Que Syrah

In an email from a co-worker the other day, it was pointed out that the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park who is currently showing a King Tut exhibition--*ahem*, excuse me--I mean Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs (really, exhibition titles these days...don't get me started) has partnered with a local winery to create a King Tut-themed wine, called the 2006 Tut Cuvée. These days, cultural institutions (museums especially) have really been pushing the gimmick-envelope to hold onto their sound-byte, ADD audiences and this just slots in as another example of those ploys.

My co-worker's response to this was a half-joking suggestion that we follow suit in doing some similar wine-exhibition pairing. Recently, we had an exhibition of Bhutanese art called The Dragon's Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan and currently on view is the Lords of the Samurai exhbition. The next big "blockbuster" show will be the Shanghai exhibtion, to take place in the Spring of 2010. I could just imagine the various wine puns clogging her mind. Her AAM answer to the 2006 Tut Cuvée quandry was the following: Blanc de Bhutan and/or Lords of the Syrah.

An immediate reply from me was required in which I said, slightly sarcastically (though nuance is often lost in email); "I like the way you think."

With her new fan now made public, the pressure was on for a showstopper, you know, to keep me hooked, and to my delight, she did not disappoint. A return email sealed the deal:

"Jonathan, here's my masterpiece...wait for it...Shanghai-donnay. Right??"

This shamelessly bad pun required a more honest response, without nuance. I could only reply; "....and you were doing so well..."