by Cat on January 27, 2012
If you’re like me, you probably think of things like Fraternity parties and sports fans at tailgate parties when you think of binge drinkers. Surprise, YOU may actually meet the criteria for a binge drinker. For women, it means more than four drinks on one occasion, for men, more than five drinks. A single bottle of wine has about five drinks.
How bad is it? The Center for Disease Control released a new study that found that more than 38 million Americans binge drink more than four times a month, resulting in more than 80,000 deaths a year.
“Alcohol is addictive,” said Dr. Manny Alvarez. “It’s attached to depression and anxiety. Now that you have people drinking excessively very frequently – these are high income people making $75,000 or above – this is setting a bad example for young people.”
As we might have expcted, the study noted that those in the 18 to 34-year-old bracket make up the bulk of those who binge drink. But for those of us past (or well past) that age group–we’re not in the clear. Only about 4 percent of people 65 and older binge drink, far fewer than adults in other age groups. But they do it more often — five times a month, on average. Younger adults average closer to four episodes per month.
For more on this story, follow this link.
by Cat on January 26, 2012
There are close to a hundred bottles in my wine cellar–not because I thoughtfully plan to cellar bottles that will improve with aging–but because I can buy a lot faster than I can drink.
Most of us buy wine to drink it. Estimates range from 70% to 90% of all wine bought is consumed within 24 hours of purchase. Even more amazing, 95% is drunk within a week.
But suppose you and I decided to that we would be more specific in our purchases and give wine collecting a try. We’d want to buy with the thought that we wouldn’t be drinking any of these bottles for way longer than a week. And I don’t know about you, but my pocketbook doesn’t stretch to terribly expensive wines so I wouldn’t want to spend a fortune. I’m willing to spend more than the average that people pay for a bottle, which is about $6.22, but I’m not comfortable above about $30 a bottle.
Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, who wrote the wine column for The Wall Street Journal until 2009, had some great suggestions for picking beginning a cellar back in 2003. For one thing, they suggested you start small and only plan to buy a case of wines for cellaring and then plan to keep it for only two to three years before you beginning trying out the wines. I think I can survive delayed gratification that long.
While some of their suggestions may be dated, I think they form a great skeleton for a cellar collection. Among their ideas are vineyards for a mid-range California Cabernet, American wines including a Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, and Italian and French choices. One surprise was that they recommended laying down an American sparkling wine, like Roederer Estate Brut from California. They say they have found that good California bubbly seems to calm down and get richer and nuttier with even a little bit of cellaring.
Once upon a time I believed that the older a wine was, the better. That was until we opened bottle after bottle of Dom Perignon 1963 for a Millenium celebration in 2000–only to taste bottle after bottle of sparkling vinegar. It turns out, according to Gaiter and Brecher, you should NOT cellar French Champagne. Oops!
To see their specific suggestions, follow this link.
Will Lyons, current wine columnist for WSJ, has slightly more expensive tastes. His cellar is meant to be the repository for wines you can pull out for all occasions. But his five year group might help you amplify your choices since wines from Chile, Australia, and New Zealand have come on strong since 2003. He says: “Look to Bordeaux, the Rhône Valley, Burgundy, Australian Shiraz from Coonawarra, Syrahs from New Zealand and many Portuguese reds. These are your wines that can be aged for five years or more, will improve with time and are fascinating to taste as they evolve.”
To see the rest of Will’s suggestions, click here.
After you finally choose your wines, the rest of the directions are pretty simple: take your case of wine and lay the wines flat in a place where it’s dark, with a moderate temperature. Keep them out of the light, out of the garage, away from the kitchen and the stove. A cupboard under a staircase or a basement space can be good as long as it stays cool. The ideal wine cellar temperature is between 55ºF and 58ºF. If you don’t keep your house that cold, any temperature between 40º–65ºF can work, as long as it remains constant.
by Cat on January 25, 2012
You’re going to be able to take a look at the wine business from a different angle on January 29. Rick Tigner, president of Kendall-Jackson Winery, will be one of the next bosses to go undercover during the upcoming third season of the two-time Emmy Award-nominated reality series, “Undercover Boss.”
Kendall-Jackson, a family-owned winery, is the first winery to be featured on the show. The episode will follow Tigner, in a disguise so effective that even his close associates were fooled, as he explores all aspects
of handcrafted winemaking, from vineyard to bottle and everything in between.
The show airs on CBS at 8 PM ET/PT.
