, only in preventing them from hurting and killing innocents. (Though, I doubt Jesse is going to remain in that mode for long.)
It is entirely possibly, maybe even likely, that Sombra is aiding Jesse somehow as well as aiding Jack and Ana. I linked a couple of segadores-y-soldados’ relevant posts earlier, but I’ll link them again: linked before, new link.
Miscellanea, Smaller Comparisons 
Sombra is embraced by her old gang Los Muertos, even though she has broken ties with them for her safety, as evidenced by the gang’s enthusiastic and open support of her attacks on LumériCo. Deadlock openly rejects Jesse and is suggested to have a “shoot on sight” policy for him, as evidenced by the numerous photos of him accompanying rifles and his photo pinned to a dartboard; it’s possible that they resent him for having avoided prison and taking the presented opportunity to turn over a new leaf.
Even after leaving their respective gangs, both Jesse and Sombra still make use of variations on the gangs’ symbols in their personal iconographies. Sombra identifies herself through a simplified graphic calaveras. While in Blackwatch, Jesse openly displays his tattoo and wears a buckle of the Deadlock winged skull; after leaving Blackwatch, his prosthetic arm features plating shaped like a skull. (The iconography extends to the game’s UI also, with EMP represented by a calaveras and Deadeye with a skull.)
Both take somewhat similar relationships to Gabriel: Jesse is framed as a surrogate son and a right-hand, Sombra is framed as a young accomplice who takes a more familiar tack and a frequent trusted partner. They’re opinionated and vocal about it, unafraid to talk back to Gabriel and criticize his planning.
Further in the personality vein of things, they’re characterized as deeply confident in their abilities to the point of cockiness and overconfidence, and they can be accused (and have been, by Gabriel, though with dubious sincerity) of having too high an opinion of themselves. But despite the breeziness, they are highly competent, thorough, and conscientious, and although they may appear to have a lot of things to say about other people’s plans, they execute their own plans with precision and utmost gravity. Arguably, both are playing a bit of the fool to mask how sharp, observant, and cunning they really are.
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wineanddinosaur · 3 years
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Wine 101: Australia
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This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Whitehaven. From the sunny bays and lush green vineyards of Marlborough comes to a new world Sauvignon Blanc that only New Zealand can offer. White Haven’s winemaking philosophy centers on the pursuit of quality without compromise, a principle that is supported at every step, from vineyard to glass. Whitehaven uses only Marlborough grapes in our wines, ensuring that only truly authentic Marlborough character is in every bottle. Inspired by a dream, try Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc. Your haven awaits.
On this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses all things Australian wine. Beavers explains that Australia has so much more to offer than just Shiraz. Though each of Australia’s 60 wine producing regions produces Shiraz, the island also grows some of America’s favorite wines, such as Merlot, Cab Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, and even Chardonnay. Beavers also walks listeners through the rich history of how wine first landed in Australia, thanks to a man named James Busby.
Beavers then serves as a personal travel guide as he takes listeners on a journey through the six states where Australian wine is grown. From the Adelaide Hills to the Hunter Valley, Australian wine ranges in everything from terroir to price. Tune in to learn more about how and why your new favorite wine will likely come out of Australia.
Listen Online
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Or Check out the Conversation Here
‬Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers, and what was classical music back in the day? It wasn’t even really classical, right? It was just like “Yo, Bach just dropped his new cantata.”
What’s going on wine lovers! Welcome to Episode 8 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast. My name is Keith Beavers. I’m the tasting director of VinePair. It is Season 2, and how are you? Almost 3,000 miles away from New Zealand is this huge continent, this huge island — the largest in the world — called Australia. They make wine, and we have to talk about it. It’s a little bit crazy. Let’s do this.
