Vinum Blog

A new book by David Linden catalogs and describes how humans and animals seek out pleasure. An interesting excerpt on his blog details the various drug and alcohol fixes that animals seek out. Elephants and monkeys will both search for fruit which has fallen to the ground and begun to ferment into alcohol. I have always figured that alcohol consumption started as a mistake, somebody drank fruit juice which had remained in a pouch or pot for too long. However this behavior does open up the possibility that we learned to drink by observing animals in nature. Henceforth I shall blame my drinking on the cat.

The full blog can be viewed here.

Given a size-able sum of cash, enough to buy an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, a luxury home in Nebraska, or a decent 4 year college education, what would you buy? A private U.S. collector bought a bottle of 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti at the Christie’s fine-wine auction in Geneva, Switzerland. Of course this bottle is rather exclusive: Only 600 bottles of this wine were ever made, and the 1945 represents the final harvest from ungrafted pre-phylloxera vines. The entire Romanée-Conti vineyard was uprooted in 1946 and did not produce wine again until the 1952 vintage. Hmmmmmm I wonder ……handcrafted V8 power with computer control and 420hp or handcrafted Pinot delight with velvet earth and 1hp???????

Full story here.

The latest DOCGs have been posted, this brings the total up to 65. You can find the complete article here: LINK

These latest additions have certainly got me questioning the direction the Italian wine laws are going. For the consumer, and also for people in the trade, the DOCG status is a mark or rank of quality. Yet currently any wine region in existence for more than 6 years seems to be able to get a DOCG.

Does the DOCG represent quality anymore or is it now just a beauty pageant for a public middle school where everyone who enters gets a pretty ribbon?

The Italian DOC was enacted in the early 1960’s, based upon the French AOC system, and was to help regulate the viticulture and vinification of wines by regulating types of grapes, regions, viticultural practices, yields, aging, vinification techniques, and of course bottling and labeling. As in France all this regulation did not necessarily always equal quality, however it is definitely a very important aspect in helping to maintain characteristics in the wine and protect the consumer.

The DOCG was added in the 1980’s because of problems with lower quality wines and also for creating a hierarchy of quality within the DOC system. The DOCG wines adhere to rules similar to the regular DOC and then require the producer to control and guarantee the origin, contents, alcohol and so forth. The governmental seal is then added to the bottle and these wines represent the pinnacle of Italian wine production under the law.

The many recent additions, and also a few of the earlier additions, to the DOCG make a mockery of the standards and are insulting to the truly great wines Italy produces. The addition of Frascati, among others, to the DOCG only serves to dilute the prestige of Brunello, Barolo, Chianti etc.

Just back from a whirlwind tour of France and Germany. More of those escapades later. Here is some good news for college students and Beer Pong enthusiasts all over the world.

Chilling beer during storage helps to stave off the bitter beer flavors. Full article here.

I think my favorite line in the entire article is:  Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have been looking into the particulars of beer chemistry for a number of years.

I must admit I am generally not fond of Wine Spectator articles, however this article by Matt Kramer is rather fun. (LINK HERE)

The viewpoint is : That just because science cannot quantify it does not mean it does not exist. This I find to be true in all aspects of life and is not unique to the world of wine. However, it is interesting to note that this is written for a magazine which adamantly defends how it can assign ratings based on a 100 point scale derived from a concise scientific tasting approach.

This last Monday we had the pleasure of a visit from Ted Diamantis of Diamond Importers. Ted is one of the foremost authorities on Greek wines, viticulture, and wine history; he has lectured in many countries and was just returning from a session at the Culinary Institute of America. 20 sommeliers from different restaurants and wines stores in the city tasted through Assyrtiko, Xinomavro, Agiorghitiko, and Moscofilero.

His website is a treasure trove of Greek information with some excellent pictures of vineyards, Greek landscape, and of course the awesome vine basket weaving techniques from Santorini.

All of the wines tasted really showed the characteristics of the sites they were grown on. The volcanic soil of the island of Santorini was perhaps the most stark example of terroir I have ever encountered.

Check out some of the Greek offerings at your local restaurant or retail store, they are excellent with food and are truly a remarkable buy.

Three bottles of whisky abandoned in the Antarctic ice by British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton more than a century ago returned home to Scotland on Monday.

The bottles of Mackinlay’s were part of a cache recovered last year from beneath Shackleton’s Antarctic hut, built in 1908 as part of his failed attempt to reach the South Pole.

It looks as if the Scotch inside is still usable. The question now is how much do you charge per glass?

The complete article can be found here

I know quite a few people, myself included, who get allergic reactions from drinking wine. Sometimes the headaches, stuffy nose, or slightly itchy skin is blamed on the common scapegoat: Sulfites! Here are a couple of  articles that point out that most of us are not reacting to the Sulfites. It appears that most of us who have this problem are most likely reacting to the phenols or yeast; this is especially true if you can drink white wine but not red wine.

Link to Science Article

Link to News Article

I have taken the dried fruit test. I can eat apricots and mangos, so my slight reaction is not caused by sulfites.

Anyone find any wines which cause problems for them in particular???

Vinowire has just posted the proposed changes to the Rosso di Montalcino DOC.  (Click here for link) The changes would allow the addition of up to 15% of grapes other than Sangiovese.

Strangely, the law also allows for the use of synthetic corks and an easing of monitoring protocols.

It will be interesting to see if Brunello di Montalcino follows suit.

http://reignofterroir.com/2010/12/05/hacking-a-wine-the-new-science-of-cork-taint/

I read this article last week and have been musing over some of the conclusions and possibilities it presents. I found the article very absorbing as I am highly sensitive to cork taint and sometimes find it in wines where others do not. For those of you who must have the cliff notes here is a little preview:

There are other compounds other than 2,4,6-trichloroanisole that can cause the musty cardboard note in wine. The major focus of the article was on the 2,4,6-tribromoanisole compound. A Bromine based compound similar to Chlorine based TCA.

This compound is highly volatile and can be detected at limits as low as 2 parts per trillion!!! This equivalent to 2 sugar cubes in 100 Olympic size swimming pools. A large cup of tea to sweeten!

The 2 most interesting parts of the article concern how TBA can leach into synthetic corks as well as regular corks, and the idea that a polymer could be used to strip the anisoles from the compound.

In other words: A corked wine can come out of a bottle with no cork. Also at low levels Saran Wrap dunked in the wine could remove the taint.

I will experiment in the coming weeks.

The Cure?????