Comments for wine sooth

Comment on Let them drink Charles Shaw! by Jesse Porter

Jesse Porter — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:31:37 +0000

I don’t believe anyone’s suggesting that the White House serve Charles Shaw, but I can think of about a dozen “elegant wines” that “showcase the finer side of American culture” for under $40, and five or six dozen more for under $100. Should our elected leaders really make no effort to scale back their luxury consumption in times of financial strife — if only to offer some gesture of solidarity with the millions who are losing their homes and jobs?

There’s a reason the President’s salary is $400,000, well below those of the top CEOs (and other people who buy $325 bottles of Cab), and that’s because, at least in a symbolic sense, he’s supposed to be “one of us.” At a time when many Americans can’t afford to pay the rent, the President shouldn’t be spending the equivalent of some people’s rent checks on wine for dinner, no matter who’s visiting.

Comment on Party Games by Jerry D. Murray

Jerry D. Murray — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:59:55 +0000

Arthur,

Blind tasting certainly has its limitations and as Morton says above, some degree of context must be known to the taster even when tasting blind. In terms of reviewing wines, I think blind is essential to credability. Being honest about a wine, and fair, requires no biases based on preexisting opinion.
Mydailywine, I think a big part of the problem you talk about has nothing to do with tasting blind but tasting wine after wine after wine. One can take time with each wine and still not know what the wine is.

Comment on Party Games by mydailywine

mydailywine — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:43:12 +0000

I agree with you about blind tasting but for slightly different reasons.
I have judged at a few wine shows and sat at tables with very seasoned palates.
What happens during a wine tasting session is inevitable ( which is how we end up with all of these big broozers with high scores). After a certain amount of wines have been tasted, the palate is dulled and only wines with big fruit and alcohol stands out noticeably.
Subtle, austere wines lose out in this scenario every time.
If the wine reviewer could see which region and which year certain wines came from then the wine might get a different reaction, based on context.
So maybe we are saying the same thing, context matters.

Comment on Party Games by Morton Leslie

Morton Leslie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:29:07 +0000

The wine world might be a better place if we just tasted wine anyway we want to taste wine…and then kept our mouths shut. It’s not so bad that we tell everyone our opinions, it’s that some people actually listen to us. When a critic begins to make recommendations on the basis of who made the wine or who owns the winery which occurs more often than anyone will admit, then the idea of blind tasting is appealing.

In every blind tasting you need some minimal context. It’s reasonable to know what region or what variety or what wine type, but when the information is “who” we run into trouble.

I taste one bottle a day, never blind, but with a fairly open mind since the purpose of the tasting is to decide if I am going to drink that bottle with dinner. I see no need to talk about it unless my wife asks me my opinion.

Comment on Show your work. by wine sooth » Blog Archive » Party Games

wine sooth » Blog Archive » Party Games — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:07:40 +0000

[...] Blind tasting is a fun exercise. But it levels the field the wrong way. Wines should be evaluated in the context of cepage and terroir. This is what Appellation America’s Best of Appellation program is about and it is exactly what I argued for in a recent post. [...]

Comment on Of numbers and friends. by Arthur

Arthur — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:00:44 +0000

Thanks for dropping by Amy.

I remain a dedicated OWC member. I am just spread too thin to carry out OWC Administrator duties properly.

Comment on Of numbers and friends. by mydailywine

mydailywine — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:52:28 +0000

Hey Arthur, Intriguing post that explores ideas I often think about. LinkedIn and OWC are of interest to me while Facebook does not usually. I think that is because there is a common interest amongst my OWC and Twitter gang ( wine) and facebook for me is just time sucking friends from high school.
Sorry to hear you will not be involved with OWC anymore?
You are a valuable part of the online wine community, no matter where you apply your time.

Comment on Yeasts Gone Wild: Part 1. by Nick

Nick — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:26:36 +0000

In Principles and Practices (Boulton, Singleton et al.), the concurring opinion to yours was published back in 96. This is (was?) a principle text used for teaching at UCDavis, and though published in 96, has no information (on our yeast topic) newer than 90. Professor emeritus Mortimer, a yeast geneticist from UC Berkeley, concluded a study of uninoculated fermentations in 93 or 94 I think. He found that: Almost all of the vineyards he looked at had S. cereviseae on the grape surface. The yeast doing the fermenting were the same as those found on the grapes. The average number of different S. cereviseae strains per fermentatuion was four. Each strain dominated a different part of the fermentation.
No contention was made vis the flavor contribution from these yeasts. The study was contributing information to the possible source of the yeast, and the number of different strains present.
What any decent UC VEN student can tell you is that the S. cereviseae hanging out on the grape skin is biding its time: They are metabolising aerobically, taking one six carbon sugar and producing 32 ATP, and doing this very slowly, very stingily, making the most of a very scarce resource. When a grape skin is compromised and abundant six carbon sugars become available, S. cereviseae switches its metabolism to fermentative, and though only making 2 ATP per six carbon sugar, quickly overwhelms all other microoganisms by dint of sheer reproductive rate.
That there are very few S. cereviseae on the grape surface proves nothing. They are fully capable in such small numbers to outcompete the competition. Not that I’m taking sides.
I have more on this. Does anyone have any further info on Mortimer’s research and any follow up studies?

Comment on Of numbers and friends. by Jack

Jack — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:01:32 +0000

You might want to look at Multiply.com. It’s structure is setup more for maintaining close contacts you want to have. Not a ton of request from those that find you or your business concept interesting and are just wanting to, as you put it “Friend up.”

Will you still be my friend Authur? LOL

Comment on Of numbers and friends. by Arthur

Arthur — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:48:50 +0000

By the way, Edward, Facebook has let me reconnect with grammar school friends (from 20+ years ago). I get honestly overwhelmed by all the “gifts”, “pokes”, etc. It’s hard to keep up with it all.