Wine
terrasig | March 14, 2008Local wine shops are to wine what ScienceBlogs.com is to science blogs - while perhaps imperfect, they are both good at directing you to unique sources and enriching flavors. With the proliferation of information and winemakers, we can all use some educated filtering guides.
And that is how I view outstanding local vendors of wine. People who know a lot more than I spend their careers seeking out and stocking their stores with underrecognized offerings and low volume quality wines while also contributing to public education on this wonderful, life-enriching beverage.
So I was delighted the…
terrasig | March 7, 2008[Back by popular demand is my Friday Fermentable co-blogger, Erleichda - to read all of the offerings from my silver-tongued and golden-palated friend, see this compilation. For new readers, here is The Friday Fermentable mission statement.]
Another Wine Experience : 2002 White & Red Burgundies
By Erleichda
It was Mort's fault. As alluded to obliquely a few columns ago, it was he who introduced me to "fine wines.". So many years ago, the story has improved with each telling, I was invited to participate in my first trout fishing adventure. After hours of practice casting, I was ready…
terrasig | February 8, 2008Another Wine Experience - Spanish wines from Ribera del Duero and Rioja
By Erleichda
The gathering of Jim's Disciples met at a nearby BYOB restaurant that we had used before for the monthly wine dinner. Most of the diners were outside on the patio enjoying a marvelous summer evening, while the ten of us gathered indoors (in what had been an 18th century stone barn) so as not to disturb the more genteel crowd. I would have preferred dining under the stars, but I understood the difficulty in attempting to accommodate us in the midst of romantic twosomes. Instead, we had to content ourselves…
pontiff | January 21, 2008This weekend was "bottling weekend." Here is one of the final products:
That's right, the Villa Sophia, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon "Gruccia" has found its way, with a little labor on my part, out of the carboys and into the bottle. This year's wine is called "gruccia." You see at one point during the winemaking a bung made its way into the carboy, and well, you can guess how I got it out, can't you?
terrasig | January 18, 2008My wine co-blogger and dear scientific colleague, Erleichda, and I had hoped to bring you an account of the wines enjoyed at our recent meetup. Erleichda and I have recently had the good fortune of regaining support for our scientific interactions and had a face-to-face conference of the principals for planning and reviewing our collaborative studies. As you would (and should) expect, getting the two of us together would also include the enjoyment of various wines and culinary delights.
However, circumstances beyond our control led to our group being treated to an evening at an…
terrasig | January 18, 2008Erleichda is the nom de plume of a guest blogger who contributes regularly to The Friday Fermentable columns. The act of contributing a column periodically on the topic of wine is consistent with the philosophy embodied in his pseudonym, i.e., to "lighten up" (from 'Jitterbug Perfume' by Tom Robbins).
Erleichda holds a PhD in microbiology following a baccalaureate in the same discipline. Post-doctoral training was received in tumor immunology and virology. While initial employment involved transplantation immunology research for a few years, a subsequent job at a research institute focused…
pontiff | January 2, 2008Books conquered during the holiday resting season: "Learning the World" by Ken MacLeod, "The Crack in Space" by Philip K. Dick, and "Washington Wines and Wineries: The Essential Guide" by Paul Gregutt.
Learning the World by Ken MacLeod. A first contact novel. Or rather, a pre-first contact novel. Enjoyable, but I was left wishing that the characters were more fleshed out. Also [SEMI SPOILER ALERT] notable for its use of the increasingly common "universitas ex machina." You know what I mean: "universitas ex machina" is where parallel universes/the multiverse are used as a nice escape from…
terrasig | January 1, 2008...there is a very colorful discussion thread of hangover remedies over at the WSJ Health Blog.
Yesterday, Health Blog's Jacob Goldstein briefly discussed a 2000 Annals of Internal Medicine paper on alcohol hangovers and remedies/prophylactic approaches. Despite all of the discussion, Goldstein also cites a 2005 systematic review in BMJ by Max Pittler and Edzard Enrst at Exeter that concluded,
No compelling evidence exists to suggest that any conventional or complementary intervention is effective for preventing or treating alcohol hangover. The most effective way to avoid the symptoms of…
terrasig | December 30, 2007In rats, though. But still very interesting.
So says yesterday's New York Times Op-Ed by psychiatrist, Paul Steinberg, entitled, "The Hangover That Lasts." This timely piece follows our discussion on Friday about champagne choices for New Year's Eve, the premier event for binge-drinking.
While I'm not a neuropharmacologist, Steinberg's article piqued my interest because it focuses on the work of Dr Fulton T Crews and his former student Dr Jennifer Obernier (now with the National Academy of Sciences) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr Crews is director of the UNC Bowles…
terrasig | December 28, 2007If you're a scientist who still finds yourself employed, you might head out this weekend to pick up a celebratory bottle of your favorite $30 New Year's bubbly only to find it priced at $35 or even $40. The declining value of the US dollar has certainly rendered champagne (French sparkling wine from the Champagne region) even more of a luxury than usual.