It’s big, it’s hot, it’s a continent, and it’s an island. It’s Australia! It is one of the most unique places on earth. Now, New Zealand’s pretty damn unique. We know the biodiversity of New Zealand is crazy. You imagine a place that didn’t see humans until about 800 years ago, and those two islands have been existing for a long time. It’s just crazy. It’s very similar in Australia. It’s just a very different place. Eighty percent of wildlife in Australia is indigenously unique to Australia. You don’t see these species anywhere else. New species are being discovered every couple of years. The Great Barrier Reef is generally regarded as the world’s largest living organism. That’s insanity. It’s the only continent that’s a single country. It’s also the largest island on the planet. If you set it on top of the United States, it’s basically the size of the United States. It’s crazy. When it comes to wine, it’s nuts. This is such a big country, such a big continent, it has six states. Like we have the United States, it has states. But to have six states? Each of them is just huge. That’s the thing about Australia, there’s so much to talk about with Australia that I, as usual, can’t get to it in 20 minutes.
We’re going to have a discussion about Australia, because there are 60 wine regions in that country, and I can’t get to all of them. Even though there are certain varieties that thrive or do well in certain wine regions, the Australians do not discriminate when it comes to grapes. Almost every grape you can name, they have in Australia. In the ‘90s and the late ‘90s as well as the early 2000s, Australian winemakers were considered flying winemakers.
They are a kind of winemaker that is so voracious for information and experience that when their harvest is over in the Southern Hemisphere, they fly to the Northern Hemisphere for harvest and start working in Europe, the United States, and other wine regions. It’s crazy. Some of them never come back to Australia. They stay in Argentina or in California, but they’re some of the most focused, confident winemakers out there. What’s really crazy is, even though there are appellations, I believe their wine regions, like New Zealand, it’s not a definite controlled appellation system. You have these areas and these regions that have vineyards in them with names of the regions, and wine is grown there. But it’s not a full-on controlled appellation system. There’s no way to go through the system to help you guys understand what’s going on.
We’re just going to talk about everything that’s happening. There are no indigenous vines in Australia. There wasn’t a hybrid thing going on there. I’m saying this because it’s so far out there from where vines were that it’s just crazy how European vines made their way to this place, and at some point, started making great wine. None of that would have happened if it wasn’t for the son of a gardener from Edinburgh, Scotland, named James Busby. This guy loved agriculture. When he made it to New Zealand, and then eventually Australia, he fell in love with the place so much that he decided this is where I’m going to grow wine. He had an interest in wine. He actually went all over France, Germany, and Spain to learn about wine. He wrote some books about viticulture, and it was his mission in life to bring the vine to Australia and make it work. He had already done it in New Zealand. He actually was one of the first winemakers in New Zealand where he would sell his wine to British troops. I mentioned that in the New Zealand episode.
James Busby is the father of wine or the prophet of wine or the dude who started the wine thing in Australia. Once he thought vines could grow and wine could be made in Australia, in 1830, he went back to England and proceeded to tour all over the continent of Europe, learning about vines, learning about wine. He ended up taking a bunch of cuttings back to Australia. Basically, he just got the whole wine industry started in Australia. It’s thought that he brought 680 vines. All individual vines are probably a group of one grape, a group of another grape. At this moment, here is this legend, I don’t even know if it’s real or not but it’s a really cool story. The story is that when James Busby was in France, he was in the Rhône region and he got vine cuttings of what they at the time called “Scyras.” He brought that and a bunch of other grapes back to Australia. The Scyras grape was actually Syrah. Since it was labeled Scyras, at some point, the Australian dialect or accent became Scyras into Shiraz. We’re going to talk a lot about that in another episode. That’s a cool, little fun story. I’m not really sure if that’s true or not, but I like it.
Another little fun story about Australia is they’re the ones that invented the bag-in-box by a winemaker named Thomas Angove. In 1965, he was inspired to create this bag-in-box based on a product that was already in the market, but for battery acid. It was a bladder that had battery acid in it, and it was covered by a box, and he wondered what else would we get in that? Wine. Brilliant. If you look at Australia, and you train your eye down towards the southeastern corner of the country/continent/island, that southeastern chunk of Australia, that’s where all the wine is made. There is some wine being made in the southwest, but just not as much. We don’t see a lot of that coming onto the market. We’re starting to see some wines from the Margaret River, but we mostly see wines coming from the southeastern part of the country. These wine regions are in states. And as I said, they’re huge. In the southeastern part of Australia, you have South Australia, the state of South Australia, the state of New South Wales, the state of Queensland. Then, you have Tasmania, which is an island just off the southern coast. That is where the majority of the wine is made even though there are grapes that are doing very well and very popular in certain regions. The Australians plant every grape. There’s Tempranillo from Spain happening in Australia, Riesling, Roussanne from the Rhône, of course, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon blanc, Cab Franc. You name it, it’s being grown in Australia. And if the Australians can make a grape work, they’re going to run with it. However, because of the popularity of Shiraz, almost every region basically grows Shiraz. As I said, there are other grapes.
