Red Wine is Good for Your Health..Yes...No...Maybe!

It all started when 60 Minutes with Morley Safer aired their "French Paradox" show on November 17, 1991.
Over 33 million people watched 60 Minutes that evening. Sales of red wine increased dramatically and were up 44 percent over the same month of the previous year. Sales of red wine for the entire year following the initial broadcast went up 39 percent. The American public embraced red wine as the newest health food. That was over 20 years ago but lets have a look at the show that started it all.



Much has been said and written about the subject of wine and health since then. In April of 2009, the Wine Spectator published an article titled  Is Drinking Wine a Breast Cancer Risk?  
Yes, according to this article!
Fast forward to January 2012 and the good news is NO.
Red wine could lower risk of breast cancer.           
    A Google search for breast cancer and red wine consumption turns up a staggering 32,500,000 entries.        For your enlightenment I chose the following from the Huffington Post    
                                              
Along with the good, there is the bad.
Getting plenty of news coverage, especially in the wine press, is the startling revelation about  fraudulent  results from researcher Dr. Das at the University of Connecticut. And yes a Google search will once again show plenty of entries. Here is what  Reuters   reported on the incident.

But I can report on research that is both reliable and truthful. Years of personal research conducted by myself can attest to the very healthful benefits of wine consumption, particularly red wine.
I can also attest to the fact that no cuddly, furry little creatures were sacrificed in my extensive research.

 All that remains now for me is to wish you all a very healthy 2012. And may I encourage you to do your own research. All with moderation of course.   

 à votre santé

                            

Trips to Wine Regions in France....Begin in Paris!!

There has been a noticeable absence of posts to my blog for a while. All for good reasons which belong in 2011. But this is 2012 and one New Year's resolution I am going to keep is to post regularly again.
Let me begin with wishing every one a Happy and Healthy New year.
I think we will see some significant changes in the wonderful world of wine, although I am not quite ready for paper wine bottles.
One thing that will not change for me is that I begin and end my trips to French wine regions in Paris.
More on that in a moment. But first if you are planning a trip to Paris, I can highly recommend Bonjour Paris  
Visit their site and be sure to sign up for their newsletter or sign up for their premium membership. 
Bonjour Paris is the ultimate guide to Paris and France.

The city of light has been fascinating to visit but now there is another good reason.
When I first started blogging I had the pleasure of receiving a comment from one of the first French wine bloggers, Olivier Magny and I have been following his career since then.
Olivier has recently opened a wine bar in Paris that has become an overnight success and I am looking forward on my next trip to Paris, to visit him there.
The Ô Chateau Wine Tasting and Wine Bar is not your average wine bar. To give you an idea, visit their website and have a look around    O Chateau
After you have signed up at Bonjour Paris and got the scoop on where to eat, stay and visit, there is something else you must do. Get a copy of the Olivier's recently released book titled 'Stuff Parisians Like'.

So what are Parisians really like? And what do Parisians really NOT like? You will get an insiders close up look in this 'hilariouslly perceptive' book. In impeccable English Olivier gives us an insight into what Parisians think, do and like. It is cool to drink San Pe and love cherry tomatoes. It is also hyper sympa to go away on a ' le p'tit weekend'. And Parisians love their 'le metro' or at least till its on strike. Ah, but line 14 never goes on strike, it is fully automated.

I took this picture the last time I was in Paris and call it 'Art in Motion'. Click on it and enlarge it, you will see some of Olivier's Parisians. So are these graffiti artists considered sympa or are they 'beaufs' Olivier?
In his final chapter, Olivier laments the fact that Parisians do not drink enough wine and finds it quite disconcerting. He is doing his best to change that. So am I, Olivier, so am I.
Have to go now. I have a glass of a great Burgundy waiting for me. Picked it up while in Burgundy a couple of years ago. A votre Sante!!

Wine, Women and a Cardinal Rule of Tasting.....!!

It is good to see more and more women involved in the wine industry as writers, wine makers and on the sales side of the industry.
There are also some great web pages and blogs written by women.  
Women for Wine Sense is an organization that has recently celebrated its 21st birthday.
As well on the consumer side, women outnumber men significantly in the purchase of wine.
Women  buy 77 percent and consume 60 percent of the wine in the United States.  
It is generally known that women can smell and taste wine better than men. In my own experience I have observed this time and again. I write an email wine newsletter in which I review wines. I have a panel of 8 tasters, 4 women and 4 men ( not always the same tasters ) and we blind taste the wines. The ladies give me better descriptors both of aromas and flavor profiles. As an added bonus, I can read their notes better. I hasten to add that I have a couple of gents who are regularly on my panel and who are outstanding tasters.
My annual sparkling wine tasting just before the holiday season starts is usually more ladies than men and they have a blast.
 Six ladies and two men. I am taking the picture and therefore not visible. 
Given all this, why in the world does a marketing firm come up with what I consider a put down of women's wine sense and knowledge by creating a wine and  bottling  it in a perfume shaped bottle?