Kendall-Jackson is a Sonoma County-based winery that is best known for its estate-grown Chardonnay. To visit the Kendall-Jackson website, click here.
by Cat on January 24, 2012
Would you like a pill that that could instantly sober you up no matter how much you’ve had to drink, or a hangover cure that worked minutes after taking it? We may get to find out soon. Researchers are about to begin human trials on an “alcohol antidote” that may soon offer a cure to alcoholism, reports New Scientist.
The drug is a chemical called dihydromyricetin, or DHM, and is derived from a Chinese variety of the oriental raisin tree, which has been used for at least 500 years in China as an effective hangover cure. So far the extract has only been tested on rats, but with promising results.
Rats took 70 minutes to get back on their feet after the equivalent of 15 to 20 beers, but with DHM it only took five minutes. Instead of cowering at a maze, like rats do with a hangover, with DHM they were back to being normally curious.
It could be an amazing boon to those fighting alcoholism if it works the same way in humans that it does in rats. Jing Liang, lead researcher in the study, gavey boozy rodents a choice of drinking a sweetened solution of alcohol or sweetened water. Over a period of three months with DHM treatment, rats drank only a quarter the amount of alcohol that rats given no treatment drank.
Some scientists worry that it would be a bad idea to have this kind of instant cure available. They worry that people would drink more if they didn’t have to suffer the consequences.
For more on this story, click here.
by Cat on January 23, 2012
I just ran across an article in Decanter.com that says China has overtaken the U.K. as the fifth wine-consuming nation in the world.
Here’s the problem with statistics–it’s really hard to know exactly what they are saying.
Doesn’t it sound like the Chinese are drinking a LOT of wine? Not so much. What it’s really saying is that there are a LOT of Chinese and if each one drinks a little, it’s still more than the smaller population in the United Kingdom. Per capita the Chinese drink just 1.9 litres of wine while the statitically losing British drink about 26 litres per person.
By comparison, French and Italian average yearly consumption per adult is expected to be around 50 litres by 2015 while Americans will be consuming an average of 13 litres per capita by the same date. By that year the Chinese will be up to 2 litres and the British down to 24.
To read the whole article, with lots of confusing statistics, follow this link.
The site’s source is Vinexpo from the annual study by The International Wine & Spirit Research.
For another look at the stats, click here.
by Cat on January 22, 2012
I’m a breast cancer survivor. I’m a wine drinker. Every time there is a new study that links the two, I pay close attention.
I also pay close attention when there is positive coverage for wine consumption.
But there’s something akin to tennis game between researchers. One side does a study that links breast cancer and wine directly. The other side does a story that shows the benefits of resveratrol, found in red wine, to protect the heart from damage, prevent one type of blindness, fight off some viruses, and 64 more pages of stories on the effects of reserveratrol on the Wine Industry News website.
So an article titled “The Truth About Breast Cancer and Drinking Red Wine—or Any Alcohol” would catch my eye. Author Elaine Schattner cites lots of big studies that come down on the side that drinking does increase the chance of breast cancer.
She puts the findings from the Nurses’ Health Study, which involved over 105,000 women monitored from 1980 until 2008, up against the most recent study of 36 premenopausal women which seemed to say a bit of red wine might prevent breast cancer.
As much as I would like to go along with the tiny study and enjoy my red wine without guilt or fear, the data from over 105,000 women trumps those findings. In the Nurses’ Study, investigators found that even moderate alcohol consumption — as few as three drinks per week — was associated with a statistically significant, slight increase in breast cancer rates. What’s more, the study revealed an apparent dose-response, adding credibility to the carcinogen hypothesis. The more a woman drank over the course of 20 years, the more likely she was to develop breast cancer.
That doesn’t mean there are no positive effects from resveratrol. Just that it’s a bad bet if you want to avoid breast cancer. And, from a personal point of view, if you can avoid it–you should.
To read Dr. Schattner’s essay, which is full of good facts and excellent thinking, click here.
To read more about the small study, follow this link.
by Cat on January 21, 2012
Would you know which has the most alcohol? The choices are a one-third of a bottle of red wine, three Red Bulls with a shots of vodka, or a Stella Artois premium lager
In a survey of over 2,000 British adults, just 9% identified that a large glass of red wine (250ml) contains the most units of alcohol. 43% of consumers thought that the vodka and Red Bulls contained the most units of alcohol, and 8% of adults thought that a pint of 5% Stella Artois premium lager had the most units.