Let’s get to some of these wine regions so we have an idea of what we’re looking at when we see a bunch of wine bottles from Australia. In this southern east section of the country, in the western corner of this section is the southern part of the state of South Australia. This is where the majority of wine that you will see in the market comes from. It’s responsible for almost half of the annual production of wine in Australia. There are a bunch of wine regions in this area. The ones we’re going to see are a couple of valleys. You have Barossa Valley, which you’re going to see everywhere. It is one of the oldest wine-growing regions in Australia. This is the home of Penfolds, which is the winemaker that made a big statement on the American market. This is a very old historical site, all dry-farmed, meaning it was never irrigated to this day. It is a big deal. We’re going to see a great big, inky, beautiful Shiraz coming from this area.
Barossa Valley‘s neighboring region to its west is a fine wine region called the Adelaide Hills. This is a region that actually has two subregions in it, Piccadilly Valley and Lenswood Valley. Now, I don’t know if you’re going to see that on labels, but it shows that there is terroir here. Whenever you see these subregions, they’re saying not only is Adelaide Hills awesome, but these two places are special for a reason as well. This region is also known for Shiraz, but the Shiraz here — as full-bodied as it is — can get a little bit spicy and almost close to what it’s like in its home in the Rhône of France. Also, what’s done here are sparkling wines made from primarily Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Going north, the Adelaide Hills are part of this mountain range. To the north of that is another valley called Clare Valley. Clare Valley is historically very important in Australia. When we do the episode on screw cap versus cork, we’re going to talk a lot about this place. Clare Valley is known for extremely popular, wonderfully age-worthy, crisp and deep Riesling. It’s just amazing how Riesling works in this area. And there are a lot of others — you’re going to see McLaren Vale, which is going to be coming more onto the market with a really kind of spicy, herby Shiraz. There’s also Eden Valley, which is just south of Barossa Valley or neighboring Barossa Valley, and they do Rieslings as well. That’s stuff to keep an eye out on. The Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, you’re definitely going to see.
There’s also a region way down south towards the coast called Coonawarra. That place is known for its Cabernet Sauvignon, not necessarily its Shiraz. We’re going to see more from Coonawarra on the market.
East of the state of South Australia, you move into the state of Victoria. Now, this place is crazy populated with wine and wine history. There are 800 producers in Victoria, and Victoria is pretty small. They’re all packed in there. I think there are 20 wine regions just in Victoria alone. There’s a good amount of wine from Victoria on the American market. You’re going to see them from regions with names like Rutherglen, Alpine Valley, Beechworth, King Valley, Sunbury, Mornington Peninsula, Bendigo. But the one region in Victoria that is making a big noise on the American market is the Yarra Valley. This is very exciting, guys. This is a place where they decided it was a good idea to blend Shiraz with a white wine called Viognier. The result is just awesome. It’s this beautiful, bright, berry fruit, red wine. It has depth to it. Then, you feel this sort of clean, white acidity just running through it. It’s a very cool thing. That’s kind of the one places in Victoria that is standing out.
All the other places I mentioned and there’s more of them, of course, Shiraz, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc. There are all kinds of grapes being grown in this area. However, Shiraz basically rules the day. Yarra Valley is unique because of that blend of Shiraz and Viognier. You’re not going to see a lot of it right now, but it’s coming. The Bendigo region in Victoria is doing really awesome Cab, and there’s a place called the Goulburn Valley. The unique thing about that area is they’re messing around with Roussanne, which is great. There’s not a lot of it in the American market, but it’s coming, and it’s delicious.
