Wine Beneath The Palms

Questions? Statements? Send 'em here

  Q & A

       Do you have a wine question?
       Is there an opinion you want to state about wine?
       You're in the right place.
       Send it to Wine@MiamiHerald.com

        This is also where you can tell the world about that great new wine you just discovered. That fabulous tasting you just hosted. That nifty new wine bar you love. That helpful wine merchant.
        Tell us about it. E-mail us a picture.

        Fred Tasker

Reader picks: A mellow tempranillo from Spain

Dear Fred:

     I had to share with you an amazing wine that I purchased at Publix for just under $19 a bottle -- Torre Oria Gran Reserva 1997. It was a beautiful wine with soft body and extreme elegance. One of those wines that can be drunk all night alone.
     I was amazed at the quality of the wine. TRY IT.
     If I'm not mistaken the wine is from Utiel-Requena, Spain.
     Would love to hear your comment if you ever try it.
     Cheers.
     Anne Maryse Lopez

Torre Oria Gran Reserva

Dear Anne Maryse:

      I couldn’t agree more. It’s been a while, but in 2000 I tasted the 1991 Torre Oria Tinto Gran Reserva (red), put it in my “highly recommended” category and wrote: “It has aromas and flavors of vanilla and black pepper, rich and mellow but alive with crisp acid.”  Back then it was $12, but that’s the way that goes.

      The wine is made from the tempranillo grape, which is the heart of Spain’s Rioja wines, but it’s fuller and richer than Riojas. It’s made by the Oria de Rueda family, which founded the winery in the northern Spanish town of Requena in 1897. 

      And to me, the best way to serve this very Spanish wine is with very Cuban lechon asado, or roast pig.

      Fred Tasker

PS: Wine fans, tell me about your latest marvelous wine purchase. E-mail to Wine@MiamiHerald.com

More wine and food! More festival!

   

   Feeling deprived?

   Didn’t get enough rich food and fancy wine at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival last weekend?

       Here’s hope: The Boca Bacchanal Winefest & Auction runs Friday through Sunday in Boca Raton, including:
     * On Friday, Vintner’s Dinners at various restaurants at $325 apiece.
     * On Saturday, a Silent Auction, Champagne Reception and Silent Auction followed by Dinner and Live Auction at the Boca Raton Resort & Club at $250 apiece.
     · On Sunday, a Grand Tasting at the Centre for the Arts at Mizner Park, at $75 apiece.
     · On Monday, Tums, at $1.29 per roll.

     See bocabacchanal.com or call 561-395-6766, ext. 101.

Good, Bad and Ugly at the South Beach Wine Festival

More reader comments on the South Beach Wine & Food Festival:

Natalie Longurl: “I've never heard such a poignantly disingenuous comment as the one [festival director Lee Brian Schrager] had regarding the $50 price spike [for the Grand Tasting], alienating many who would have normally attended. His comment "to achieve a higher demographic" is nothing less than an insult. The event was already overpriced at $137.50 unless Gagnaire, Ducasse, or Bouley will grace the palates. Furthermore, for $187.50 I sincerely doubt that participants will be reveling in the olfactic delights of a '61 Latour, '82 Petrus,  or '86 Chateau Carbonneaux.

ILUVINO:  “I sipped and spit and tasted and saw countless friends and met lots of other wine lovers. I think the event was a great success.  Watching Cindy Hutson of Ortanique and Norma's on the Beach fame battle it out with Johnny V of Johnny V's fame -- hanging in the crowd of excited (and very drunk) foodie-winos was a blast. No, they didn't pour the best of the best wines at the Grand Tasting (hey! that's what "Best of the Best" is about).  It was out of control (like much of the crowd)... in the nicest of ways.  $187.50 was a fair price to pay for an all-day event full of surprises and excitement. Well done Lee.
    
Glenda McDaniel: “From Rachel Rays Burger Bash of 18 FANTASTIC BURGERS with Sides, to Best of the Best and all its Wonderful Wines and Great Chefs, to the Grand Tasting Village full of more food than you ever want to see and more wine than you can drink and then Grand Finale for us the Tribute Dinner at the Loews.    It was like being in a Fairy Tale World for three days.”    

