Vineyards Of My Mind

Beer is good too!

2006-01-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

I have a subscription to Bottom Line's Daily Health News. I scan my daily messages to see if there's any developments or ideas in the health field that's interesting for me.

Today they have one section titled, Raise a Glass to Beer. I have copied that section for those of you who are fans of beer as well as wine drinkers:

Raise a Glass to Beer
Beer drinkers tend to get the short end of the stick. While wine connoisseurs are thought of as chic and sophisticated, beer drinkers are routinely portrayed as slothful, pot-bellied creatures planted in front of TVs. In one memorable news exposé several summers ago, beer drinkers on working-class Rockaway Beach in New York City were arrested (no open containers please), while the mayor sat comfortably ensconced among wine sippers at a philharmonic orchestra concert in Central Park.
But now there's good news for beer drinkers -- it turns out that by and large alcohol is alcohol, and socioeconomic stereotypes aside, the health benefits of beer are not all that different from the benefits of wine. Of course the key word here is moderation -- most experts advise no more than two alcoholic beverages a day for men and no more than one for women. So what's so good about beer?
HERE'S TO YOUR HEALTH
An increasing body of serious research backs up beer's benefits...
Bone protection. According to a medical team at Tufts University in Boston, beer may help prevent bone-thinning osteoporosis. Dietary silicon in grain products such as beer appears to reduce bone loss and promote bone formation. Beer contains silicate, a highly absorbable form of silicon that works by facilitating the deposit of calcium and other minerals in bone tissue.
Margo A. Denke, MD, clinical professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center, cautions that excessive alcohol intake is a risk factor for bad bones, perhaps because calories from nutrient sources are replaced with calories from alcohol.
Lower risk for cardiovascular disease. Like wine, beer has well-documented heart-healthy benefits. Regular moderate drinking has a protective effect in both men and women against cardiovascular disease, confirms Meir J. Stampfer, MD, DrPH, chair of the department of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He told me that moderate alcohol consumption in any form has an equivalent benefit -- "Wine is not better than beer, red wine is not better than white and spirits in moderation are also associated with lower risk."
Better heart attack survival. A study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston noted that moderate drinkers (who consumed more than seven alcoholic beverages a week) had a 32% lower risk of dying from a heart attack than those who drank no alcohol. Light drinkers (less than seven drinks weekly) had a 21% lower risk. Like other alcohol, beer acts as a blood thinner to help prevent clogged arteries. Other research links moderate alcohol consumption with improved blood circulation in the brain and lower risk for stroke.
Improved cholesterol levels. In her research, Dr. Denke discovered that people who consumed one to three drinks daily had higher levels of HDL, the "good" cholesterol. She also found that regular moderate intake of alcohol resulted in lower blood insulin levels. In a related US Department of Agriculture (USDA) study, women who drank one alcoholic beverage daily lowered their LDL ("bad") cholesterol and levels of harmful blood lipids known as triglycerides.
Sharper brains. In the long-term Nurses' Health Study, Dr. Stampfer and his colleagues found that moderate consumption of alcohol seemed to preserve the mental abilities of older women. From 1995 to 1999, more than 9,000 women between ages 70 and 79 were interviewed regarding their alcohol use, and seven different tests of mental function were administered. Moderate drinkers scored better on five of seven tests, and on total overall scores.
Healthier kidneys. At Harvard Medical School, Tobias Kurth, MD, ScD, assistant professor of medicine, and his colleagues examined data from 11,023 men enrolled in the long-term physicians' Health Study. Over a period of 14 years, the participants reported their alcohol consumption and underwent regular physical exams and blood tests. Researchers found that men who consumed seven or more drinks a week experienced a 29% lower risk of developing kidney problems. (Read more about this study in Daily Health News, January 17, 2006.)
Antioxidant effect. Japanese scientists have found that antioxidants such as polyphenols in beer may offer protection against cancer-causing chemicals. This echoes earlier research conducted in Portugal, which suggested that antioxidants slow the proliferation of breast cancer cells. According to Dr. Denke, isoflavonoids in beer are phytoestrogens that mimic the activity of the natural human hormone estrogen. In laboratory experiments, isoflavonoids have also been shown to inhibit the growth of breast, prostate and colon cancers.
PROCEED WITH CAUTION
Promising as all this research appears, talking about alcohol always requires special caution. It's all too easy to slip over the line from healthful consumption to overconsumption and physical damage, warns Dr. Denke. Yes, regular moderate consumption can benefit the heart, kidneys, bones and more... but by the same token, drinking too much alcohol can seriously harm vital organs and processes in the body.
While we all think of beer as having more than its fair share of calories, in fact it is not significantly higher than other forms of alcohol. As always, moderation in all things is the best path to follow.