Then, we go north from Victoria into the state of New South Wales. There’s a lot of wine-growing regions here, too. What is blowing the minds of people in the wine industry right now from this region is a valley called Hunter Valley. In this valley, they grow grapes called Semillon. If you remember our Bordeaux episode, you’ll remember that Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc is the blend of Bordeaux. Somehow, this native Bordeaux variety over in the Hunter Valley of Australia makes incredible wine. Semillon that can age — well, so far they’re saying like 20 years, which is wild. It develops into this beautiful thing that if you sip an old Semillon, sometimes, you think that it’s just a bunch of oak, but it’s not. It’s just the age of the wine. It’s a very unique place with a very unique wine. Since the area is so popular, the surrounding regions are starting to get a little bit of recognition as well. This region was originally known mostly for Chardonnay. There’s still good Chardonnay coming out of that area. The climate of that area — warm days and cold nights — it brings a fruity, juicy round Chardonnay. It’s very fun and very enjoyable stuff, very good.
There are more places like Heath Coat and Henty and the Grampians, and there’s actually the Pyrenees. It’s actually a joke, because the Pyrenees is just low-lying hills. There’s wine everywhere in Australia and we’re going to see more of it. Australia never backed away from our market. We backed away from Australia. I think at some point we got overwhelmed, overstimulated, I should say, with the Shiraz — the big inky, full-bodied Shiraz. Of course, Malbec comes into the market and replaces that big inky with Malbec’s big inky.
The thing about Australia and what their focus is going forward is they want to show us on the American market that they are not just a big Shiraz ocean. They want us to know that they can be fine wine and smaller producers. There are a lot of wine regions that we’re going to start seeing in the future from Australia that are small. Some of these wine regions have 20 winemakers in them. What they’re doing is they’re focusing. The Australians are good at this. They are focused, and they are confident. When they hit it right, they hit it, and they just keep on hitting it right.
We’re going to start seeing a lot more of Australia come onto our market, but it’s going to be more expensive. That’s just the way it has to be. It’s because it comes from a long way away, and it’s usually in the smaller yield. The thing is, we have to get used to the idea that Australian wine that’s going to blow our minds is going to be a little bit higher in price.
The thing is, I think we should be open to the idea of tasting these wines because Australia isn’t all just Shiraz. Australia is all kinds of stuff. I would say there’s Riesling, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. Those four really do well all across the wine-growing regions of Australia. As I said, Tempranillo, Cab Franc, there are so many other vines that are being grown and blended. We just have to wait and see.
Again, this is a very general overview of Australia because of how intense it is. This season, we’re going to have a couple of episodes that will reference Australia, and we’ll get more information on the history of the place. This will get you started in Australia with some regions that you already will see, and an idea of just opening your mind for what’s to come from the land down under.
@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there. And now, for some totally awesome credits. “Wine 101″ was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean, a big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darby Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new every day. See you next week.
This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Whitehaven. From the sunny days in lush green vineyards of Marlborough comes a New World Sauvignon Blanc that only New Zealand can offer. Winehaven’s winemaking philosophy centers on the pursuit of quality without compromise, a principle that is supported every step from vineyard to glass, Whitehaven uses only Marlborough grapes in our wines, ensuring that only truly authentic Marlborough character is in every bottle. Inspired by a dream, try Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc. Your haven awaits.
The article Wine 101: Australia appeared first on VinePair.
source https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-101-australia/
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johnboothus · 3 years
Text
Wine 101: Australia
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This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Whitehaven. From the sunny bays and lush green vineyards of Marlborough comes to a new world Sauvignon Blanc that only New Zealand can offer. White Haven’s winemaking philosophy centers on the pursuit of quality without compromise, a principle that is supported at every step, from vineyard to glass. Whitehaven uses only Marlborough grapes in our wines, ensuring that only truly authentic Marlborough character is in every bottle. Inspired by a dream, try Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc. Your haven awaits.
On this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses all things Australian wine. Beavers explains that Australia has so much more to offer than just Shiraz. Though each of Australia’s 60 wine producing regions produces Shiraz, the island also grows some of America’s favorite wines, such as Merlot, Cab Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, and even Chardonnay. Beavers also walks listeners through the rich history of how wine first landed in Australia, thanks to a man named James Busby.
Beavers then serves as a personal travel guide as he takes listeners on a journey through the six states where Australian wine is grown. From the Adelaide Hills to the Hunter Valley, Australian wine ranges in everything from terroir to price. Tune in to learn more about how and why your new favorite wine will likely come out of Australia.