SoBeFest: Readers, fans tell us how they liked it

                                                                       Lovin’ it: George Larrauri, Whitney Romey and Caroline Rosen, l-r, of Miami, were smiling through the heat at the Publix Grand Tasting Tent at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

        “Everything is well organized, and the view is beautiful, said Larrauri. "And the wines are great."

         The trio liked the Friday night BubbleQ event too. Romey had her picture taken with Bobby Flay and Giada de Laurentiis, and Rosen had hers taken with Al Roker. Even Rosen agreed Giada was the prettiest.

     All through the weekend, the Wine Beneath the Palms blog has been asking readers for their opinions of the wine festival – in person and by e-mail.  They've been eager to give them:

      “I know it’s not their fault, but it’s too hot out here to drink wine,” said Dan Cardwell, 60, of Minneapolis, where it was below zero over the weekend. He got a moment of relief. Coming on a three-foot-tall plastic bucket of Evian Water and ice, he plunged his arm all the way to the bottom and took his time retrieving a bottle of aitch two oh.

      “The wine selection here is really mediocre,” said Tom Glassman, a Long Island banker, who has a 3,000-bottle cellar at home. “For $187.50 I expected really the top stuff.  And this is all $10 or $15 grocery store wine. I think they really need to upgrade this next year.”

      Maria Cruzman, a secretary from Westchester, liked the pomegranate vodka. “Probably even good for me. Maybe I’ll drink it for breakfast.”

      “I’m a chardonnay person. It’s all I drink,” said Sally Maldonado, a paralegal from Houston. “I must have tried 30 of them here, so I’m in heaven.”
      Was she spitting?
      “Well, most of the time.”

      Tania di Marco, an executive assistant from Naples, was partial to the malbecs from Argentina.
“I just discovered these. They’re really nice and soft. And they’re cheap. Every malbec I tried here was under $15. I think I’ve found my new house wine.”

      Ed Linauer, a real estate agent from Tulsa, was taken with the Brazilian rum called cachaça.
“I never heard of it. I haven’t seen it in Tulsa.”
      Cachaça, pronounced KA SHA SA, is a lighter, sweeter rum because it's distilled from sugar cane juice, while most other rums are made from molasses.
      Linauer engaged in a lively discussion with those around him about how to make caipirinhas, the Brazilian national drink made with cachaça. Conclusion: “It’s just lime, sugar and cachaça over ice. Simple. I’m gonna teach this to my favorite bartender.”

      “There’s no place to sit down,” was the complaint of Nelson Randall, a computer sales exec from Hartford. “It’s so hot in here, and we’re all drinking alcohol. I need to sit down. Maybe next year I’ll bring a beach chair.”

The Grand Tasting: Wine, Women, Men and Song at the South Beach Festival

      A bubbly quaff greeted Mari Matute, 32, of Coral Gables, as she sipped the spritzy, lightly sweet Moet & Chandon Nectar Impériale Champagne Saturday at the Grand Tasting of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

     “It’s delicious,” she said. She was looking forward to the snacks: “It’s a gluttony event.”

     There were lots more wine fans like Mari at the tasting. Miami Herald photographer/videographer Jose Iglesias and I prowled the tasting tents asking tasters what they were tasting and how they liked it.

      For more, see Jose’s video at miamiherald.com/wine.
 
               Il Prosecco, by Mionetto, was a favorite of Maryann Cox, 45, here from Cleveland working on her tan. Prosecco is a light, dry sparkling wine from Italy, made of the prosecco grape. Its bubbles are under less pressure than those in traditional champagne, so it comes off softer. Cox was glad to discover it. "I'm going to make it my house champagne."

               Mobile Grape is the name of the company founded by Andi Kodsi of Boca Raton, to make the little lanyards that to around your neck with a plastic gizmo to hold your wine glass so you can keep both hands free to grab hors d'ouvres. She says she was inspired to invent it six or seven years ago at a wine tasting. Somebody had piled high with appetizers one of those little plastic plates that has a notch in the side to hold your wine glass. "The plate broke, and everything spilled all over us," she said. "My invention prevents all that." You can buy one for $5 at her website, mobilegrape.com (Readers, you Kodsi's mobile grape wine glass holder in action in Jose Iglesias's video at MiamiHerald.com/wine.)

