Uncorked, an international wine bar in the heart of Kingston (Jamaica)

After much debate on Friday night as to what we would do for lunch on the morrow, the decision was made to go to Uncorked, a relatively new wine bar on the Kingston (Jamaica) dining and drinking scene. I was pleased by what I saw when we drove up and moreso when we entered the establishment.

This was head and shoulders above any wine bar I had encountered in Jamaica and, in terms of ambience, layout, and decor, could easily be sited anywhere in the world. The display of the wine selection, a broad array of regional and international spirits, and a nice assortment of wine-related accoutrements, clearly spoke to the sophistication of the owners and/or their advisors.

We were welcomed by a uniformed staffer -- Shez -- who assigned us to the long central table based on our party size. A quick perusal of the wine list showed wines available by the glass as well as bottles arranged by old world countries and by varietal.

I ordered a Bouchard Pere & Fils 2014 Pouilly-Fuissé to begin and was pleased to see the appropriate stemware brought to the table. Shez was extremely professional in handling the wine service. I enquired as to where she had received her training and she said Select Brands, the distributor providing the wines on offer at the establishment. I followed up this bottle with a bottle of Pascal Jolivet Sancerre.

Between the two wines I ordered a salad. And that brings me to the food menu. It had a tight, excellent range of offereings which were highly suited to both the environment and the core products. I started out with the Greek Salad. It had more lettuce and less Feta than if I had bought it in Athens but, nonetheless, it was tasty.

For my main course I had a bunless burger. This meat was just a little more than medium but was tender and, thanks to the seasoning, full of flavor. We accompanied this course with a Cab and a Patz & Hall Pinot Noir. One of our local friends brought a bottle to the restaurant and they allowed us to pop it for a $10 corkage fee. Very reasonable to my mind.

Chef Lucian with David and Rachel

This is a great spot. One where you could while away many a Saturday afternoon. This will not be my last visit here.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Short- and long-term implications of US-Cuba travel liberalization for Caribbean tourist destinations

My friend recently bought a vacation home on the Jamaican north coast and, as a result, we have been making the trek between MCO and Norman Manley Airport with some frequency. On my last trip over, I happened to have a window seat (a fate second only to having a middle seat) and noted the broad expanse of Cuba as we traversed its airspace. And that set me wondering. With the recent opening to Cuba announced by President Obama, it is conceivable that a fuller liberalization will follow sometime in the the future. What then would be the impact of such liberalization on non-Cuba Caribbean tourism, in general, and Jamaican tourism, specifically. My curiosity was piqued so I set out to investigate.

According to the Jamaican Tourist Board (jtbonline.org), there were 25 million tourist arrivals in the Caribbean in 2013, a 1.8% increase over 2012. The United States was the most important contributor, with 12.3 million of its citizens having travelled to the region in that timeframe, up 2.9% over 2012. The percentage distribution of visitors to the region is shown below.

Country/Region	Percent of Total
USA	45.3
Canada	12.3
Europe	18.9
Caribbean	6.4
South America	5.8
Other	7.3

The three most visited islands, ranked by frequency of visit, are Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Jamaica (It should be pointed out that Cuba is second in the ranking even though it had less than 100,000 US visitors in 2013.). Jamaica itself had 2 million stopovers in 2013, 1.8 million of whom were foreign and the remainder non-resident Jamaicans. One million of these visitors came for "liesure, recreation, and holiday."

Cuba had 2.8 million visitors in 2013 with a total spend of $2.3 billion (Jessop). Of the visitors, 92,000 were from the US (the 350,000 - 400,000 Cuban-Americans who visit Cuba annually are not included in these numbers).

Just to review, the recent Obama initiative allows the following (knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu):

• Americans can visit Cuba for any of 12 reasons without having to obtain a special government license
• American travelers to Cuba can bring back up to $400 worth of goods inclusive of cigars and liquor
• Travelers can now use their debit and credit cards on the island
• US financial institutions can open accounts at Cuban banks and enroll merchants there.

Jessop sees a number of short-term implications associated with this opening:

• Increasing pressure on available hotel rooms
• A concomitant upward trend in currently low-priced room rates
• Increased investment in the hotel sector by foreign companies
• Pressure from US legacy carriers to fly scheduled services to Cuba out of the US
• The increased attraction of sailboats into the recently constructed Cuban marinas
• Increasing number of calls by cruise ships
• Rapid diversification and decentralization of Cuba's tourism product.