Listen Online
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Or Check out the Conversation Here
‬Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers, and what was classical music back in the day? It wasn’t even really classical, right? It was just like “Yo, Bach just dropped his new cantata.”
What’s going on wine lovers! Welcome to Episode 8 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast. My name is Keith Beavers. I’m the tasting director of VinePair. It is Season 2, and how are you? Almost 3,000 miles away from New Zealand is this huge continent, this huge island — the largest in the world — called Australia. They make wine, and we have to talk about it. It’s a little bit crazy. Let’s do this.
It’s big, it’s hot, it’s a continent, and it’s an island. It’s Australia! It is one of the most unique places on earth. Now, New Zealand’s pretty damn unique. We know the biodiversity of New Zealand is crazy. You imagine a place that didn’t see humans until about 800 years ago, and those two islands have been existing for a long time. It’s just crazy. It’s very similar in Australia. It’s just a very different place. Eighty percent of wildlife in Australia is indigenously unique to Australia. You don’t see these species anywhere else. New species are being discovered every couple of years. The Great Barrier Reef is generally regarded as the world’s largest living organism. That’s insanity. It’s the only continent that’s a single country. It’s also the largest island on the planet. If you set it on top of the United States, it’s basically the size of the United States. It’s crazy. When it comes to wine, it’s nuts. This is such a big country, such a big continent, it has six states. Like we have the United States, it has states. But to have six states? Each of them is just huge. That’s the thing about Australia, there’s so much to talk about with Australia that I, as usual, can’t get to it in 20 minutes.
We’re going to have a discussion about Australia, because there are 60 wine regions in that country, and I can’t get to all of them. Even though there are certain varieties that thrive or do well in certain wine regions, the Australians do not discriminate when it comes to grapes. Almost every grape you can name, they have in Australia. In the ‘90s and the late ‘90s as well as the early 2000s, Australian winemakers were considered flying winemakers.
They are a kind of winemaker that is so voracious for information and experience that when their harvest is over in the Southern Hemisphere, they fly to the Northern Hemisphere for harvest and start working in Europe, the United States, and other wine regions. It’s crazy. Some of them never come back to Australia. They stay in Argentina or in California, but they’re some of the most focused, confident winemakers out there. What’s really crazy is, even though there are appellations, I believe their wine regions, like New Zealand, it’s not a definite controlled appellation system. You have these areas and these regions that have vineyards in them with names of the regions, and wine is grown there. But it’s not a full-on controlled appellation system. There’s no way to go through the system to help you guys understand what’s going on.
We’re just going to talk about everything that’s happening. There are no indigenous vines in Australia. There wasn’t a hybrid thing going on there. I’m saying this because it’s so far out there from where vines were that it’s just crazy how European vines made their way to this place, and at some point, started making great wine. None of that would have happened if it wasn’t for the son of a gardener from Edinburgh, Scotland, named James Busby. This guy loved agriculture. When he made it to New Zealand, and then eventually Australia, he fell in love with the place so much that he decided this is where I’m going to grow wine. He had an interest in wine. He actually went all over France, Germany, and Spain to learn about wine. He wrote some books about viticulture, and it was his mission in life to bring the vine to Australia and make it work. He had already done it in New Zealand. He actually was one of the first winemakers in New Zealand where he would sell his wine to British troops. I mentioned that in the New Zealand episode.
James Busby is the father of wine or the prophet of wine or the dude who started the wine thing in Australia. Once he thought vines could grow and wine could be made in Australia, in 1830, he went back to England and proceeded to tour all over the continent of Europe, learning about vines, learning about wine. He ended up taking a bunch of cuttings back to Australia. Basically, he just got the whole wine industry started in Australia. It’s thought that he brought 680 vines. All individual vines are probably a group of one grape, a group of another grape. At this moment, here is this legend, I don’t even know if it’s real or not but it’s a really cool story. The story is that when James Busby was in France, he was in the Rhône region and he got vine cuttings of what they at the time called “Scyras.” He brought that and a bunch of other grapes back to Australia. The Scyras grape was actually Syrah. Since it was labeled Scyras, at some point, the Australian dialect or accent became Scyras into Shiraz. We’re going to talk a lot about that in another episode. That’s a cool, little fun story. I’m not really sure if that’s true or not, but I like it.
