The Alberta Disadvantage – Alberta Reinforces Socialist Liquor Monopoly

The Alberta Disadvantage – Alberta Reinforces Socialist Liquor Monopoly

 (For many; ok just some like me, but in actuality for all since monopoly inception.) Those who read this blog (me) know that I have reflected on wine once or twice.  I like the mild, drinkable Central European reds, as well as the fine whites that emanate from this region and that compete with just about anything anywhere, in a good year.

Now I see Alberta’s government monopoly has once again appeared to de-list yet another two of the only wines I really liked, from Croatia (and more specifically, Dalmatia).  Oh, sure, you can still get gallons of Australian motor-oil plonk for gallons to the penny (how I hope that, from Sydney to Perth, from Adelaide to Darwin, Australians are buying boxes of Manitoba wine in 4L boxes for $4.99), but choice has once again been reduced by the Alberta government monopoly, liquorconnect.com, or Connect Logistics. 

This continues an ongoing eradication of consumer choice in Alberta, going back to the alleged “privatization” of Alberta liquor stores in the Klein years of the early 90s.  (Perhaps no accident on that one, as Ralph was known to show up half-cocked at 2 a.m. at homeless shelters and throw coins at people and tell them to get jobs while his taxpayer-funded chauffeurs looked on.)   A constantly declining selection has been the hallmark of Alberta's "privatization." I feel like I'm in wine wonderland when I go to other, less corrupt jurisdictions in Canada or the U.S.

Privatization, of course, was a myth, but it is striking how enduring this myth has been.  When Alberta “privatized,” the government kept its complete monopoly by dictating that all liquor sellers had to sell from the government monopoly seller, Connect Logistics.  Connect Logistics got the exclusive monopoly; the government got all the same revenues it always did--but government property could be sold off, at a profit, normally to those with the best Progressive Conservative party connections, as so many at the time observed.  I wonder if party membership and store ownership would be considered just a “coincidence?” Hm. Anyway, in true “privatization” capitalist monopoly totalitarian actuality, this means that there is one book, and one book, alone, that any alcohol seller in Alberta can sell from.  It looks like a big book when a seller shares it with you, but what it doesn’t show is that surely virtually no seller in Alberta would use it all, its contents are incredibly restricted, compared to what other provinces, such as Ontario, can get, and obviously few sellers would even try to stock much of it, anyway, because they’re in the business of small, mom & pops, Biff n’ Jack $4.99 6-pack hole-in-the-wall outlets.  Sellers will tell you frankly that there’s no way they’re bringing in many things that *are* available, even from Connect Logistics, just because you want it, because it is much better business to sell $4.99 6-packs to beggars from behind a steel grate than it is actually to stock a wine someone might *choose.*  It’s supply and demand, and if Big Bear 10% is what sells where the hookers and the schoolkids waiting for the bus stand, that’s what gets ordered.

In provinces like Ontario, of course, you can make your own wine at private shops—you’d sure never find that in Socialist Alberta.  Independent store-owners, entrepreneurs, and businesspeople are prevented by the government from owning such operations because the government couldn’t get their monopoly revenues.  And besides, small business owners??  Pffft.  I remember talking to one guy who ran a tidy, enthusiast wine shop in Calgary (now gone), and he told me how his Progressive Conservative MLA told him, flat-out, no way are we gonna let you make wine on your premises—“your golf tournaments aren’t as good.”  A little Putinesque candor, Alberta-style.

 In Ontario, say, you get stores that are clean and well marked, with professional staff.  The selection is much larger than in Alberta, the vast, vast majority of the time.  The prices are what the prices are—there is none of the constant confusion endemic to Alberta, where much of the store might not even have prices, or price tags.  Staff in Ontario ask for ID, and are even monitored to do so, something I have never, ever, once seen in Alberta.  Not once.  Ever.  That kid who just killed your daughter on the roads tonight?  That’s what’s called “the Alberta advantage.”  Ralph Klein brought it in. The prices are all but the same.  Sometimes, in Ontario, they’re cheaper.  Yes, the provincial sales tax will usually bump prices up, but sometimes not even enough to cover the Alberta disadvantage.  It’s true that, in Alberta, store by store, particular brands will pitch to particular stores, so that you can, say, get some barrel-reject Peller consumers’ blend plonk for $4.99, or Jim-Bob’s All-American Brew for $4.99 a 6-pack, but is that what you wanted, when all your money is going back to the government, just as it always did, anyway?  Now and then, in Ontario, a boutique beer will go a bit on sale.  You’ll think it’s funny what a small sale it is, until you reflect that you will never, ever, as long as you live, see a sale like that in Alberta.