 One of the cardinal rules when tasting wine is not to wear perfume or any other scents. Obviously the marketers and makers of this product show their lack of knowledge and sense. At least that is the way I see it!!

Is That Isinglass in my Wineglass??

The backroom beurocrats are at it once again. If you need a make work project, pick on wine labels. This time it is the ever vigilant crew at Health Canada. 

And isinglass is one of the culprits the unsuspecting public must be protected against. Isinglass is a derivative of swim bladders in fish and most often sturgeons are used in its production.

Living on the west coast of Canada on Vancouver Island, home to our beautiful salmon, naturally I show you a picture of a Sockeye salmon swim bladder. What a magnificent piece of equipment to have on board.The air in the bladder provides buoyancy and thus allowing them to float. The amount of air can be adjusted so they can hover at different levels in the water.
But I am straying away from the point of my blog entry. The point being that this new label requirement is another bit of idiocy foisted upon the wine industry. 
I won't go into details because in his usual right on style   
BEPPI CROSARIOL  of the Globe and Mail
has written an article that says it all and is well worth reading. The most telling fact of all is that between 2000 and 2011 there were 700,000 bottles returned to the LCBO and of that number 380 were investigated for causing alleged illnesses and only 'one' was related to an allergic reaction and this was due to quinine found in an Italian bitter. 
What insanity and what an incredible waste of taxpayers money.

I smell something fishy here or is it the belch of a powerful beer lobby?                                                       
                                         
 

To Blend or not to Blend....that is the question!!

A short while ago I read an article by a well known wine writer proclaiming that in a few years all wines will be blended wines.
I had just tasted a blended wine made up of and get this... Pinot Noir..Cabernet Sauvignon and Gamay Noir. Really now?
I chose to ignore this off the cuff remark. Then I read it again by another wine writer. Had these two gents attended the same wine conference? 

Now,as we have seen it reported over and over again, the US total yearly consumption of wine is now greater than in France. But those figures are like comparing apples and oranges. On a per person basis consumption, the US is still far behind France. But this statistic is based on a total population figure.
The significance however lies in the fact that wine is finally becoming much more a part of our culture.
Along with this new found thirst comes an eager search for more knowledge about wine. And thus statements such as the above might be taken seriously by our new wine loving friends and should not be made by responsible wine writers. There is just too much nonsense out there. At least that is my opinion. 
So I thought I would check with a couple of people who I respect highly and get their opinion.
First I checked with Alice Feiring. I take you to a post I did on her a couple of years ago. I loved reading her very interesting  book.
So here is what she had to say as per quotation.

"I have been in the blend camp for quite some time. I sort of feel it's the salvation of California as well as other regions that might have spotty 'great' terroir". 

Yes of course. Bordeaux, the 'King of Wines' producing some of the best blended wines in the world. 


Since I had used Burgundy's Pinot Noir and Germany's Rieslings as examples of single variety wines her response was as follows.

"The comparison to Burgundy or the Mosel is pretty unfair as those regions have been one grape grape one bottle for quite a while, but they spent 100s of years fine tuning which grapes grow best on the soils"

Ah, yes..Burgundy Pinot Noir ..the 'Queen of Wines"

Along comes modern day science and technology to help us out and it is now possible to determine which grape variety is most suited to a specific vineyards plot.

Dr. Pat Bowen has done extensive research in this field and by means of the GIS or Geographical Imaging System, site specific grape varieties can be determined. 

Poof.... hundreds of years can be bypassed by modern science.

Read the highlights of that research here. 

Going back to my archived blog entry on Alice Feiring, I realized that I had written about one of my favorite German vintners as well on that same blog entry. 

 

 Why are we smiling so much? Me ...because I had just tasted some wonderful Mosels and Johannes Selbach.... because he is justifiably proud of his single variety wines.
So I contacted him and again as per quote.

"We do NOT blend our Selbach-Oster Rieslings with anything else and have no intention to do so.

There are grapes that are suitable for blending and there are grapes with little flavour that benefit from blending but good, genuine Riesling certainly doesn't need it.

I firmly believe in the future of handcrafted, authentic varietal wines if they are grown in suitable climate and soil because they will offer the wine drinker a sense of place, terroir, as well as the pleasures of varietal character.

