Merlot Gathers Intelligence, and Hires Mr. Ito

Greetings Voignier and kind readers,

Last evening began with a late start, after we had spent several hours conferring with our friends at The Riverside Park, who proved a most excellent resource for the study of wine consumption habits on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which we take to be a proxy for every high end niche market in America, give or take not more than a standard deviation, if you will.

Each morning, as they return from their hunt for bottles and cans, our rather casual discussion over the Italian roasted coffee, and fresh H & H bagels they supply has given me a window, if you will, overlooking the patters of wine drinking throughout the nation. Our friends have been very good about counting and charting the numbers of wine bottles, the size bottles, and the lables they find each day. This army of bottle collector-recyclers are, in fact, my secret weapon in the war for the wine consumers tastes and minds, a most valuable resource to beat back the "Sideways Effect" that appears to be dragging down sales of Merlot, if reports are accurate by the network of wine stores who hired us to counteract this unhappy result. Using their morning inputs, if you will, and with spreadsheets created with a popular software package, I have been able to plot the wine consumption patterns of what is, perhaps, the most highly coveted markets on earth. For more than 4 years, I have been able to spot wine consumption trends, real time, which allows me to inform some of the worlds leading vineyards as to their success or lack thereof in marketing to Manhattan's upper west side.

In exchange for their fastidious work, we are able to offer them a quite ample supply of boxed, and bottle wines and other spirits, depending on the nature of our consulting agreements. More often than not, we are able to secure ample consideration for their efforts, which explains how a rather small morning "coffee clutch" began 8 years ago, and has developed into a group that would fill the Carnegie Deli each morning.

Dr. Emily works very hard to provide breakfast for this band of market researchers, if you will, when she is walking off the job, laughing it up with Celebrities and well healed layabouts on the deck of Mort's ship. Each morning, without fail (until yesterday) Professor Emily works very hard to provide coffee, bagels and sweat rolls, as regularly as Mark, who was once Robert Duval's understudy, recites the same quote to Dr. Emily each day, recalling his 15 minutes of fame in the late 1970's, when he was "Teach" in the American Buffalo every third night: "Fucking Ruthie, Fucking Ruthie, Fucking Ruthie... every fucking sweat roll... ground glass". Dr. Emily, for her part, is genuinely amused, every morning, laughing wildly, and after a pause, quoting back on cue "this hurts me in a way. I don't know what to do". It is, one of the longest running jokes at the basin.

This morning was day two of our falling out over the trouble with our trash at the Boat Basin. Dr. Emily, was however on hand to serve our friends coffee, but did not jest with Mark, which caught the attention of all hand who were by that time, on deck, if you will. In time, we hope Professor Emily will resume her bright spirit, and glib jest, as we consider it a cornerstone of our operation. We are still in the process of compiling market intelligence for our wine store clients, as we negotiate the terms for our services, which we expect to take a few weeks to make our sample most reliable.

Meanwhile, we have hired a good man to help Dr. Emily clean up our wake of wine boxes and other refuse that follows our wine tasting events here at the basin. After an extensive interviewing process, where several building managers, and janitorial workers came to our watercraft to apply for the job, we have made a selection. Mr. Ito, appears to be a hard worker by all accounts who has been clean and sober for more than 9 years by his own account. As a recovered alcoholic, Mr. Ito should be in a good position to cut and dispose of empty boxed wine casks. His is also willing to begin painted our watercraft, which is also in need of repair. None of this seems to make a bit of difference to Mort, or neighbor who has started calling Mr. Ito "Kato", and me the Green Hornet, a reference to a dynamic dual from the mid 1960 episodic television wherein Kato was played by Bruce Lee.

We are not amused.