Holy Jim Trail; Plus, Terroir and Beer

1) Finally got up to Holy Jim Trail and falls.  Falls aren't huge but definitely special and purty.  It was late so I didn't have time to get all the way up to Santiago Peak.  One thing I will say:  the road wasn't as bad as some of the hike descriptions said.  From the paved road to the parking area it's about five miles, the last two of which are rougher (Natl Forest road).  As long as you take your time on the Natl Forest section, at the time of this writing (May 2012) it was doable in  a Honda Accord.


2) The differences between beer and wine - not only the culture that surrounds each, but the actual genetics and economics of their production - has always been interesting to me. Here, one connosieur argues that the egalitarianism of brewing comes from the fact that unlike in wine, terroir hardly matters, and this means that the quality of the resulting beverage depends much more on the skill of the maker in beer-making than in wine-making.

Also, I think that a bunch of European wine snobs should form a renegade group that calls itself terroirists, and use phylloxera against New World wineries that name their products after the varietals rather than the region. Although to be fair to the terroirists, if you pay more for the same grape from a Sonoma vineyard vs. San Diego, either you're stupid, or you think it makes a difference...even the New World winemakers defend their appellations.