Slate’s Mike Steinberger thinks the Obamas will take the wine cellar of the White House a lot more seriously than the Bushes:

With the bitter taste of Shafer-gate lingering in the mouths of many Americans, Obama has a chance to take the White House wine program in a new direction. The need for a change of course was made shockingly clear in a recent interview that Daniel Shanks, who handles wine duties at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., gave to Bloomberg’s Elin McCoy. According to Shanks, the White House currently stocks around 500-600 bottles. That is pathetic and another example of how America’s infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate. During his eight years in office, Thomas Jefferson amassed a 20,000-bottle collection, which he kept in a cellar that he had built under what is now the West Wing. Two centuries later, that space is being used for other purposes, and the president of the United States has less wine in his basement than I have in mine.

Even more dismaying, though, was what Shanks revealed about the process of choosing wines for state dinners. He told McCoy that because only 55 minutes are allotted for the actual meal, it is essential that the wines served on these august occasions “have presence.” And what did he mean by “presence”? “A perfectly aged cabernet may be great in the glass,” he explained, “but it can’t stand up to the intense atmosphere of a White House state dinner. You have to have something with youth and vigor.” Delicate wines will be overlooked; only strapping, assertive ones have what it takes to be “noticed in the context of the White House experience,” as Shanks put it. In other words, the desired effect is shock and awe, achieved not with cruise missiles but fruit bombs.

That sounds about right, and it brings to mind something former US ambassador to the UN (under Kennedy) Adlai E. Stevenson once said: “A diplomat’s life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol”. True that. You’d probably want to slide some old Romanée-Conti in there, Barack. You’re going to win the electoral votes of California, Oregon, and Washington in 2012, so don’t sweat the locals.

He’s keeping Bush’s chef, though. What a bridge builder. Know hope.