Heresy! FIU students pour beer at the wine festival

What’s this --beer!?! 

       Carolina Cemborain and Mengchao Cheng pour beer at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival on Saturday. It was made by their winemaking class at Florida International University, under wine professor Barry Gump.

       The students are studying to be hotel managers or restaurant food and beverage managers  -- so they need to know about the popular beverages.

       Beer making and wine making are similar, Gump said, but there are important differences. Something about sugar turning into starch – whatever. It was hot out there.

              And, truth to tell, a nice cold beer was a blessing.

South Beach Wine Festival wines: Best of the best of the best

        The very best wines of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival were poured Friday night at the "Best of the Best" tasting at the American Airlines Arena. They included the famous pinot noir that the wine snob Miles drank in the movie Sideways. An opulent merlot created in Chile by the daughter of the man who invented the famous liqueur Grand Marnier. A concentrated, velvety Italian red by one of the pioneering winemakers who invented Super Tuscan wines. Here are some of their stories:

                                       * 2006 Hitching Post "Highliner" Pinot Noir, Santa Barbara County: intense, tart cranberry and tart cherry flavors, spicy, smooth and generous; $42.

          Chef Frank Ostini and his pal, fisherman Gray Hartley, started making pinot noir together in Ostini’s garage outside Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1981, gradually expanding it to serve Ostini’s Hitching Post Restaurant. They called their best pinot “Highliner,” a term that designates a top fisherman.
    Then came the 2005 movie Sideways, filmed in the restaurant, in which buddies Miles and Jack take a long weekend escape before Jack’s wedding. Miles, the wine snob, orders the Highliner by name and effuses over its quality. Later, on the way to a party, he tosses off a casual line about how he’s going to leave if they serve any "%#^%$ merlot.”
     Business at the Hitching Post Restaurant has been up 25 percent since. Countrywide, sales of pinot noir soared, and sales of merlot dropped.
     Before the movie, Ostini could sell only 200 cases of his Highliner pinot noir for $40 a bottle; today he sells 2,500 cases at $42.
      “It’s amazing how much effect a little joke can have,” he says.

        * 2001 Casa Lapostolle Cuvee Alexandre Merlot, Apalta Vineyard, Chile: aromas and flavors of blueberries, mulberries, opulent, silky and smooth, with a bitter chocolate finish; $30:

            In the early 1990s an ambitious young woman came of age in France. She was Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle, daughter of the French family that owns Chateau de Sancerre in the Loire Valley, makers of the world-famous Grand Marnier liqueur.

            There was no more land in France suitable for grapes, so her father sent her around the world to find a suitable location for a winery. She settled on Chile, in a region 100 miles south of Santiago, where grapes had been planted for decades, but growers lacked the money and expertise to make great wines.

            With $12 million of her family’s money, Marnier-Lapostolle built a state-of-the-art winery, hired famous French wine consultant Michel Rolland and created Casa Lapostolle. Today her Cuvee Alexandre Merlot is a top example of what can be done with Chile’s territory and outside money and expertise.

                                     * 2004 Antinori Tignanello, "Super Tuscan" Toscano IGT (85 percent sangiovese, 10 percent cabernet sauvignon, 5 percent cabernet franc): hint of oak, powerful cassis flavors, hugely rich, with a long finish of bittersweet chocolate; $85.

When Piero Antinori took over as the 25th generation to run the Antinori wine empire in 1974, his native Chianti region in Tuscany was in decline. The sangiovese grape that was the heart of Chianti wines didn’t get ripe in cool years, and many Chiantis turned out thin. Breaking tradition, creating a scandal, Antinori and a few other started adding “foreign” grapes like cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc to add structure and character to the wines. They created a whole new genre. "Super Tuscan" wines today are some of the best and most expensive in Italy.

Cuban winemakers, Oregon grapes. Viva!

