A Study in Merlot

Hail fellows, well met, greetings, salutations and thank you for attending this study in Merlot, a chronicle of man's passion for excellence, and a compendium of the finest epicurean pursuits in the history of history. As Oscar Wilde observed: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." As I hope you shall see in these studies, Merlot is certainly not "most people" in Wilde's sense.

Monday, November 27, 2006

A Remarketable New Service for Unboxed Wine Lovers

Greetings Voignier,
A word to the wise should suffice, nevertheless:

When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
When Black Friday comes
I'll collect everything I'm owed
And before my friends find out
I'll be on the road
When Black Friday falls you know it's got to be
Don't let it fall on me

When Black Friday comes
I'll fly down to Muswellbrook
Gonna strike all the big red words
From my little black book
Gonna do just what I please
Gonna wear no socks and shoes
With nothing to do but feed
All the kangaroos
When Black Friday comes I'll be on that hill
You know I will

When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna dig myself a hole
Gonna lay down in it 'til
I satisfy my soul
Gonna let the world pass by me
The Archbishop's gonna sanctify me
And if he don't come across
I'm gonna let it roll
When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna stake my claim
I'll guess I'll change my name



I hope this communication in the wake of "Black Friday" finds you as well as we here at The Boxed Wine Association of North America and Parts of Chile, along with our band of elfs whom we are glad to call our associates. Last night was eventful, as the holidays brought a new spirit of consumption to Manhattan's restaurants, bistros and lounges, which we can confirm with actual data (numbers and varieties of empty wine bottles gathered by our research staff in the course of their overnight shift). As you may know, our staff is paid per bottle (or lable for those who carry their lable removal tools), which has amounted to a bounty, as records numbers of bottles were recovered from the Thanksgiving holiday period.

Our report will not be finished until next week, but I am sure our sponsers will be delighted by this latest numbers crunch. We are simply jassed to report, that's to Dr. Emily's grant writing skills, we have added two new wine industry supporters for our research. Each has pledged to support our winter sebatical to Florida and points south. We have a committed band of researchers who will be sailing with us this year, and gathering data from the dumpsters of some of Miami's finer restaurants over the winter months, as well as various other watering holes for the rich and famous below the horse lattitudes, if you will.

I was busy last night while waiting for the bounty of empty wine bottles that is our raw data to come in early AM, and to be processed by my invaluable assistant, who Sister Ruth (using that glut of irony with which she approaches every task in her world, has taken to call my "Dr. Wu"). As I surfed the web for football scores, and currency exchange rates, I ran across a new tool for boxed and unboxed wine lovers alike. The website, called Vintrust.com, is a new company with the following laudable, if ambitious goal:

Through the integration of technology, exceptional service and the best wine minds in the industry, we work to bring you an unparalleled resource for managing, cellaring, buying, selling and enjoying your wine.

Of course, we are left wondering how they can deliver on such a promise without consulting us, but that is yet another story. For the best minds in this industry all call upon us for our point of view. Nevertheless, this Vintrust.com site allows wine lovers to create an online inventory and manage their wine collection using some of the leading edge tools available, including bar coding and scanners to help one quickly manipulate the data that is associated with their liquid properties. Frankly, these tools excite us. We often have an oversupply of unboxed wines with which we are paid by our supporters in various barter transactions which aim to keep our research staff well positioned to conduct their nightly work.

Vintrust.com also includes a wine exchange if you will, were buyers and sellers can meet and swap information, bids and offers in their comfort of their own homes. We are delighted to see this kind of thing; and hope to make use of it as several of our supports pay us with premium blends, which we seek to "monitize" from time to time, and thereby trade down to the boxed wines that our employees tend to favor, while pocketing the difference, which typically pays for our staff meals and more. Vintrust.com will certainly a welcome innovation, if it can help us to turn some of these unboxed batered bottles into spendable cash with which we can grow and expand our data gathering and boxed wine business intellegence efforts.


