Trivia Quiz: What temperature-damaged Porto wine...
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*sweetstuff
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Trivia Quiz: What temperature-damaged Porto wine...
gave away the suspect to Lieutenant Columbo in an episode of murder at the California winery? What was your opinion of the way wine amateurs were handled in this episode? Was the supposition on which the episode was built credible?
Best, John Trombley aka Rieslingrat
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*sweetstuff
- Posts: 79
- Joined: Sat Sep 09, 2006 7:54 pm
The usual suspects...
This episode, if I remember it correctly, concerned 'Adrian', the co-owner of a prestigious California winery who had one of the world's best wine collections. His brother, the other owner, was found murdered in the custom cellar where 'Adrian' stored his personal stash. The time of the murder was set by the coroner's autopsy. 'Adrian', who was known to be very passionate about storing wine at proper temperature, was thereafter observed to be taking cases of his personal wine out to the seashore to dump into the ocean.
Columbo got hold of one of those bottles by fishing it out of the drink after 'Adrian' dumped the wine. It was one of 'Adrian's' most prized possessions, a 1945 Ferriera Porto. Columbo did his homework and we see him going to winetasting after winetasting, becoming a minor wine maven in the process. It's amusing to see the klutzy Colombo beginning to carefully examine the color of each wine he drinks, taking big sniffs of it, and slurping air through each wine and chewing it like a 'pro'.
He corners 'Adrian' by serving him a bottle of the '45 Ferriera at the end of a marvelous wine dinner that goes on all night with great bonhomie. 'Adrian', however, almost spews out the first mouthful of the port. 'Cooked!' he grimaces, indignantly. "Who was the monster who could have owned such a wine and not stored it properly?"
"You were, sir', replies Columbo, coolly. "You turned up the heat in your wine cellar to make your brother's death appear to have occured at a different time than it did, a time for which you had an alibi. The very warm cellar slowed down the cooling of the corpse, so that the medical examiner put the death later than it actually occurred. You knew you would ruin your entire wine cellar, but you hated your brother so much that you were even willing to endure that loss to rid yourself of the one you hated so much. You couldn't stand your playboy brother taunting you, calling you a wine nerd! Too bad you couldn't resist the temptation to take your wine out and mourn over it, tossing it into the ocean as you did so. If you had simply left it there, no one would ever have known."
Columbo toasts the murderer in his own wine, but we get the feeling that one wine-nerd has outwitted another!
I put this on the board, hoping to spark a discussion of the '45 Ferriera, a wine that I believe doesn't hold up to the series writers' kudos for it. Anyone tasted it? Oh, you did, Adrian? Used to have a few bottles in your cellar?
Columbo got hold of one of those bottles by fishing it out of the drink after 'Adrian' dumped the wine. It was one of 'Adrian's' most prized possessions, a 1945 Ferriera Porto. Columbo did his homework and we see him going to winetasting after winetasting, becoming a minor wine maven in the process. It's amusing to see the klutzy Colombo beginning to carefully examine the color of each wine he drinks, taking big sniffs of it, and slurping air through each wine and chewing it like a 'pro'.
He corners 'Adrian' by serving him a bottle of the '45 Ferriera at the end of a marvelous wine dinner that goes on all night with great bonhomie. 'Adrian', however, almost spews out the first mouthful of the port. 'Cooked!' he grimaces, indignantly. "Who was the monster who could have owned such a wine and not stored it properly?"
"You were, sir', replies Columbo, coolly. "You turned up the heat in your wine cellar to make your brother's death appear to have occured at a different time than it did, a time for which you had an alibi. The very warm cellar slowed down the cooling of the corpse, so that the medical examiner put the death later than it actually occurred. You knew you would ruin your entire wine cellar, but you hated your brother so much that you were even willing to endure that loss to rid yourself of the one you hated so much. You couldn't stand your playboy brother taunting you, calling you a wine nerd! Too bad you couldn't resist the temptation to take your wine out and mourn over it, tossing it into the ocean as you did so. If you had simply left it there, no one would ever have known."
Columbo toasts the murderer in his own wine, but we get the feeling that one wine-nerd has outwitted another!
I put this on the board, hoping to spark a discussion of the '45 Ferriera, a wine that I believe doesn't hold up to the series writers' kudos for it. Anyone tasted it? Oh, you did, Adrian? Used to have a few bottles in your cellar?
Best, John Trombley aka Rieslingrat