Oh, no! No more wine and cheese parties

2006-01-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it? A new research published in American Journal of Enology and Viticulture shows that

"The cheese suppressed almost all flavors, even strong ones, ... "

It seems like, unless your accompanying cheese is brie or camembert, it is not a good idea to have chees with your wine.

Read more about it at BBC News: Wine and cheese 'not best match'

Cool it!

2005-11-16T10:28:00.000-08:00

It seems like I am not the only one trying to figure out how to store wine and what temperature is good for bringing out the flavors of the wine.

This participatory column (Hollister Free Lance -- Living) has now fielded more questions from the public. Two basic questions that keep arising are, “How should we store wine?” and “What temperature should wine be served?”

There are a few suggestions for those of us who cannot afford fancy wine storage devices (though Christmas is coming and you may want to put it on your wish list : ) )

Constant vibrations or machinery can disturb a wine much as it does our sleep. Do not store your wine on top of the refrigerator or in the garage.

Wine-related gift ideas for the holidays

2005-11-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

A new game has appeared for the wine-lovers. "Wine Teasers is a complete wine course in an easy-to-play game!" says their site.

You can read all about their press release on the eMediaWire site.

The game has gone to market in fall, 2005 and is available at http://www.wineteasers.com/, Amazon.com, and at wine and grocery stores nationwide (see list at http://www.wineteasers.com/buy.htm).

Done with your Christmas shopping?

2005-11-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

Do you know that as of today there's only 43 days until Christmas? Check out the Countdown to Christmas site, if you don't believe me.

If you have not done all your shopping done yet, here's the good news:

Le Vin Nouveau Wine Tasting of the Fresno State Winery is going to take place on November 17th, 5:30-8:30. It is open to the public and a good chance to try the new wines and purchase some for the holidays. I do believe there's a discount if you purchase on the day of the event.

Terroir is good?

2005-11-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

Article from the Slowfood site, "World Wine? We Want Terroir! " is making a plea for not uniforming the taste of wines.

'Wines of the world, don’t unite, for pity’s sake!’ Maybe this should be the battle cry of those wine lovers who are tired of the uniform, one-dimensional taste of wines formatted for an international market. Fortunately, in the ‘old Europe’ so beloved of George Bush, there are ever-increasing numbers of forward-looking growers who are striking back at this dumbing-down and are nurturing differences. It is provenance that wins over internationalization.

On a related note, I would like to remind you of the event that's coming up:

9th Annual Central Coast Viticulture & Enology Conference in San Luis Obispo, February 23-24, titled "The Economics of Terroir -- Image is Everything".

Time to pick the grapes?

2005-11-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

"Harvest's over, let the grape 'hang time' debate begin" by Brett Ascarelli in The Napa Valley Register is discussing the pros and cons of the time the grapes are picked.

"Many vintners favor longer hang times, because they say the extra time grapes spend on the vine develops the full flavors that have lately been lauded by wine critics, whose opinions have had increasing influence over industry standards. However, longer hang times often translate into higher brix, or sugar, levels. When wine ferments, yeast processes the fruit sugars into alcohol, therefore fruit with more brix results in wines with high alcohol. Another side effect of high brix is "stuck fermentation," when the alcohol concentration of fermenting wine gets so high that it kills the yeast before it can convert the remaining sugar. Some winemakers add water to the wine when this happens to revive fermentation."

Nice article.

It is okay to cheat a little

2005-11-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Essential Wine Tasting Guide is a handy little tool for those of us who are not sure about our tasting abilities. Sandra Silfven has a nice column about it in The Wine News section of the The Detroit News, titled "Aussie's wine cheat sheet puts the right words in your mouth."

"Written for the American wine taster (though versions for six other world markets are available, and six more are in the works), it compiles standardized words to describe color (including a palette); tactile descriptors (acidity, tannins, etc.); flavor descriptors; wine faults; points for scoring wine; a temperature serving guide; and general descriptors for all common wine varieties grown in this country."

This is the first time I came across her column but apparently she has a new column every Thursday. It may be worth checking out every once in a while.

It just may be smoke and mirrors

2005-10-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

Even USA Today talks about it: California Wineries Targeted for Smog.

There is a new concern for the winemakers in California. They are being told to cut down on the emission caused by the winemaking processes.

"Now air-quality managers in California's San Joaquin Valley, where nearly two-thirds of domestic wine is produced, are cracking down. By year's end, local officials will propose the nation's first restrictions targeting pollution from winemaking."

But please note that when the authorities talk about it,

" 'We have regulated virtually all other significant (non-vehicle) sources, some a lot smaller than wineries,'says San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District planning director Scott Nester. Winemaking pollution 'is significant, and it is completely uncontrolled.' "

they do emphasize "non-vehicle" sources. I wonder if that includes the "emissions" that cows produce, or the carbon dioxide produced by all those plants around us.