More Good Fortune: Another Outstanding Proffer from Ghana

Sitting here, in our cutoff jeans, prepairing the boat basin for a long winter, and our journey south to the warmer waters of Florida, Mexico, Costa Rica and points south, to Panama we are happy to report a new proffer from a Mr. "Gaga Smith".

Far be it for us to count our chickens before they hatch, if you will; but here is yet another bit of luck we just had to share with your an our kind readers-- the promise of riches from another's misfortune, which plays wonderfully into our good natured, shameless, bloated, America greed, however flavored with a pinch of irony it might be, like so much seasoned salt on our holiday vittles.

I know that some might see Mr. Gaga Smith's offer as just one more 419 Scam finding its way to our email box; but what if it is not, and what if it is fear alone that holds us back from realizing what those most fickle vixens, the Fates, have in store for us? What if clicking the erase button, or the "report spam" button on this offer is just one more self defeating act we would be taking, as we sit akimbo, watching ourselves tabluate the findings brought to us by people we know, some we pay per bottle and some who labour for love, struggling to make ends meet as they fish empty wine bottles and boxes out of New York's trash pales and dumpsters, all the while aware of those lucky few speeding up the Henry Hudson Highway toward their second homes in their new sports cars for long weekends filled with fine foods, bottled wines, wide screen entertainments and navigating silk undergarments.

Nevertheless, this is not the time of year for chickens, is it?

Please provide you feedback Voignier on this most excellent opportunity.


Barrister Gaga Smith
No 3 link street
Accra Ghana.
Private email: esq_gagasmith@sify.com

I am Barrister Gaga Smith, a solicitor at law and the personal attorney to
Mr. Robert Palmera who works with Petrochi construction Bank in Ghana
and he is known and referred to as my Client. On the 21st of August 2003,my
client, his wife and their children were involved in a car accident along
Sagbama express road. Unfortunately all the entire family lost their lives
in the tragedy.Since then, I have made several enquires to your embassy to
locate any of my clients extended relatives but all my efforts proved
unsuccessful.After these unsuccessful attempts failed, I decided to track
his last name in the Internet to locate any member of his family or his
national hence I contacted you.



Now my contacts to you is to assist me in repatriating the money in his
bank account here before the account will be confiscated or declared
unserviceable by the Union bank where he deposited this money valued (Eight
Million Three Hundred And Twenty Thousand Six Hundred And Forty Three
United States Dollars Only. More importantly, the finance house where the
deceased client deposited these huge sums of money has served me a
write of notice to provide the NEXT OF KIN of my client or the account will
be confiscated.



Since I have tried and failed on sever occasions in locating his relatives I
am now seeking for your consent to present you as the next of kin the
deceased since you have the same last name with him, so that the money in
his account will be paid to you while I will come over to your country for
the sharing. I will take 40% while you will take 40%. And 20% will be
donated to the less privileged and charity organization. I have all the
necessary legal documents that can be use to backup any claim we may want.
All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal
through.


I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that
will protect you from any breach of the law. You are required to send the
following information immediately as to enable me process the legal
documents, they are:



1. Your full names.
2. Your contacts address.
3. Your age.
4. Your private phone and fax number (if any)
5. Your occupation.
6. Your nationality.



Awaiting your urgent reply. You should please always write to on my
private email: esq_gagasmith@sify.com

Monday, November 20, 2006

A Few of our Favorite Things...

One of our favorite Boxed Wine designs came from the storied Sonoma Valley of California. Upon its introduction, the golden box certainly was a milestone for the packaging and sale of fine wines in a box. It's one of the props, or things, if you will, we like to carry with us to parties around Manhattan this time of year, as the holidays fast approach, serving friends, new and old, and all who approach us by the glass. The golden box puts on in mind of the finest Swiss Chocolate, or perhaps a tombstone fit for a king.

In point of fact, Pacific Southwest Container in Modesto, California won an award for printing this most distingushed of boxed wine designs on the market. Further investigation will reveal that:
"Tincknell & Tincknell, Wine Sales and Marketing Consultants, of Healdsburg, California, and Bauermeister Design of Sonoma, California, teamed together to create the packaging for a new, upscale, super-premium, three-liter boxed wine, the Blackburn Fine Wine Cache from Sonoma Hill Winery in Graton, California.