 There are 3 kinds of liquor stores in Alberta—the boutique high-end ones with limited stock for “real” housewives; the mid-range ones—all 7-11-type chains where the owners could buy up massive numbers of locations and set up oligopolies--with decent selection and predictable loss-leaders of atrocious plonk, Australian urine for $7.99, etc.; and hole-in-the-wall 6-pack sellers with bikini posters open through 2 a.m. that are blights on their neighourhoods and crime magnets.  In one of these several years ago, I surveyed the cameras and grates and so on and jokingly asked the taciturn English guy at the till if he’d really ever been robbed before, and he said deadpan: “three times this month.” 

 And the great thing about Alberta is that all *3* varieties of stores can typically be found all on just about every single city block.  Endless choice, without choice.  I think this is what it was like in Soviet Russia.  You could get a bottle of vodka just about anytime, anywhere, depending on your connections.  You maybe couldn’t get what you wanted, but you could get something.  And this is Alberta now.  Choice, without choice, at uncompetitive prices, alongside a studied effort to shut down business, initiative, and entrepreneurship to serve ruling party interests.

 zr

Galleons o’ Torrents - Your White Wine Guide

Galleons o’ Torrents

I noticed I had a category for Wines – Red.  I was a bit taken aback, for I mainly consume white—there’s an old oenology fundamental which asseverates that the more you drink wine, the more you drink white—once you drink white, you’ll never go back. 

Of course those fruity Cape/SA wines are delightful; you just can’t beat them.  But let’s take a salty ship over to that other SA, South America.  You just have to love torrontes.

One of the only ones I can get here is Trivento.  I really like it, but it is dangerous.  It is so steely that frankly you could get electrocuted by it if you’re standing next to your tv. Distinct floral backnotes (the vase you’re clutching as you fall by the sideboard).  

Recently tried the Lorca torrontes--is it worth the 25-33% more in terms of price than the Trivento?  Probably not.  If the two were equal in price, I'd maybe trade off equally, but even if Lorca were cheaper, I don't think I'd sacrifice that lie-detector-hooked-to-the-wrong-place shrill thrill of Trivento.

Northwest detour—that Cline viognier from California—such a delightful wine.  Watery and without much flavour ballast, but so like a new piece of fruit with all of the scent and anticipation and none of the squinchy-face upon tasting.  For drinking a couple glasses on its own with no accompaniment whatsoever, this wine is nonpareil.  Its perfect companions are sunlight, a breeze perhaps, and (increasingly generous) thought(s).

Westward ho! for the Oyster Bay and the marlborough.  Tasty, indeed.  A bit thick like. . .tasty mutton. . . .   Critics would say that you could get the same effect by nuzzling up under the foreleg of a lamb who’d been hard at work in the fields all day.  Critics’d be right.  Frankly, I bet this marlborough goes outstandingly with lamb, but I am not a Kiwi.  So perspirational is the effect, that one really does want to pair oil with oil, wine with fish yanked from dark nether reaches.  It’s a pity it’s boutique expensive where I live, otherwise I’d saa- saa-mple it endlessly.

Short hop but long run to the true motor oil of wine of any kind.  For a time I lived within shooting distance of the Barossa Valley, where so much famous Australian wine is from.