  Cuban Pride: Christina Collada, her father, Mauricio, and his girlfriend Debra Franzen, hawk wine from their Cubanisimo Vineyard at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival on Friday.
The story: Mauricio Collada was born in Havana, and, out of pride, calls his winery Cubanisimo. His slogan: “Pride. Passion. Pinot.”
So the first thing he has to do for potential customers is to convince them he isn’t using Cuban grapes.
“People think it’s a gag,” he says. So he explains: “It’s too hot in Cuba for grapes.”
In fact, his winery is in Salem, Ore., and his intensely aromatic pinot noir grapes come from that state’s, cool Willamette Valley. His wines are top-notch.
Born in Havana, Collada came to Miami at 9, went to University of Miami Medical School and took his skills as a neurosurgeon to Oregon.
“But that was when pinot noir was just exploding in Oregon, and I love that grape.”
So he bought 21 acres in 1986, grew grapes for other wineries until 2003, then opened his own winery.
His wines are popular among Cubans in Miami, he says.
“They receive them with great pride.”

     Tasting Notes:
      · 2006 Cubanisimo Rosado de Pinot Noir Rose Wine, Willamette Valley, Ore.: lightly sweet, crisp, floral and spicy; $20 (for sale only on his Website at..
      · 2005 Cubanisimo Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Ore.: tart cherry flavors, bone dry, refreshingly puckery; $28.

Wine Festival Warning: Be true to your wine

      Tip for attending the Grand Tastings at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Be strong. Be brave. Keep your focus.
      As you approach the wine-tasting tents, you run a gantlet of temptations worthy of Dante’s Inferno. It’s a 50-yard path lined on both sides with pretty young women (and men) smiling, holding out trays of Mojitos, Pina Coladas, Cuba Libres. Mini-tents offering absinthe, aguardiente, cachaca. Display cases offering light beer. And, just as you’ve reached the mouth of the wine tent, two young women in shiny, silver bikinis offering Ciroc, a French vodka distilled from grapes.
     You can ask them why, if it’s distilled from grapes, it isn’t brandy. They don’t know. They smile, and push forward the glass.
      Beware: These are sirens, intent on steering you onto the rocks. If you succumb, you’ll be overserved by the time you reach the wine tent, and you’ll go home having only attended a liquor festival.

Welcome to the SoBeFest. Tell us about it.

     Welcome to South Miami Beach, where it's not snowing, as you may have noticed, and your biggest problem is to chose among those 350 wines, spirits, sakes, beers, coffees, teas and fancy mineral waters waiting for you.

     Today, if you got tickets on time, you get to wine and dine with Rachael Ray, Jamie Oliver, Alice Waters, Giada de Laurentiis and share dessert with Emeril Lagasse. Or taste a vertical of Pomerol wines, sipping Bordeaux reds from 1990, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005.

     We want to hear about it. Tell us what you liked and what you didn't. See if you can out-purple wine author Robert Parker in describing that Super Tuscan Italian wine you've been looking forward to.

     Tell us what went wrong. Trouble getting tickets? Tasting tents too hot? Wines not good enough?

     E-mail your comments to Wine@MiamiHerald.com and we will post them here for all to see.

     And don't forget the mantra of the prudent multiple-wine taster.

     Spit.

Wine events for the rest of us

            Wine fans, I need your help. Every day, this wine page features a “Fred’s Picks” item announcing a new wine class or wine tasting, telling you that a wine shop has just got in a fabulous new shipment of Bordeaux and so on. One recent item spoke of a fancy dinner at $850 each. This is OK. But I’d also like to publicize some events for those of who don’t hang around with Donald Trump or Bill Gates. If you know an event or opportunity that qualifies, send it to me at Wine@MiamiHerald.com

Wine will make you famous

     Last Sunday’s Miami Herald had a page-one story, with photo, of Florida International University Prof. Barry Gump and his oenology students learning to make wine at a South Dade winery. Gump sent back this e-mail.
     “I was so startled by the front-page picture that I locked myself out of my apartment. The good thing is that I could show the picture to security to verify who I am.”

