Wanted: Wine Tastemakers – Older White Men Need Not Apply?

Feb. 29, 2040

Dear Salem Morgon,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the position we posted. We are currently screening the next level candidate for our wine tastemaker stint and you have made the cut. Congratulations!

As you know, we are currently recruiting candidates to form a dynamic new team for ViniVer§Ω as THE preeminent and never-before-seen #WineInfluencer Neoteric Eno-zine. The next step for us, with you, is to further ascertain if you will be a good fit, on our soon-to-be award-winning squad!

So, let’s get down to it, por qué no?

A Gen-Del Futr’spatch from Italy, Post-SARS-CoV-θ: "We Made It Through!"

Dateline June 16, 2080 – Father’s Day

Dear great-great grandfather,

I am writing this to you (or it is meant to seem like writing) because when we learned we could travel in time, or rather we could go back in time, not forward, or rather we could send things back in time, not ourselves (yet), this seemed like a good time send this communiquést.

First, Happy Father’s Day, for without you, I wouldn’t be here. Secondly, thanks to the advances that have been made in the last 60 years, we’ve been able to finally get past COVID-79 and hopefully a few years of breathing space.

“喜劇結束了” - The State of Italy - Wine, Culture, All of It - in 2120

“Italian investment of time and resources in importing wine to China will ultimately turn out to be a big mistake. The Chinese will eventually get their production to a level where they can be seen as prestigious as the first growths of Bordeaux (the French are complicit in helping them get there, and along the way, have sold their souls for a buck). And when the state media of China convinces Chinese (or compels them) to be loyal to their homegrown wine, which is better than anywhere else in the world, "La Commedia è finita" [ 喜劇結束了]. Italian wine will have been pared down to miniscule levels, and will be so rare and exclusive as to be the private domain of billionaires and NPC apparatchik. You and I will be dead then.” – Luisa Parker-Ragg in 2020

Assisi - February 14, 2120 A.D.

Where to start? As everyone knows by now, around 2040, things got tough for Italians in these parts. The Chinese population alone in Tuscany was nearing 500,000, displacing many generations of Tuscans who died in the 1st Pandemic of 2020. Along with that, the birth rate declined so extensively that it was hard to keep some of our industries going. Native manufacturing all but disappeared. And farming wouldn’t have survived if not for AI. Vineyards began to shrivel, with no one to work the land. And then, as if overnight, we found out that China owned 58% of Italian land and industry. We had been invaded, overrun and taken over by our own hubris and inertia. Now we are a colony.

The Scandal that has Shaken the Universe of the Masters of Ŝophisticated Ҫannabis

Dateline: April 20, 2049

It’s been nearly a year since 420 anxious Cannabis Sommeliers amassed at the Hotel Zig-Zag in Portland, Oregon. The purpose? To accept a challenge to pass the most rigorous testing to become one of a handful (now standing at 1937) of Masters of Ŝophisticated Ҫannabis (MŜҪ) in the world – fewer than have traveled to Mars.

Burning Man At 50 - Five Gen ΑΩ Women Who Are Changing Wine and the World

Reporting from Black Rock City, August 31, 2036...

This is Leia Rippley; I am now 85. And as they say, 85 is the new 30, thanks to nano-extenders and the little solar generator that keeps my heart pumping. With global warming, there is plenty of sun, and Black Rock City, with its average temperature, this time of the year, at 125°F, my heart has another 40-50 years. That is if Terra does. Fortunately, I also had a vortex personal cooling rib-cage installed in 2025, and have only had to rebuild it three times. But, it’s all good, I’m cool.