Think outside of the box

2005-10-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

Wine drinkers are no longer snobbish about their wines, as long as the quality is preserved. That could be in a bottle, in a box, corked or with a screw top.

The Mercury News has a nice article, "Wine anyone? Sure just pass the box".

We are proud of our graduates!

2005-09-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah... While perusing my Google Alerts this morning, my eye was caught by the name Tish Cooper. She is mentioned in an article, "Different Body of Work" at DailyBulletin.com.

While in France, fellow university students told Cooper that Fresno State was the best place to study enology. So she headed back to the States and enrolled there.

Tish is one of our recent graduates at the Viticulture and Enology program at California State University, Fresno. I am glad to see she is having fun with her degree, playing with yeast up to her shoulders!

Way to go, Tish!

Be American, drink American!

2005-09-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

The rise and fall and rise of Zin, in the San Francisco Chronicle, is a nice article about a variety that has not always been popular with the wine drinkers.

-- When Prohibition ended, most Americans celebrated with liquor, not wine. Cocktail parties were the fashion. Wineries sold their old inventory of oxidized Zinfandel and that destroyed the grape's reputation overnight. It was widely derided by East Coast-based writers; its lack of the French noble heritage of Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir didn't help.

Do you hear what I hear?

2005-05-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

I received my new copy of Wine Maker magazine. Glancing through it, in their Must Haves section I came across "A 'must hear', winemakingradio.com". Checking out the site, I found out they have had six episodes so far; about twenty minutes of program which includes interviews with different people who are interested in wine-making, or the wine culture.

An interesting recipe for Army Worm Wine is included on one of the pages! Any one heard of that?

Good news

2005-05-16T14:36:00.000-07:00

I was on my way to work this morning when I heard the news on NPR: The Supreme Court has ruled on wine direct shipping. The news is good for the wineries.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned laws barring out-of-state winemakers from shipping directly to customers in Michigan and New York, potentially boosting Internet and mail-order sales in the $23 billion wine industry.

Many links became available when I received my mailing from Benson Marketing Group:

Family Wineries, Consumers Triumph in U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Supporting Wine Direct Shipping; Coalition for Free Trade Calls Win Historic (Business Wire)

Free the Grapes! National Toast Scheduled Tonight to Celebrate Supreme Court Justices' Support for Wine Direct Shipping (Business Wire)

Court rejects ban on out-of-state sales of wines (Associated Press)

Court OKs direct interstate wine sales (Reuters)

Wine-Shipping Limits Overturned by U.S. High Court (Bloomberg)

States May Not Block Out-Of-State Wine Shipments (NBC11.comnews)

Supreme Court Rules on Wine Shipping (30 Second Wine Advisor)

Texas clears hurdles preventing wine shipments by mail (San Francisco Business Times)

Texas Becomes 27th State to Allow Interstate Wine Shipping (Business Wire)

Texans can now ship wine legally (Austin American-Statesman, By Mark Lisheron)

Subscription Sites:
U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Wine-Shipping Bans (Wine Spectator, By Dana Nigro)

TX Governor Signs Bill On Direct Wine Shipping (Market Watch, By Laura Pelner ) (Ed. Note: Paid Subscription)

But a word of caution (Oklahoma Wine News):

Although the court overwhelmingly found the state wine shipping bans, such as we have here in Oklahoma, to be discriminatory and anticompetitive, their decision leaves open the possibility that state legislatures can ban both in-state and out-of-state wine shipments.

Let's Do the Blend

2005-04-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

If you are a winemaker who likes to experiment with different fruits, varieties, whatnot, the article in Wine Maker, Grape/Non-Grape Blending by Jack Keller may be of interest to you.

Why Blend Wines?
There are several reasons we might want to blend wines. Among these are to correct complementary deficiencies (as in the above example), to integrate complexities from varying bases or to create a new flavor profile.

Wine Maker is a new magazine I had not seen before. They have some good, informational articles. Click on the link of articles and have a look around.

Cat and dog smells are not the same!

2005-03-24T11:29:00.000-08:00

I loved the way the article from San Francisco Chronicle, "Here, kitty kitty Wine critics love cat pee, but hate wet dog. We explain why talks about how the experts describe their wine tasting experiences."

"It's a conundrum to some who read wine publications: How can cat-pee aromas in wine be good, yet horse manure be bad? Wet slate is in, wet dog is out? Sweat is positive, but dirty gym socks are not? And why don't critics say that wine tastes like grapes?

I hope you enjoy the article as much as I did.

It is an antioxidant (the label says so!)

2005-03-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

Willamette Valley Vineyards has succeeded in having TTB approval in including the word "antioxidant" for two of their Pinot noir labels. (Vineyard claims first on wine antioxidant labeling -- Nutraingredients-USA)

Last year scientists at the University of Virginia concluded that resveratrol is the compound primarily responsible for the health benefits of red wine and claimed to have discovered its function in the prevention of cancer - starving cancer cells by inhibiting the action of nuclear factor- kappa B (NF-kB) protein that feeds them.