Another little fun story about Australia is they’re the ones that invented the bag-in-box by a winemaker named Thomas Angove. In 1965, he was inspired to create this bag-in-box based on a product that was already in the market, but for battery acid. It was a bladder that had battery acid in it, and it was covered by a box, and he wondered what else would we get in that? Wine. Brilliant. If you look at Australia, and you train your eye down towards the southeastern corner of the country/continent/island, that southeastern chunk of Australia, that’s where all the wine is made. There is some wine being made in the southwest, but just not as much. We don’t see a lot of that coming onto the market. We’re starting to see some wines from the Margaret River, but we mostly see wines coming from the southeastern part of the country. These wine regions are in states. And as I said, they’re huge. In the southeastern part of Australia, you have South Australia, the state of South Australia, the state of New South Wales, the state of Queensland. Then, you have Tasmania, which is an island just off the southern coast. That is where the majority of the wine is made even though there are grapes that are doing very well and very popular in certain regions. The Australians plant every grape. There’s Tempranillo from Spain happening in Australia, Riesling, Roussanne from the Rhône, of course, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon blanc, Cab Franc. You name it, it’s being grown in Australia. And if the Australians can make a grape work, they’re going to run with it. However, because of the popularity of Shiraz, almost every region basically grows Shiraz. As I said, there are other grapes.
Let’s get to some of these wine regions so we have an idea of what we’re looking at when we see a bunch of wine bottles from Australia. In this southern east section of the country, in the western corner of this section is the southern part of the state of South Australia. This is where the majority of wine that you will see in the market comes from. It’s responsible for almost half of the annual production of wine in Australia. There are a bunch of wine regions in this area. The ones we’re going to see are a couple of valleys. You have Barossa Valley, which you’re going to see everywhere. It is one of the oldest wine-growing regions in Australia. This is the home of Penfolds, which is the winemaker that made a big statement on the American market. This is a very old historical site, all dry-farmed, meaning it was never irrigated to this day. It is a big deal. We’re going to see a great big, inky, beautiful Shiraz coming from this area.
Barossa Valley‘s neighboring region to its west is a fine wine region called the Adelaide Hills. This is a region that actually has two subregions in it, Piccadilly Valley and Lenswood Valley. Now, I don’t know if you’re going to see that on labels, but it shows that there is terroir here. Whenever you see these subregions, they’re saying not only is Adelaide Hills awesome, but these two places are special for a reason as well. This region is also known for Shiraz, but the Shiraz here — as full-bodied as it is — can get a little bit spicy and almost close to what it’s like in its home in the Rhône of France. Also, what’s done here are sparkling wines made from primarily Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Going north, the Adelaide Hills are part of this mountain range. To the north of that is another valley called Clare Valley. Clare Valley is historically very important in Australia. When we do the episode on screw cap versus cork, we’re going to talk a lot about this place. Clare Valley is known for extremely popular, wonderfully age-worthy, crisp and deep Riesling. It’s just amazing how Riesling works in this area. And there are a lot of others — you’re going to see McLaren Vale, which is going to be coming more onto the market with a really kind of spicy, herby Shiraz. There’s also Eden Valley, which is just south of Barossa Valley or neighboring Barossa Valley, and they do Rieslings as well. That’s stuff to keep an eye out on. The Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, you’re definitely going to see.
There’s also a region way down south towards the coast called Coonawarra. That place is known for its Cabernet Sauvignon, not necessarily its Shiraz. We’re going to see more from Coonawarra on the market.
East of the state of South Australia, you move into the state of Victoria. Now, this place is crazy populated with wine and wine history. There are 800 producers in Victoria, and Victoria is pretty small. They’re all packed in there. I think there are 20 wine regions just in Victoria alone. There’s a good amount of wine from Victoria on the American market. You’re going to see them from regions with names like Rutherglen, Alpine Valley, Beechworth, King Valley, Sunbury, Mornington Peninsula, Bendigo. But the one region in Victoria that is making a big noise on the American market is the Yarra Valley. This is very exciting, guys. This is a place where they decided it was a good idea to blend Shiraz with a white wine called Viognier. The result is just awesome. It’s this beautiful, bright, berry fruit, red wine. It has depth to it. Then, you feel this sort of clean, white acidity just running through it. It’s a very cool thing. That’s kind of the one places in Victoria that is standing out.