That being said, if the individual components don't have enough character to make a distinctive wine or if the blend is better than its components, blending makes sense. Blending also makes sense where the married components together enhance complexity and typicity ( and here Bordeaux certainly is a classic example for successful blends )."
So there you have it.
Let me finish with an image of my family blend of wine which consists of 55% Pinot Noir, 40% Pinot Noir and just to add a touch of complexity... 5% Pinot Noir. 

 I raise my glass of blended wine, straight from the above bottle, to you my dear readers!!

Global Cooling in Wine Country.....!!

On February 2, 2011 Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow and thus according to tradition an early spring was predicted. Within a week, I was snowed in and could not get out of my driveway. I finally managed to get out but on the way back in, I ended up teetering on the edge of the ditch and had to get a tow truck to help me out. Ended up parking my car at the start of my driveway and carry two big bags of groceries for about a 1/2 kilometer stretch down my driveway to get home. Miserable unseasonably cold weather. Fortunately I had plenty of wine on hand and a raging fire in my fireplace to keep me warm.

On the 26th of February, I received an e-mail from my dear friend, Jan in California with a series of pictures, including the Myers lemon tree in her garden. The subject title was 'It never snows in Scotts Valley????'

California Wine Country was in for sub freezing temperatures on that day.

On Tuesday January 13th 2009, featured speaker Kim Cahill, a viticulture associate at UC Davis, spoke to the concerned Napa Sustainable Winegrowing Group and detailed a predicted warming trend due to climate change for Napa vineyards.


Now hold on a minute and fast forward to February 7, 2011. Forget about that warming trend because now a new in depth study carried out for the Napa Valley Vintners Association suggests that climate change may cool the Napa Valley.

Of course these days it is no longer called 'Global Warming'. There is no money to be made with such a scary concept and terminology. 'Climate Change' is the in thing and there are plenty of greenbacks to be made. 

Why not attend the III World Congress on Climate Change and Wine? For a mere 575 Euros you can get your VIP ticket and hear Kofi Annan speak. But you better hurry because after April 1st, the ticket price goes to 675 Euros.

The one that really gets me is the Carbon Credit concept. If you want to really understand what that is all about, look at this article on Carbon Credits.
This informative article was written back in 2008 and a mere $60 billion had already been traded worldwide. What are the figures for today?
Imagine trading and making money on Hot Air??

I think, I must do my part and trade my car in for a much more fuel efficient green car.                                                                                                 




And I cannot get the lyrics of Johnny Rivers' song "Green Green" out of my mind.
So sing along with me while we join the New Christy Minstrels.




I do hope that our Vancouver Island and surrounding Islands vineyards see a much warmer 2011 year. Most did not see their grape crops reach maturity because of the cold and wet weather. We want to see a return of Global warming!
Lets all drink to that!!

Dieting?... Check Your New Wine Label!

 Once again wine label requirements are under attack. This time it is the US and Australia. I did a post in January last year when Brussels was rattling its chains. Here is the link to that entry.

http://wwpress.blogspot.com/2010/01/wine-labels-under-attack-by-brussels.html

 It seems bureaucrats everywhere feel they must protect the dumb public by forcing wineries to print the number of calories in their wines on their wine labels. This would change of course with each vintage and thus creating additional costs for the wineries.
Australia is moving ahead on this requirement 
Now the US is also considering label changes. Now I ask you would anyone seriously look at a back label and do calorie comparisons between two or three wines?
'Look at this one  dear, it has 20 calories less than the one you are looking at'. 
When you buy your bacon do you for one minute think that it is not high in calories, but you better check all the bacon labels to see if you can shave off a few calories? How utterly ridiculous. 
We buy wines because we thoroughly enjoy them and we know they are good for our health.
How about equal opportunities and allow statements of wine being good for your health to be displayed as well?
Latest research has just discovered that red wine contains chemicals used in the treatment of diabetes.
Doctors are loath to tell patients that wine maybe good for their health for fear of turning their patients into alcoholics. But the use of wine in treating various ailments has been with us for centuries. 
I am in possession of a book called 'Healing Wines' by Manfred Kohnlechner  tracing the use of wines in medicine from antiquity to modern times. Fascinating reading. It was published and printed by Autumn Press in 1981, so its not likely too many copies are still around. But Roger Corder's The Red Wine Diet is readily available. It is a well written and thoroughly researched book. Decanter states " Quite possibly the most useful wine book published this year"
Roger's opening sentence in the first chapter is as follows:  "Wine drinkers generally are healthier and often live longer than people who don't drink wine on a regular basis"
I say Amen to that and raise my glass in a toast to all you wine lovers out there!!

Be Good Hearted... and Drink Red Wine!!

