LETTERS: It tastes great, but can it clean toilets?

To the editor:

A mystery that has puzzled me for years appears weekly in the Review-Journal: the “Wine of the Week” column. This will reveal my social ineptness and lower-class standing, but nevertheless, I must ask: How is the column’s writer, Gil Lempert-Schwarz, able to see, taste and smell the innumerable colors, tastes and scents he claims to unearth in wines? I’m serious.

In the June 3 Review-Journal, he reported seeing in a red wine “a vibrant semi translucent dark crimson color with a firm deeply colored core going out into a fine light-garnet rim.” Truly? I’ve twirled red wines. They’re red.

In the following paragraph, he notes picking up the aromas of “crushed black plums, strawberry crush, cran-cherry juice, milk chocolate, ground star anise, then bright red flowers, light mint and fruit-driven minerals.” Exactly what is a fruit-driven mineral? How would he know what it smells like? By smelling minerals?

Lastly, he testifies to detecting the taste of “crushed red berries, cherries, plums, raspberry coulis, cranberry fondant and copious amounts of phenols,” and those “fruity minerals” again, “with underlying hints of aniseed powder.” That list stopped me in my unsophisticated tracks. Phenol?

I looked it up. Mr. Webster defines phenol as “a corrosive poisonous crystalline acidic compound; C6H5OH present in the tars of coal and wood that in diluted solution is used as a disinfectant.” Would that mean I can use that wine to clean my toilet?

But I digress. I’m wondering if wine aficionados who read the R-J column uncover similar sensual characteristics in the wines they drink, because I surely cannot. The good news is we can purchase this “Wine of the Week” for a penny under four bucks. So, should you find you don’t particularly care for the taste of phenol, no problem. It has other uses, and it’s cheaper than a quart of Lysol.

JOHN DOMBEK

SANTA CLARA, UTAH

Time for a new party

To the editor:

It’s now clear that Nevada voters need another choice besides the two political parties we’re currently stuck with. After voters handed Republicans control of the governorship, the Senate and the Assembly, the GOP rewarded us by approving the largest tax increase in state history.

And what did we get for our money? Not much. Marginal improvements in school choice and teacher accountability. Heck, Gov. Brian Sandoval and legislators couldn’t even keep the improved prevailing wage law in place, which means taxpayers will be paying about 30 percent more in labor costs for every new school we build.

Republican voters thought for sure the Legislature would address the issues of public-sector pay, pensions and benefits, but we got less than marginal improvements in those areas. We could expect these kinds of results from Democrats, but not Republicans. We needed Gov. Sandoval to take the lead in these areas, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has. Sadly, he ignored the concerns of the voters who put him and all the other Republican lawmakers in office.

Now, it’s clear we cannot trust either party to be good stewards of our money. We need a change, and a big one.

MIKE EDENS

LAS VEGAS

Sandoval’s Senate decision

To the editor:

I think Gov. Brian Sandoval isn’t running for Harry Reid’s soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat because he would probably lose, due to his recent stance on raising taxes (“Sandoval to sit out Senate race,” June 10 Review-Journal). Also, he probably wants to be around to help spend the billions of dollars he’ll take from us. Gov. Sandoval would never, ever have my vote.

JIM HADDAD

LAS VEGAS