But these implications are associated with the current Obama initiative. A number of economists have been studying the issue of a complete elimination of the US tourist barriers -- a not-inconceivable development, given where things are headed -- both in terms of its implications for Cuba as well as for its neighbors. In commenting on Padilla's projection of the Cuban tourism industry post-Castro, Crespo estimates that his forecast of 3.2 million additional US visitors to Cuba annually would require:

• Betweeen 98,000 and 116,000 additional hotel rooms at a cost of between $4.3 and $5.7 billion
• Additional uplift capability to carry those visitors.

According to Crespo, it would take between 17 and 22 years to build an additional 58,000 - 76,000 rooms and this factor alone ensures a non-apocalyptic increase in US tourism to Cuba.

Romeu, in an IMF Working Paper, used a  gravity trade model to assess the outcome of US travel liberalization. His findings were as follows:

• Liberalization would increase overall visitor arrival to the Caribbean by between 2 and 11%
• The current budget-conscious, adventure-focused OECD visitor will be displaced by the US visitor who has lower transportation costs and demands higher levels of service
• It is likely that these tourists will select destinations with which they might have had a former colonial relationship or some language or other cultural affinity
• There will be a loss of US tourists for the other Caribbean countries but their losses will be offset somewhat by the redirected OECD tourists
• Spend will be at lower levels though given the type of tourists being redirected
• Strong tourism growth awaits some destinations while others face potential long-term decline

In the short-term, there will be a slow but steady increase in the number of US tourists visiting Cuba. Given the constraints imposed by the President, these trips will most likely be taken by culture warriors, not a core constituency for the Caribbean tourist market. In addition, these trips will be one-offs; "I was there while the country was still unspoiled."

In the longer term, however, there are significant risks for Cuba's neighbors. Its attractiveness is reinforced by the fact that it is the second-most-visited Caribbean country, even with a paltry amount of US tourists. If tourism were liberalized, and even if a large amount of US tourists visiting Cuba were first-time Caribbean visitors, there would still be some siphoning-off of "Caribbean regulars." So it is likely that Jamaica, for example, would see a decline in its US-origin visitors. And I would propose that it would be a consistent drop over a number of years as some percent of those visitors seek to "try-out" Cuba. The country would have a significant additional competitor for the US tourist dollar. And the pool of redirected OECD numbers will be split between the countries and, in addition, the per capita spend of each individual will fall below the per capita spend of the US tourist. The financial implications are evident.

In order to compete in this marketplace, the countries will have to focus on customer attraction and retention. Customer attraction will revolve around giving first-time visitors a reason to come. Cuba is a large country with a diverse array of experiences to offer to the tourist. These countries will have to map out points of interests and activities to get customers to visit their countries and to stay. For example, I have been visiting Jamaica for years now and have never been to Port Antonio. I visited there on my last trip and was blown away by the history of the area, the available activities, and its place as the home of the jerk style of cooking. These countries will have to do a better job of providing a more fulsome picture of the available areas of interest (in addition to the sun and sand and rum).

In terms of customer retention, the folks at Disney and Universal are constantly adding to the palette of attractions, giving visitors a reason to come back to Orlando again and again. These countries will have to adapt that mentality and constantly be on the lookout for additions to the "attractiveness" portfolio.

One of the reports that I read suggested that these countries partner with Cuba in order to develop packages where someone could spend three days, lets say, in Cuba and two days in another country. I do not see this happening. Cuba can easily support a tourist over seven days with the diversity in its environment and it would have no incentive to partner with these smaller countries. What would those countries bring to the table that would be of interest to Cuba when Cuba has the tourist sitting behind the wheel of a 1959 Dodge in Havana? I can't see it.

REFERENCES
David Jessop, Cuba and Carribean Tourism, Dominicantoday.com, 1/9/2015
Havana or bust: How US-Cuba Realtions will impact Tourism, knowledge,wharton.upenn.edu
Nicolas Crespo, Comments on "The Tourism Industry in the Caribbean after Castro" by Padilla, ascecuba.org
Rafael Romeu, Vacation Over: Implications for the Caribbean of Opening US-Cuba Tourism, IMF Working Papaer, 7/2008.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Birthday Dinner at Half Moon's Sugar Mill Restaurant (Rose Hall, Jamaica)

When I left you last, we had arrived at Sugar Mill Restaurant and had made our way to the seating area for Joy's Birthday dinner. I broke off the narrative at that time due to concerns about the length of the piece. This new post allows us to continue on a clean sheet of paper.

After Parlo and Joy had completed the tablescape, Joy assigned seats by placing name tags adjacent to each setting. Four members of our party had still not arrived but we went ahead and took our assigned seats anyway. The server responsible for our table introduced herself, the Assistant Server, and the Wine Steward and then distributed food menus. Joy wanted me to select the wines so she motioned the Wine Steward in my direction.