The answer: red wine has the most units of alcohol.
by Cat on January 20, 2012
Most people in years past went for a sparkling wine for their New Year’s celebration and on Valentine’s Day–and that was all. It looks like the trend is changing. What appears to be driving the growth in sparkling wine is the segment of consumers–estimated at around 9 million, and female-dominated–who say they like to drink the bubbly stuff at least once a week. Many of these people say that sparkling wine is their favorite drink, ahead of still wine. That’s according to the Wine Intelligence USA Sparkling Report 2012.
The surge in popularity may be thanks to two Italian and Spanish imports: Prosecco and Cava. Prosecco has been growing rapidly in popularity and is now consumed at least once every 2 months by a quarter of the sparkling wine drinking population – a similar penetration to French Champagne. Cava is growing rapidly from a lower base and is benefiting from the recent surge in interest in Spanish cuisine.
The growth spurt is also fueled by the fact that Prosecco and Cava tend to be on the “affordable” side. Snooth.com lists over eight thousand Proseccos and only 14 of them cost over $50. Top price is over $223 for Borgoluce Prosecco Valdobbiadene Extra Dry.
The Spanish Cava is even more “affordable.” Of over six thousand, there are only a dozen listed that cost over $50 and the prices on Snooth.com top out at $122, which buys you a bottle of Recaredo Reserva Particular Brut Nature.
Contrast that with the over 40 thousand Champagnes on Snooth.com, and the hundreds that cost over $150 per bottle.
For more on the growth of sparkling wines, click here.
by Cat on January 19, 2012
The people from Portugal who support Port–and who consider the only true Ports come from Portugal–are sponsoring a contest for a photo of a Port label.
To enter the Contest, (i) send a picture of an authentic Port label to wineorigins@clsdc.com with the subject line: “Port Day 2012 Label Contest Entry” or (ii) post the picture to your Facebook profile and tag yourself and the Center for Wine Origins in the picture. You have to be at least 21 to enter.
It doesn’t have to be a fabulous picture to win, as they’re going to pick the winner randomly. The more entries, the better your chance. The Grand Prize winner will receive an iPad 2 (16 GB Wi-Fi model; average retail value: $499).
For all the details on this contest, click here. Your entry must be submitted by 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time on January 25, 2012 but sooner is better!
This all ties in with “Port Day” on January 27th, sponsored by the Center for Wine Origins. The inaugural event encourages the celebration of this unique wine that only comes from Portugal.
Port, like Champagne, is the name of a specific area and only products of that area are supposed to use the name Port. True Port only comes from the Port appellation in Portugal, one of the world’s oldest regulated and demarcated wine regions. Port grapes are grown in the Douro Valley, located approximately 60 miles from the city of Porto, where Port gets its name. The Douro Valley is surrounded by rugged mountain ranges that produce a hot, dry climate. While the flaky, arid soil presents unique challenges for the winemakers who build row upon row of terraces, it’s the combination of the climate and soil that makes Port unlike any other wine. That’s why its name can only be used on a label if the grapes and the wine are produced, under strict controls, in the Port appellation.
For more on “Port Day” and what you can do to celebrate, follow this link. For more on this story, click here.
by Cat on January 18, 2012
This winter, escape to Wine Country and enjoy exclusive offers in Sonoma County and Walla Walla. Alaska Airlines offers daily flights to Sonoma County from Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle. Or visit the center of Washington’s wine country with daily flights to Walla Walla from our Seattle hub.
As an added benefit, don’t forget that you can check one box of wine free of charge when you travel on Alaska Airlines from either the Santa Rosa/Sonoma County or Walla Walla airports.
Sonoma means vineyard-covered hills, dramatic Pacific coastline, and ancient groves of towering redwood trees. It also means farm-to-table restaurants where California cuisine was born and small, organic farms that have been in families for generations.
•Pamper yourself with lodging specials ranging from luxurious hotels to historic inns, romantic B&Bs and modern campgrounds. Stay along the winding coast, among the redwoods, or in a casual urban setting. You can even stay tucked among the vines at such places as Landmark Vineyards.
•Wineries have sweetened the deal with numerous specials: Indulge in complimentary tours, free tasting passes, special deals off wine purchases, and more.
Learn more about exceptional offers available in Sonoma County.
A visit to Walla Walla will give you a wintertime break just as the ski season finally freezes up in Washington state. Here are just a few of the great offers in store for you:
•Tasting fee waivers at over 70 of Walla Walla’s most renowned wineries
•2 for 1 tickets to Ski Bluewood
•2 for 1 tickets to the Fort Walla Walla Museum
•Pay for 2 nights of lodging and receive the third night free at lodging establishments located throughout the Walla Walla Valley.
Learn more about these and other great offers in Walla Walla.