 It never ceases to amaze me how much research is deemed necessary before we finally come to the conclusion and accept the fact that drinking wine, especially red wine, is good for our hearts. And here is the latest as reported in BMJ..helping doctors make better decisions. The research paper is titled "Prospective Epidemiological Study of Myorcardial Infarction"

It is worth reading but you probably should have a glass of wine or two while consuming this information and if you proceed to glass number three, try saying the above title real fast three times.
Now here is some research that has just been reported. It has come to light that humans were drinking wine over 6000 years ago.
And we are still around doing our best to convince Neo-Prohibitionists and other anti-drinking groups that drinking wine is good for their health and we are going to be around for a long time.
My good friend Keith Watt over on Pender Island, owner of
Morning Bay Estate Winery and Vineyards, wrote a nice  sensible, summing it all up article on wine and health.
Good wines, good friends, laughter and love. How can we go wrong? Of course drinking too much wine may be bad for your health. Everything in moderation. I love crisp bacon and could eat it all day and every day but that would not be good for my health, would it now?
So let us make sure that when they dig around an archaeological site 6000 years from now, they will say that in the year of 2011,they sure knew how to live the good live.

 May you have a happy heart this year and every year and enjoy your wine in peace and in good company!

Peace, Wine Wishes and Tiny Bubbles for 2011 !!

  May I share with you, on this last day of 2010, my thoughts and wishes.

If you have been under a lot of pressure during this past year, then just let it all go and out of your system, like the Cremant d'Alsace in the picture below. But do not let your cares and worries build up inside you until the inevitable blow up happens similar to the mishap in the below right picture.

Well maybe I was having too much fun, or shall we say maybe one glass of wine too many with the obvious and dubious wording in the video below.



So for 2011 may your troubles be small, like the tiny bubbles in your bubbly.
May your days be filled with sunshine and even on the days when a little rain does fall into your life, may a beautiful rainbow await you at the end of the day.  
Peace, prosperity and tranquility to all for 2011! 


                                                                                         
 
And of course a day without wine is like a day without sunshine. Happy New Year to all my friends and followers of my blog!
Wilf                                                                                         

Become a Wine Expert

Many tastings, many events, many friends and wow, did I get snow,have kept me from doing a posting. Yes, Vancouver Island with the mildest climate in Canada did get its first and hopefully last snow. Thought I would share this picture taken on my front yard with a little Holiday holly added for the season.
The weather man of course was wrong as usual with the prediction of 4 centimeters and 10 for higher elevations. Well I am not that high, but I got 14 cms. Snowed in for 3 days, but plenty of food and good fire wood on hand to keep a blazing yuletide fire going. And of course tasted some wines from my cellar that had been waiting for a special occasion.
Now the title of this blog entry is 'Become a Wine Expert' and there are plenty of wine courses offered. But if you do not want to spend 3 to 4 hundred and even more dollars and tie up every Tuesday evening for the next 3 months, here is a fun way for the beginner and even those who already have some good understanding of wine, to learn.
It is even more fun when you get a small group of your wine loving friends together. Internationally known wine writer, taster and teacher, Michael Schuster has recently created a handy dandy, nifty little box full of cards loaded with great information. Pick a card, any card and you are presented with very useful information. It starts with a set of cards on the 'basics', then a set on 'grape varieties', followed by 'tasting techniques' and finally 'tasting lessons'. Some great advice for pairing wine and food included as well. Very, very well done Michael. Let the fun begin and you are on your way to becoming an expert.
On my trip to Italy and specifically, Tuscany, I relied heavily on the foremost expert on Italian wines, Joseph Bastianich.
Visit his site and go to media and then books. His book 'Vino Italiano The Regional Wines of Italy' is a wonderful, excellent read on Italian wines and his 'Vino Italiano Buying Guide, the ultimate Quick Reference to the Great wines of Italy' is a must have book. I took it along on my trip.
Joseph Bastianich is a foremost expert on Italian wines. He is the co-owner, with Mario Batali of some of America's premier Italian restaurants. But he also owns and produces wines on four wineries, three of them in Italy. Busy though he is, he has just finished another excellent Italian wine book, Grandi Vini, an opinionated tour of Italy's 89 finest wines. Now we are getting into some serious writing on Italian wines. With in depth details on wines and their producers, ranging from a superb Sangiovese from Emilia Romagna, to Barolos and a delightfully fresh, dry white Pietramarina from Sicily, Joseph captures the essence of them all. Every wine has its website information included. You will enjoy the hand-illustrated maps of locations of the wineries. Yes, Joseph's richly detailed descriptions of 89 of the world's best Italian wines will lead you to explore some of the world's finest wines. Great opinions and another must have book for any wine lover. I am planning my next visit to Italy.
Thank you Joseph.