For our part, the golden boxed wine offers us a chance to show off our uncommon taste and eye for the finer things in life, which, after all, is what holidays are all about.

Another Rare Find in Canada Offers Favor for the Prepared Mind


Greeting V, and fellows well met;

Recently, I recieved an email proffer with from agents of a Canadian company that has uncovered yet another rare opportunity for us to make our fortune. This lastest proffer appears to be even greater than many of the offers we have had from our Nigerian and South African friends who have contacted us with lottery winnings and inheritance proceeds. This latest communication came from the desk of Geoffrey Eiten, America's Leading Small/Micro-Cap Stock Specialist, wirting for The Special Situations Report.

For our part, we are delighted to be given the chance to load up on this his latest stock selection that is part of a pattern of success that is truely outstanding. According to Mr. Eiten, his last "pick" soared, over 1,600 percent.

And according to Mr. Eiten, his current selection is ready to do the same. The company has selected is "Source Petrolium", symbol, SOPO. Source has uncovered massive quanities of oil in central Canada, which apparently could make us rich as stock share holders, if we choose to take Mr. Eiten up on his proffer. Review for youself the words of Mr. Eiten, "American's Leading Smal Cap/Microcap Specialist" as he waxes on SOPO. SOPO apparently operates in THE LARGEST OIL FIELD IN THE WORLD, according to Mr. Eiten. He writes:

"Fortunes are being made in Canadian oil stocks as share prices skyrocket to historic highs.

It's a profit making bonanza turning pocket change into buckets of cash!

The timing is perfect. Oil prices have been taking a breather, but higher prices in 2007 are a certainty.

For a shot at solid profits in the months ahead, you should be loading up on new oil and energy stocks right now.

And for aggressive investing, at least one Canadian oil stock (like SOPO) should be in your portfolio today.

If not, you're simply walking away from money that's waiting to be made.

How can it be any other way?

America will NOT start running on corn squeezins and sunbeams anytime soon.

We need oil...lots of it for decades to come. Where will we get it?

No doubt it will be Canada.

Canada now holds the largest known oil reserves on the planet, even greater than Saudi Arabia's. It has become the number one hunting ground for everything we need.

  • New oil deposits...

  • New natural gas deposits and...

  • New entry level stocks with quadruple-digit growth potential!

Oil, gas and profits!

This is as close as it gets to a sure thing. Yes, I know you can lose money at this too, but look at the chart above.

I published a Special Situations Report on this stock last year. In nine months, it shot up 1,667%!

That's $15,667 pure profit for every thousand put in!

You don't have to put a lot of money at risk for a shot at huge returns. So if you're the kind of investor that wants to buy at the bottom of a chart like the one above, then feast your greedy eyes on this!

Source Petroleum (SOPO) put together one of the most impressive oil and gas portfolios found anywhere in over-the-counter issues. It now has...
"



According to his email offer, here are some of Mr. Eiten's other wildly successful small cap stock picks over the years:

Over the years, my subscribers have been alerted to growth buys like this:

  • 13,538% on Express Scripts (ESRX)
    First recommended: 9/92 @ $0.60 – 8/15/06 $81.83 current
  • 4,217% on Natural MicroSystems (NMSS)
    First recommended: 4/94 @ $1.56 – with subsequent high 9/7/00 of $84.91
  • 3,089% on Advance PCS (ADVP)
    First recommended: 12/96 @ $1.19 – sell recommended 9/15/03 $36.76
  • 1,336% on Techne Corporation (TECH)
    First recommended: 6/93 @ $3.43 – 8/15/06 $49.25
  • 1,085% on Surmodics (SRDX)
    First recommended: 5/98 @ $4.88 – with subsequent high 6/28/01 of $66.90

If these kind of massive gains are any indication of the quality of Mr. Eiten's work, then he is perhaps our ticket to paradise.