Word: french
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Americans last year quaffed at least 50 million gallons of French and Italian table wine, so the Aussies clearly have a long way to go. But there are good reasons why experts see a promising future. For one thing, the declining value of the U.S. dollar has pushed the prices of quality French wines -- most red Burgundies, for example, and the top-rated crus of Bordeaux -- beyond the reach of all but the wealthy. Meanwhile, thanks to the relative weakness of the Australian dollar (worth 77 cents in U.S. currency), virtually all Down Under wines available...
...Some of the Aussie brand names have an exotic charm (Koala Ridge, Wirra Wirra), but the principal varietals, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, are familiar to U.S. buyers. Nonetheless, winemakers Down Under are carefree about tradition, and some of their practices are downright heretical by American or French standards: for example, blending Cabernet Sauvignon, a red grape from the Bordeaux area, with Shiraz, a Rhone Valley varietal known in France as the Syrah. Labels can be confusing as well; the Australians use a lot of mysterious bin numbers, which are intended to denote wines of special quality...
...that may be difficult: owing to disastrously bad weather, the 1987 crop was quite small, which could mean higher prices. Beyond that, the Australians are $ struggling to cope with 7% inflation, which raises the cost of such necessary imports as corks and aging barrels. Nonetheless, predicts Bernard Portet, the French-born winemaker at California's respected Clos du Val vineyard, "they're definitely here to stay." Portet should know: his brother Dominique was a founder of Taltarni in Victoria, one of Australia's best boutique wineries...
Bobbie Battista, an anchorwoman for Cable News Network, is not exactly a household name in the U.S., but she is a celebrity in Poland. French, Italian and Japanese viewers now wake up to the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, while Australians fall asleep to the sound of Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel of NBC's Today show -- at midnight. Marshall McLuhan's oft-cited 1967 declaration is finally coming to pass: "We now live in a global village . . . a simultaneous happening...
...detector tests indicated that he was not to be trusted? After months of lying low, Ghorbanifar has been telling contacts in the U.S. that he was the intermediary who brokered the deal between Paris and Tehran that resulted in last month's release of the remaining three French hostages in Lebanon...