Nurse the Hate: Great Success In Tasmania's Past

I have begun the last unit of the never ending WSET Diploma Wine Certification.  It is the sparkling wine unit, so there are worse things than spending a weekend in San Francisco drinking champagne.  Note, it doesn’t sound nearly as bourgeoisie to position it as “spitting out sekt into a plastic bucket in a windowless conference room in a Holiday Inn Express sitting next to dudes with beards” which is far more accurate.  Why split hairs though? 

In preparation for the weekend I had extensive reading to do on the entire sparkling wine industry.  In case you want to know about the particulars of the emerging Chilean sparkling wine market, I’m your guy.  However, what caught my eye was information about the infancy of the Australian sparkling wine market.  I learned a man named Hans Irvine spearheaded the movement in the 1890s after making a fortune as a young man in textiles and mining.  He seemed to have an unusual understanding of the potential market for sparkling wine.  He made some wine but then traveled to Champagne France to learn more of the nuances of production.  That was a hell of a trip back then, so he was totally committed to this wine venture.  He then returned to Australia and with Tasmanian grape sources managed to win a medal at the next World’s Fair, effectively launching his empire.  It was said he was an expert in wine advertising.  He used tactics and methods of marketing well before their time.  That really got my attention.  It seemed familiar somehow, like I was having some sort of déjà vu.  A man that seemed ahead of his time making wine from Tasmanian grapes that was an expert in advertising?  There is only one conclusion.  As I have mentioned previously on this blog, my long term goal has been to corner the Tasmanian sparkling wine market via time travel.  Based on this reading, I believe I have done it.  I can only conclude that I am Hans Irvine. 

My best guess is that in the near future after internalizing all of the information in this sparkling wine class, passing the final exam, and then assembling my time machine, I have traveled back to Tasmania in the 1880s to build my mining empire to fund my wine venture.  It’s very exciting to know I have succeeded.  I am more focused than ever in passing this class with merit knowing my guaranteed future (or past) as a Tasmanian Wine Baron.  Although, if I now know I have already accomplished my goal, perhaps I can slack off knowing it’s all going to happen anyway.  Wait.  It has already happened.  But if I slack off, will I fail and then that paragraph disappear in the reading because I have not grasped the material?  Will I change the past tomorrow by not focusing on the now?  And if it does change, will I remember I read it in the first place?  Goddammit this time travel business is complicated.

Let’s get back to basics.  Here’s what I know.  Everything goes great for me as Hans Irvine.  I am rich and powerful.  I corner the market.  I then head to London to deal with a gastric ulcer and it appears that things don’t go well for me there.  I die in 1922.  This is obviously a great concern as my plan has always been to corner the market, return to the present year, and enjoy my further expanded empire without dealing with 1922 English medical tortures to my digestive system.  There must be horrible steel drills and “tonics” they force down my throat in a London Hospital in that era.  I better look into my ulcer treatment now.  I don’t want to be screaming about needing to fix my time machine in the 1922 London hospital.  They will throw me in “the mad house”.  That’s no picnic in there friend.  

I am not positive why I will change my name to Hans Irvine in the future.  Wait.  That’s isn’t going to happen.  It already happened because of something I have yet to do.  I did that in Australia in the late 1800s based on a decision I will make in the future when I go to the past.  Well, regardless, Hans Irvine is obviously a made up name.  I must have combined a foreign sounding name like Hans with that celebrity chef guy with the big body and pinhead Robert Irvine.  We did a TV show episode of “Dinner Impossible” with him in the band once at the Rock Hall.  That explains that.  I probably panic when I run into my Aboriginal henchmen.  “Greg Miller” doesn’t sound very Australian Wine Baron.  I need to blend in, be one of them.  I need to fit the part.  A dude named “Hans Irvine” will send miners to their death to make a buck.  “Hans Irvine” will exploit workers at textile mills to make his fortune.  A guy named Hans Irvine grows a big bushy mustache and grows introspective staring at the fire while speaking with great certainty of his vision of The Future.  I think I will like being Hans Irvine.  Well, with the exception of that gastric ulcer situation.  I need to figure a way out of that.     

   

As you proceed with your day wondering about the idea of destiny versus free will, think of me.  I am right now spitting out Cava into a plastic bucket invigorated with the certainty that I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  I am free of nagging regrets and fears.  It all works out for me, exactly as I have foreseen.  My scheme has succeeded.  As you float about the cosmos completely unmoored, I have found the answers.  I have rigged the game.  I have broken the time space continuum for my own personal gain.  I have made my own destiny.  I am Hans Irvine.