All the other places I mentioned and there’s more of them, of course, Shiraz, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc. There are all kinds of grapes being grown in this area. However, Shiraz basically rules the day. Yarra Valley is unique because of that blend of Shiraz and Viognier. You’re not going to see a lot of it right now, but it’s coming. The Bendigo region in Victoria is doing really awesome Cab, and there’s a place called the Goulburn Valley. The unique thing about that area is they’re messing around with Roussanne, which is great. There’s not a lot of it in the American market, but it’s coming, and it’s delicious.
Then, we go north from Victoria into the state of New South Wales. There’s a lot of wine-growing regions here, too. What is blowing the minds of people in the wine industry right now from this region is a valley called Hunter Valley. In this valley, they grow grapes called Semillon. If you remember our Bordeaux episode, you’ll remember that Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc is the blend of Bordeaux. Somehow, this native Bordeaux variety over in the Hunter Valley of Australia makes incredible wine. Semillon that can age — well, so far they’re saying like 20 years, which is wild. It develops into this beautiful thing that if you sip an old Semillon, sometimes, you think that it’s just a bunch of oak, but it’s not. It’s just the age of the wine. It’s a very unique place with a very unique wine. Since the area is so popular, the surrounding regions are starting to get a little bit of recognition as well. This region was originally known mostly for Chardonnay. There’s still good Chardonnay coming out of that area. The climate of that area — warm days and cold nights — it brings a fruity, juicy round Chardonnay. It’s very fun and very enjoyable stuff, very good.
There are more places like Heath Coat and Henty and the Grampians, and there’s actually the Pyrenees. It’s actually a joke, because the Pyrenees is just low-lying hills. There’s wine everywhere in Australia and we’re going to see more of it. Australia never backed away from our market. We backed away from Australia. I think at some point we got overwhelmed, overstimulated, I should say, with the Shiraz — the big inky, full-bodied Shiraz. Of course, Malbec comes into the market and replaces that big inky with Malbec’s big inky.
The thing about Australia and what their focus is going forward is they want to show us on the American market that they are not just a big Shiraz ocean. They want us to know that they can be fine wine and smaller producers. There are a lot of wine regions that we’re going to start seeing in the future from Australia that are small. Some of these wine regions have 20 winemakers in them. What they’re doing is they’re focusing. The Australians are good at this. They are focused, and they are confident. When they hit it right, they hit it, and they just keep on hitting it right.
We’re going to start seeing a lot more of Australia come onto our market, but it’s going to be more expensive. That’s just the way it has to be. It’s because it comes from a long way away, and it’s usually in the smaller yield. The thing is, we have to get used to the idea that Australian wine that’s going to blow our minds is going to be a little bit higher in price.
The thing is, I think we should be open to the idea of tasting these wines because Australia isn’t all just Shiraz. Australia is all kinds of stuff. I would say there’s Riesling, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. Those four really do well all across the wine-growing regions of Australia. As I said, Tempranillo, Cab Franc, there are so many other vines that are being grown and blended. We just have to wait and see.
Again, this is a very general overview of Australia because of how intense it is. This season, we’re going to have a couple of episodes that will reference Australia, and we’ll get more information on the history of the place. This will get you started in Australia with some regions that you already will see, and an idea of just opening your mind for what’s to come from the land down under.
@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there. And now, for some totally awesome credits. “Wine 101″ was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean, a big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darby Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new every day. See you next week.
This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Whitehaven. From the sunny days in lush green vineyards of Marlborough comes a New World Sauvignon Blanc that only New Zealand can offer. Winehaven’s winemaking philosophy centers on the pursuit of quality without compromise, a principle that is supported every step from vineyard to glass, Whitehaven uses only Marlborough grapes in our wines, ensuring that only truly authentic Marlborough character is in every bottle. Inspired by a dream, try Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc. Your haven awaits.
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rochajackson · 4 years
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Grape Growing Terms Awesome Diy Ideas
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