South Florida Dining Decadence Extends Beyond the SoBe Fest

     Sick of hearing about the South Beach Wine & Food Festival? You can dine regally elsewhere in South Florida this week.
     On Saturday, Dewey and Dale LoSasso plan a winemaker's dinner at their North One 10 restaurant with Rob Sweeny, owner of Vine Cliff Winery. It includes Black Grouper Ceviche, Zucchini Blossoms stuffed with Blue Crab, Pumpkin Seed Seared Tilefish, Grilled Filet Mignon, a Cheese Plate and Chocolate-Hazelnut Torte paired with six Vine Cliff wines for $175 per diner. They're at 11052 Biscayne Blvd., 305-893-4211.
     Or any time Thursday through Sunday La Marea restaurant at The Tides hotel, 1220 Ocean Drive, South Miami Beach, presents a seven-course meal for $250 each, or $350 with wine pairings. It includes Oysters with Savruga Caviar, Organic Arugula Salad, Lobster Ravioli, Breast of Duck with Truffle-Dusted Foie Gras, Chilean Sea Bass, Filet of Bison and Exotic Fruit Tart. Call 305-604-6070.
     If all this gives you indigestion, you can find Zen-like simplicity by dropping by the Dogma Grill hot dog emporium at 7030 Biscayne Blvd. For $9.35 you can have a two-course feast including the Sedona Hot Dog (beef or turkey dog, sour cream, homemade spicy salsa, sliced grilled bacon, avocados, spiced tomatoes and vinaigrette), Garlic Fries and a Fresh Mint Lemonade pairing. No indigestion there. Call 305-759-3433

Wine with ceviche at the Coconut Grove Art Festival

     Rains poured down on the Coconut Grove Art Festival Sunday afternoon. But it didn't bother 200 or so wine and food fans tucked cozily into the Culinary Tent. Linda Gassenheimer, author of the Dinner in Minutes cookbook series, demonstrated her quick recipe for Chicken Chile, and passed out little samples to the crowd. Asked to suggest the proper wine, I chose beer. Not wimpy light beer. A nice India Pale Ale. Or, if you insist on wine, a soft and hearty shiraz.

      Then chef Chris Cramer, of Panorama Restaurant in the Sonesta Bayfront hotel in Coconut Grove, demonstrated his restaurant's speciality -- Peruvian cuisine. The hit of the day was his Ceviche Creme de Rocoto. This was not your father's ceviche. (See the recipe at the end). It had the usual mild, white tilapia marinated in lime and garlic, and the unexpected ingredient of sweet potatoes. But what made the recipe sing was the extra-hot Peruvian Rocoto chile sauce, made with garlic and creamy mayonnaise. A marvel of flavors, textures and degrees of heat. I scratched my head for a while, then recommended a French or California viognier. It's a white wine with the body and mild sweetness to soothe your palate from the spicy chiles. Or maybe a nice, fat California chardonnay.

       The chef also made lomo saltado -- beef tenderloin flambeed in the Peruvian national liquor, pisco -- a white, unaged brandy made of grapes. If you want to hear more about Chef Cramer and his Peruvian cuisine, Linda and I will feature him on Food News & Views, our cooking show on WLRN (91.3 FM) on Thur., March 13.  And don't forget -- you can listen to the show live or come to this website and download a podcast.

      Many in the crowd wanted the recipe for Chef Cramer's seviche. So, with the chef's permission, here's the recipe for Ceviche Creme de Rocoto:

Ingredients:

5 oz tilapia

1 large sweet potato, cooked, peeled and sliced

4 fl oz Rocoto sauce (substitute Scotch Bonnet chile)

1 red onion, sliced very fine

1/2 oz lime juice

salt to taste

1 tsp cilantro, chopped

Rocoto Sauce

1 cup Rocoto paste

3/4 cup lime juice

1 tbsp garlic, minced

3 cups mayonnaise

2 tbsp cilantro, chopped

Preparation:

     Cut fish into cubes and place in a stainless steel mixing bowl. Salt generously and mix well. Place slices of sweet potato on the plate creating a circle. Add 1/3 of Rocoto Sauce to fish and mix well. Pile fish chunks onto the plate and pour the remaining Rocoto Sauce over them. In a separate mixing bowl place the red onions, cilantro, salt and lime juice; mix. Place the onion mix over the top of the fish. Garnish with salted nuts and serve.