Perhaps you're a grad student or postdoc wondering how you might afford something reasonable, maybe a couple of bottles of California sparkling wine - what should you pick without finding your purchase to be insipid swill?
Well, I've been…
terrasig | November 30, 2007My colleague and guest wine blogger, Erleichda, wrote previously on his birthday trip to New Zealand's wine destinations. I accidentally posted his writings in reverse, with his description of wines of the Marlborough district here. Below was intended to be the first of the two columns.
Another Wine Escapade: New Zealand's Central Otago Region
by Erleichda
Having reached another even decade of aging, I decided to celebrate by visiting a destination I had wanted to experience, New Zealand (NZ). (I could have chosen Tahiti, but I'm saving that one for when the prospect of climbing onto…
terrasig | November 16, 2007You just never know - some weeks you don't get The Friday Fermentable; other weeks you get two posts.
Well, several readers gave me the heads up this week about an NPR story about resveratrol supplements. You may remember that this is the chemical present in red wine that kills cancer cells in culture and, as we discussed here, extends the lifespan in yeast when used at extremely high concentrations.
Turns out that our analytical chemistry colleagues at ConsumerLab.com have revealed that a great many resveratrol supplements don't even come close to having the labeled amounts of the chemical…
terrasig | November 16, 2007Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!
Yes, the 15th of November has arrived as have thousands of cases of a fresh, fruity wine, the Beaujolais Nouveaux. Grapes that were on the vine just a few short months ago have been heroically converted into a wine that has traditionally been rushed to Paris, and around the world, from the Beaujolais appellation of France, part of Burgundy. Made from a variety of grape known as Gamay (or 'Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc' to purists), this tradition has spread far and wide with some California wineries getting into the act.
The most famous, and largest producer/…
terrasig | November 2, 2007For new readers, The Friday Fermentable is our fun end-of-week feature devoted to the fruits of biochemical processes: wine and beer. I am fortunate to have a senior and more well-traveled colleague, Erleichda, who shares with us his wine escapades as accompanied by his beloved Sweetpea. Everytime Erleichda posts, I put another pin on my world map of places I need to visit. The New Zealand Marlborough Valley is no exception. In fact, annotating his post with the winery websites showed me the incredibly beautiful country in which these wines were tasted. Enjoy!
Another Wine Experience:…
terrasig | September 4, 2007A press release came in from the US NIH before the weekend noting that NCI's Dr Jeffrey Green has identified potential anticancer activities from a grape skin extract that is not dependent on the presence of the well-known compound, resveratrol. The report is to appear in the 1 September issue of Cancer Research, but the article is not yet online.
Green's group investigated a skin extract from muscadine grapes (Vitis rotundifolia) that was apparently nearly devoid of resveratrol but contained high levels of compunds called anthocyanins (they called it MSKE for "muscadine skin extract"). The…
terrasig | August 31, 2007Another Wine Experience: Châteauneuf du Pape Tastings
By Erleichda
Another twosome of Jim's Disciples, not to mention their also being members of the "Hiking Group", celebrated one of those even decade important birthdays. Well, important enough to justify spending a little extra celebrating the milestone. Those of us attending the party, dedicated to toasting the couple with Châteauneuf du Pape (CdP) wines, were appreciative of the opportunity to help usher in their next 50 years. [Wikipedia has a brief but informative history of the Châteauneuf du Pape, literally, "New House of the Pope…
terrasig | August 24, 2007Another Wine Experience: Little Known or Under Publicized Grape Varieties
by Erleichda
It was my turn again to name a theme for the almost monthly get together of our wine dinner group, "Jim's Disciples". I thought to push the envelope a bit by asking everyone to bring a wine that used a grape variety they hadn't heard of before, and which represented at least 70% of the wine in the bottle. There were no other restrictions or guidelines. Unfortunately, only about half my tasting notes survived the evening, and so I can only relate a portion of what occurred.
I also chose a BYO Italian…
terrasig | August 17, 2007The irregular frequency of The Friday Fermentable has been due mostly to my focus on two cases of a (inexpensive) private label wine that has kept my summer drinking variety to a bare minimum. Thankfully, my guest blogger, Erleichda, has often come to the rescue with fabulous descriptions of his group wine dinners.
The focus this time is instead a very interesting research letter published in this week's (16 August 2007) New England Journal of Medicine entitled, "Wine-Induced Anaphylaxis and and Sensitization to Hymenoptera Venom." The full text is currently available freely. Two Spanish…
terrasig | July 20, 2007Another Wine Experience - South American Reds
By Erleichda
The wine dinner group known as Jim's Disciples met at another of the area's BYOB restaurants. The theme selected for the evening's repast was "South American Reds", which translated into red wines from Chile and Argentina. In selecting my own bottles to contribute to the mix, I sought to avoid malbecs, as I figured there'd be plenty of those in attendance, and wound up buying a syrah and a pinot noir, just so as to try something I hadn't had before from the region.
The first wine tasted was from Lapostolle Vineyards in the Alexander…