The wine list was professionally bound in green leather and the pages were laminated. I flipped through the pages quickly to size it up, saw that it merited careful study, and so went back to the beginning to give it the attention it deserved. This was not a hipster-Somm wine list. It was very traditional, with representative brands from the world's major wine regions. It also had a number of labels that I did not recognize from providers with whom I was otherwise familiar. The pricing was high. For example, a Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label can be bought in most US restaurants for between $90 and $160; at Sugar Mill it was $280. But, it is a high-end restaurant in a country which sees wine as a luxury item and taxes it as such. Pricing notwithstanding, the presence of a modern wine cellar, and the dialed-in wine list, were early indicators that I was in for a treat  that evening.

So, I was in the position of ordering wines for the table but Joy was paying the bill. Keeping that in mind, I muted my natural tendencies and ordered a 2014 Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc from NZ for the white and the 2011 Lapostolle Cuvee Alexander Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile for our red.

The initial wine service was excellent and those high standards were maintained throughout the course of the evening. It was especially satisfying to receive Victoria and Albert's and Enoteca Pinchiorri levels of wine service in the Jamaican hills. The wine steward (Eric Facey) brought the bottle to my seat, presented the label to ensure that he had brought what i had ordered, opened the wine after receiving my approval, and poured at the perfect level into my glass for me to taste (By the way, the glassware was truly befitting of a high-end, wine-friendly restaurant.). After I nodded approval, he went to the female diners and asked if they were drinking whites. If they were, he carefully and professionally poured the appropriate amount into the glass. He then went around the table again, picking up the men this time. Once he had poured every other diner, he topped my glass up to a similar level. Once that bottle was finished, he brought me a new glass so that I could taste, and approve of, the second bottle prior to its deployment in the field. And so on and so on.

Eric provided superb service and had an excellent tableside manner. The Sauv Blanc that he served up exhibited papaya, guava, and sweet white fruit notes, bright acidity, and a dusky, sour finish.

The missing members of our party still had not shown up (truly working on island time) but we had stalled for as long as we could. The show had to commence. I signaled to the Assisitant Server and he began to circle the table with a basket containing breads (wheat, bean, Rosemary), Bami (a cassava flatbread), and Festival (slightly sweet corn meal fritter) and accompanying condiment choices (Escovitch Sauce, Olive Oil, Pumpkin Cream Cheese).

The food menu (which we had been perusing over this period) ran to two pages and the food choices presented therein were described as "Simply Contemporary Caribbean." It contained all of the meat choices you would expect to find in a high-end international restaurant except that these offerings would be enhanced by "all of the Caribbean's rich influences" and "mouth-watering melange of flavours." Regular menu offerings were supplemented with a number of announced specials.

I ordered a Seafood Chowder as my first course. It was built around a seafood and mixed-vegetables puree thickened with cornstarch. It was served at the perfect temperature. It was of a medium texture and pretty tasty. The Sauv Blanc soared on these wings. Parlo ordered a Romaine Heart Salad which was garnished with a Creamy Garlic Plantain Sauce, Jerk Cashew Nuts, and Breadfruit Croutons. I had to taste it whether I wanted to or not. It was excellent.

The missing guests showed up around this time and we were, of course, very understanding about the fact that they had missed the bus at Paul's home and were on the order of 1 hour late for the start of dinner. They had a lot of catching up to do because the wine had already begun to fuel the conversation. We were feeling good about where we were, why we were here, the quality of the food we had had so far, and the excellent service. It was all good. And darkness was beginning to fall, yielding the added magic of dining under the stars.

The Assistant Server showed up again, this time with an Eggplant Bruschetta palate cleanser, compliments of the Chef.

For my main course I ordered the Rack of Lamb. My tablemates (who were all born in-country) fell out laughing saying that I would be getting Rack of Goat. I asked the Server to check with the Chef as to the source of the Lamb and she came back saying Australia. Medium-rare please. When delivered, the Lamb was accompanied by Homemade Mashed Potatos and Roasted Vegetable Chunks (Carrots, Turnips, Sweet Potatos). Awesome texture, taste, and temperature. Paired admirably with the Cabernet Sauvignon, a dark, fruity red with vanillin notes, a spiciness, drying tannins and a saline aftertaste.

The restaurant had filled up around us by this time (remember we had started relatively early). Most of the patrons were probably from the Half Moon hotel proper or from other area hotels. A number of children were dining at tables with their families. A low-key, two-piece band entertained us with some Jamaican "oldies."