Welcome to my new wine blog

     Welcome to my new blog -- Wine Beneath the Palms.
     I hope it won't be a one-sided conversation but a place for South Florida wine lovers to share their likes and dislkes, their wine-dinner triumphs, their wine-country forays, their passion for the nectar of the gods.
     The blog's greatest success would be for this writer to sit back, say little and host friendly arguments among readers -- say, over whether screw caps or corks are better closures for wine bottles. Or whether Jimmy Cefalo's Coconut Grove wine tastings are better than those at Hollywood Vine in Hollywood. You know -- one of those "let's-you-and-him-fight''arrangements.
     Oh, I'll indulge my habit of tasting as many wines as possible and describing them in such purple terms that readers will write in to ridicule me. I -- and you -- have been doing that since 1991 in my print column in The Miami Herald.  It's fun. I described a wine one time as "viscous," and a reader wrote back to scold: "Where do you get off calling a wine 'vicious?' ''
     I'll keep you posted on the best tastings around town, the best restaurant deals, that
wwine-shop bargain you just have to try.
     Wine Beneath The Palms will be open to the wine business as well. Wine shop owners,e-mail Wine@MiamiHerald.com when you get in a fabulous shipment and I will pass along the word. Restaurants managers, do the same with your special wine dinners.
     Still, the heart of the blog will be you the reader. There will be a Braggin' Corner where you can tell us about your home tasting -- when you showed off that fabulous, obscure
nnero d'avola from Sicily, or mavrodaphne from Greece.  Just send it to Wine@MiamiHerald.com. You can even e-mail me your wine country vacation photos and I'll post them for all to see. Your own family won't put up with that.
     The first order of business will be the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. I will blog my impressions. I hope you will attend and e-mail me your opinions -- whether its wines are up to snuff this year, whether they've solved the Grand Tasting gridlock and no-place-to-park problems. Or what it was like to meet Rachael Ray -- keeping in mind that this is a family blog.
     If it's about wine, it's welcome here.
     I hope you'll feel welcome too.

You can still ask a wine question

Looking for the Question & Answer section? Look under my picture at the left. Click there, and I will answer your question in the blog.

We're Podcasting Food News & Views!

If you're out and driving between 1:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Thursdays, you may have tuned
your radio to WLRN-FM (91.3) and caught Food News & Views, the food and wine program on
Joe Cooper's Topical Currents show. In it Linda Gassenheimer, author of the "Dinner in
Minutes'' cookbook series, Joe and I have fun interviewing such food glitterati as Emeril
Lagasse, Alice Waters, Martha Stewart, Paul Prudhomme and others. Well, now we're
podcasting the show. Click on the Podcast icon on this page and you can download the
program into your iPod or other MP3 player. They you can go jogging, fishing or even
skydiving and hear our banter.

Drinking beer in the year of the rat

Happy  农历新年 to you! Which is to say, Happy Chinese New Year. This year's celebration runs from Feb. 7 through Feb. 21. In Western terms, the year that begins in 2008 is either 4706, 4705 or 4645, depending on which calendar you use. More importantly, it's the Year of the Rat. If you were born in 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996 or earlier this year, you're a rat. Which means you're charming but quick-tempered.  How do you toast a rat? Well, there's a Chinese wine in the market now. It's called Dragon Seal. Made near the Great Wall, there's a a sparkling wine, a riesling and a pinot noir. They're not award-winners yet, but perfectly OK for Chinese take-out. To ask where they're available, e-mail Alan Kratish at grapewiz@aol.com. Actually, I usually drink beer with Chinese food. The Chinese beer Tsingtao, pronounced ching-dow, has a hint of sweetness that goes nicely with spicy Chinese cuisine. By the way, I double-checked, and I'm not a rat. I'm a snake.

Drinking wine when flying coach

     American Airlines announced the other day that, at the Cellars in the Sky 2007 Awards ceremony at the Business Travel Show in London, it won awards for two of the wines it serves its business class passengers.  And if you check www.aa.com/wine you'll see that life is good toward the front of the plane. In first class you get Pommery Brut Champagne, William Hill Napa Valley Chardonnay, even Chateau Batailley Grand Cru. In business class you get Piper Heidsieck Brut Champagne, Steel Creek Pinot Noir and so on. But in the seats I fly in, the selection is something, uh, less. Readers, blog in and tell me what you're drinking in steerage...I mean coach class.  It's funny. You can buy top brands of liquor in coach in most airlines, but not of wine. How do you feel about this?  On the other hand, a Miami-to-Paris flight in coach costs $1,370.90, in business class $8,517.20 and in first class $9,082.20. Which serves to weed out the riffraff like me. What do you think?