The vineyard itself has a comment piece on their site for the continued effort to get the antioxidant labeling for their other wines as well.

It's all in the dimples

2005-03-01T10:28:00.000-08:00

Dimples determine the wine's value.

Is it a hoax, or a scientific truth? It seems like it all depends on who you talk to. According to Martin Field, it is one of the wine myths that deeper the dimple, the more valuable the bottle of wine. But a new study publicized today in PRWeb says that, "Scientists Prove How to Value a Bottle of Wine, Just by Feeling its Dimple."

Read the article and you be the judge!

For some attitude, have a look at Vinography, too!

Taking a break for the holidays

2004-12-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

Holiday season is here. This blogger has decided to take some time off to relax and think about where the blog should go.

If you have any ideas, or suggestions, please email me. You can also let me know of your views of the blog so far.

Have a merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!

VERC makes the news

2004-12-06T15:59:00.000-08:00

This seems to have been Viticulture and Enology Research Center, Fresno's week.

It is good to see that in being compared to "the" wine school, UCDavis, California State University, Fresno's Viticulture and Research Department is head-to-head. (Wine School Wars: Two of the best enology programs in the country are right here, but which makes a better winemaker, Davis or Fresno? -- sfgate.com)

Of course, for those of us who are working in Fresno, we are the best! Just check out our awards, if you don't believe me.

Chinese were first?

2004-12-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

A new study coming out this week (China the Motherland of Booze? -- WCCO) is out to show that wine did not originate in Middle East as was previously thought, but in China.

The ceramics were dated to about 7,000 B.C. -- 9,000 years ago -- and the scientists analyzed residue that had collected inside the pots.

The results showed chemicals that matched residues from modern rice and rice wine, grape wine, grape tannins and ancient and modern herbs. There were also indications of hawthorn fruit.

On a remotely related note, check out "Chinese offered wine-tasting classes" from statesmenjournal.com.

Spanish invasion

2004-11-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

Tempranillo, from Spain, is a new favorite with the Australian grape growers.

One of the reasons for its popularity is its broad flavour spectrum. It can show strawberry/raspberry/blackberry/mulberry characters, as well as tobacco/herb/olive/tar/spice and sometimes an earthy, farmyard character. It can be quite silky, with fine chalky tannins.

On another note,

Cropping levels must be kept low. "Treat it mean," Fernandez says. "Don't allow it to sprout like a rampant adolescent," Adams adds. "It has large leaves," Leske points out, "and they're great for people in nudist colonies."

Funny!

Check out Spanish conquistador (theage.com.au)

Listen to some views about wine

2004-11-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

I came across the link for Wine for Every Occasion in NPR.

When I followed the link, it led me to an interview of the writers of the book, Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion : Red, White, and Bubbly to Celebrate the Joy of Living, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher being interviewed by NPR's Tony Cox on the The Tavis Smiley Show.

Listen to the quite pleasant, informative online interview by clicking on the button on the web page.

You can get the book on Amazon for the holidays, for yourself, or someone who may need an easy introduction to wine drinking. And, if you have to read it right now, you can even download it.

Cheers!

Wow! Color me happy!

2004-11-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

I just read about a new Google service, scholar.google.com in my daily posting of Science in the News:

GOOGLE PLANS NEW SERVICE FOR SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS
from The New York Times (Registration Required)
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 17 - Google Inc. plans to announce on Thursday that it is adding a new search service aimed at scientists and academic researchers.
Google Scholar, which was scheduled to go online Wednesday evening at scholar.google.com, is a result of the company's collaboration with a number of scientific and academic publishers
and is intended as a first stop for researchers looking for scholarly literature like peer-reviewed
papers, books, abstracts and technical reports.
Google executives declined to say how many additional documents and books had been indexed and made searchable through the service. While the great majority of recent scholarly papers and periodicals are indexed on the Web, many have not been easily accessible to the public.
http://snipurl.com/aq4b

I tried it with keywords "micro-oxidation" and" grape" and the search came up with 437 scholarly articles. As an online researcher, I am impressed. This is good stuff, Google. Keep up the good work.

Getting to know Zinfandel

2004-11-10T16:55:00.000-08:00

Grape Expectations has another good article, this time about Zinfandel.

Seeing red (The Publican) is helpful in learning more about Zinfandel. Oz Clarke believes cabernet sauvignon is “the world’s most famous red wine grape”. Master of Wine Jonathan Pedley is even more gushing: “It is the great aristocrat of black grape varieties. If chardonnay is a bit of a slapper these days, then cabernet sauvignon has that touch of class about it.”

When experts have such high opinions, isn't it time you got to know Zinfandel?