In a nutshell, what happened there was that stateless but determined Germans, non-convicts but enterprising, planted bushes to provide themselves with hooch.  When they noted that it totally knocked the corks off bushmen’s hats in the up and beyond, they industrialized it further.  Soon, steel silos began to appear all over southern Australia.  Leftists said they were American military bases.  John Howard said it was diversification.  Actually they were vast wine vats containing up to 40 million hectolitres at a go.  A grape was top-mounted into each vat, then each vat was left to fester in the relentless sun for up to six months—presto—Australian wine.  And world’s away, I can now have it for one low price of about 8$/L.  I’ll say one thing for those Australian vineyardists: they are nothing if not industrial.

zr    

Tim Hortons, Second Cup, Starbucks: Two Lines for Coffee or Lose All Your Coffee Business

Just like the whole world, I have long noticed that there are two kinds of coffee buyers—people who want coffee, and people who would like to buy something else.  –also a coffee, to be sure, but an _experience_.

Well, I gave up on Starbucks abt 5 years ago, and I gave up on Tims (with its deeply cherished bad grammar) at around the same time.

These franchises refused to respond to consumer demand in the most obvious of ways: one line for people who just wanted a coffee (not a macchiato or whatever), another line for people who didn’t.

Starbucks, Tims, they said to themselves, “well, we can keep people in line forever, and, once they finally get to the till, they will be so exhausted and influenced by other buyers that they will say to themselves, “yes, yes, I want the $14.95 macchiato.”  Didn’t happen for me; didn’t happen for many.  No wonder McDonald’s is so successful now.  Not only do they serve much better coffee than Tims, and come nigh on equalling anything else, but it just doesn’t matter whether some mom’s ordering 15 teenburgers for a softball team or not in front of you—you’re _still_ going to get your coffee much faster.  Bingo dingo.  I’m in there.  When I think fast decent coffee now, I think McDonald’s.  Oh, sure, I could stand in line at Starbucks or Tims for 20 mins, but if I haven’t got the latest encyclicals with me to read, no go.

The truth is (sorry multis) that I mostly only patronize 2 indies near me.  One is one where the woman I know (who, incidentally, runs a successful coffee shop _across_ from a Second Cup only cops go to) and can somehow, despite all the things she has to handle, get my order quickly.  Oh, she’s got all the liqueurs and shooters and so on, the console of machines, but, miraculously, even with all the black pens and cardboard sleeves, she can actually pull off a coffee in a couple mins. or so—I’d like to say she loves me, but really, she probably just wants my business.    I’d like to love her, but really she just gives me a good coffee 20X faster than Tims can.

Then there’s the trendy place I go to.  They don’t even pretend to make you wait.  You just go off and wait by yourself.  But they sure do call it out pretty quickly.

Anyway, massive failure by major chains like Starbucks, thinking it was ok to alienate coffee drinkers by prioritizing coffee experiencers.  Starbucks’ logo could be purple, for all I remember now, and Tims, sheltered in blacked-out marts along lonely sub-urban ways, well, it could be Toms, for all I know.  I want a decent coffee, and I want it fast, and McDonalds has beaten the shit right out of Starbucks and Tims and Second Cup and all the contenders.  I won’t leave my indies, but when I really need and want a coffee, McDonalds has pulled it off.  The latter has priced themselves out of the market, and demonstrated egregious contempt for consumers, while wily McDonalds has worked itself in.  Maybe one day McDonalds will work themselves out of it, but their track record suggests to me that I kind of doubt it.   You gotta have coffee, you gotta have coffee.  This is a restaurant/service concept Tims and Starbucks have showered with contempt, and in their race to provide sandwiches and tarts to people who don't drink coffee, I guess they will meet in the middle with McDonalds—but that middle is going to be a steep, hard climb.

zr

Gamza - Silver Goat

Just wanting to hear from others who may have been able to access this good Bulgarian red.  I realize it's regarded as cheap and so on, but frankly I liked it and many central Europan Moravian and Romanian and so forth wines like it.  Anyone seen Gamza/Silver Goat lately?  Where?

I like the mild and degustible central european wines.  If I want wine, I want wine; I don't want motor oil after 30 000 clicks.  I want red wine, not black wine.  I want a lovely red wine with a reddish-coppery meniscus. Many people across the world are, I think, quite untutored about wine.  They read wine experts, but they don't grasp that wine has been drunk across the ages, and it was often a drink intended not to enrich wine journalists, but rather to join meals.   Any comments on drinkable wines from central/east/southern (non-western) Europe welcomed. . . .
zr