But this was about Joy's birthday so they brought the cake out (she is not 7 years old). After she blew the candle out, she made a touching little speech: how lucky she was to have friends who would come all the way here to share this night with her; how loved she felt; how perfect things had been for her so far; how late her son was for the event (No she did not say the latter. I was editorializing). After which a few of us got up and told her how great she was; how much we appreciated her; and , especially, how much better the food and wine tatsed with her picking up the tab. And shade like that. After which Noel (her husband) got up and delivered a sermon (and the guy is not even a preacher). Waiter, my glass is empty.

After all the speechifying and hugging, I repaired to the wine cellar for a tour (The others repaired to the bar to resume consumption.). The cellar was not Pinchiorian or Tailleventian in size or scope but it was home to a representative sample of First Growths and other leading wines of the world. The wines were comfortably nestled in oversized slots in an appropriately chilled environment. The Somm proudly guided me from rack to rack showing me what each housed and, from time to time, he would carefully and lovingly extricate a bottle from a rack to show me a particularly important aspect of the holding. It was great and I came away happier and more fulfilled than I had been after many a plastic tour.

I joined the others at the bar. The night was still young by our standards.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Second Day of the Jamaica North Coast Birthday Bash

The first day of the Birthday Bash was awesome in its own right but the second day dialed it all the way up to 12. We did not return directly to the house after leaving Mongoose in the wee hours of the morning. Paul claimed hunger so we drove further east into the Pineapple Place section of Ocho Rios to a late-night establishment called Remicki's Gun Court. This place is the "holeyest" of holes-in-the wall and older than Methuselah. It opens its doors for business when other god-fearing establishments are closing theirs. When hole-in-the-wall restaurants get together, they speak about this place in hushed tones.

At Gun Court, the patrons are separated from the staff by iron bars and steel wires and transactions are conducted through a small opening in this barrier. The place was bereft of customers at that hour in the morning and most of the menu items had long been dispatched. We purchased from what they had available and groggily consumed it. I cannot tell you what I ate or how it tasted. It was time to go to bed.

Paul and Debbie had mumbled something about walking when we woke up but I did not think it would happen. I knocked on their bedroom door at 7:15 and they did get up. Miracle of miracles. We walked for an hour and fifteen minutes and then came back to the house and had breakfast (Paul normally hires two local "chefs" to prepare the meals that we eat at the house.). After breakfast we went to the pool to pass the time until our early evening dinner at Half Moon's Sugar Mill Restaurant in Rose Hall.

We spent about three or so hours at the pool drinking, listening to music, dancing, swimming, laughing. You know, having fun. Then it was time to head back to the ranch to prepare for the evening's festivities.

The objective of the weekend was the celebration of Joy's birthday. Joy was born in Kingston but now lives in White Plains, NY. Her initial thoughts were to host the celebration in Las Vegas but, after some discussion, she changed it to The Rock. The high point of the weekend was supposed to be dinner at Sugar Mill Restaurant, selected because it was thought by many to be the finest pure restaurant on Jamaica's North Coast. A total of 16 people were participants in the core celebrations with larger numbers attending the informal gatherings at our base of operations. Because the hotel was 45 minutes away, and the group so large, Paul had arranged for a bus to transport us to and fro. Six of us were staying at the house with the remainder at neighboring hotels. Those who were staying off-property were expected to meet us at the base at 5:00 pm so that we could comfortably make our 6:00 pm dinner reservation.

Half Moon, named for the crescent-shaped, two-mile-long beach that serves as the interface between the property and the Caribbean Sea, is one of the world's leading resorts, providing, as it has been since its founding in 1954, high-quality amenities and services to its guests. I have stayed at the property in the past and have taken advantage of its immaculate golf facility and on-property Italian restaurant. I have not, however, ever eaten at its Sugar Mill Restaurant which is located across the street and east of the main property, proximate to the golf clubhouse. I was looking forward to seeing what this restaurant had to offer.

All of the expected riders did not show up on time and after milling around for a while we decided that they would have to find their own way to the restaurant. We were on our way.

After a 45-minute ride, we arrived -- mellowed-out, yet fortified, by the two bottles of Champagne we had consumed along the way -- at the sign indicating the entry to Sugar Mill. We drove past the clubhouse on the right and on up the hill to the restaurant. The initial vista was stunning. A water-wheel to the right of the restaurant instructed as to the origin of it's name. The restaurant was arrayed to the left of the water wheel with an expansive outdoor seating area strikingly positioned to its left. Stepping through the main entrance of the restaurant, we entered a foyer with a bar hanging off to its left and a wine cellar to its right. We passed through a second doorway into a larger dining hall which itself debouched into additional dining areas to its left and right. The left entryway led to the outside dining area that was our final destination.

Joy (birthday girl) and Noel (hubby)

I will pick up the narrative of the actual restaurant experience in my next post as this one is already longer than I would like.


©Wine -- Mise en abyme