Wine
terrasig | June 7, 2007Another Wine Escapade - "Some Old World vs. New"
by Erleichda
Our wine and dinner group known as Jim's Disciples met recently at a BYOB neighborhood Italian-American restaurant. It wasn't my neighborhood, as there is nothing close by to the woods where we reside, but the sort of place a neighborhood would be proud to call its own, a gem of a place, tucked away on a darkened side street. The organizer for this evening's entertainment thought we might scrutinize old world versus new, of whatever grape varieties we felt like comparing. And, to make it interesting, each pair of wines brought…
terrasig | May 4, 2007In a fitting end to what became simple math week here at Terra Sig, an article by Tara Parker-Pope in the Wall Street Journal addresses the issue of supersized alcohol portions. A subscription is required so I'll quote heavily.
Considerable data has accumulated to suggest that there are health benefits from one alcoholic drink per day for women or two drinks per day for men. But Parker-Pope notes that as stemware has grown bigger bowls to fully experience the aromas from swirling wines, we are pouring wine servings that cause us to border on binge drinking.
Binge drinking is defined by the…
terrasig | March 30, 2007No real wine column this week, although you may care (or not) that I am enjoying a glass of 2003 Thorpe McLaren Vale Shiraz Reserve while writing. Australian winemaker Linda Domas is highly favored at my local wine wholesaler and this intense but nicely balanced Shiraz is made even more lucscious by the fact I paid about $20 for a wine that now retails at $35-45.
But I digress.
I've wanted to share with readers my love for The Week, digest of the best of US and international media that has been published for about five years. If I can't get around to reading my local paper, The Week does a…
terrasig | March 23, 2007I must extend hearty apologies to my colleague, wine and research mentor, and guest blogger Erleichda for overlooking a great wine column he wrote for Terra Sig back in November. November! How could I overlook a post whose third paragraph begins, "The evening began with three different champagnes..."?!? As The Friday Fermentable has been running on-and-off, I should be more grateful to him for keeping this Friday fun feature alive. So, here ya go - cheers!
Recent Wine Experiences : A Pinot Noir Revelation
By Erleichda
I grew up with limited exposure to wine, primarily my father's…
terrasig | February 23, 2007Do you have some ancient bottle of wine someone gave as a gift and you are waiting for that "special night" to open it? Well, tomorrow night is "that" night.
We all seem to accumulate bottles of wine as souvenirs or gifts from overseas trips, weddings, birthdays, etc. and always think we need some special occasion to open them. Unfortunately, too many of these bottles go way past their prime waiting for that special occasion. We rarely give ourselves license to open those bottles.
As a remedy to this situation Wall Street Journal wine writers, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, established…
terrasig | February 16, 2007The Friday Fermentable has been the unfortunate victim of my aim to lose some weight by cutting alcohol out of my diet. Since mid-November, I have lost 14 pounds but am now permitting myself two glasses of wine on each weekend evening. Hence, I am choosing carefully.
(I should note, for the record, that a dear cancer research colleague of mine remarked upon hearing of my new "diet," that "it is irrational for any scientist to intentionally remain sober, especially in this funding climate.)
So, in easing back in, The Friday Fermentable shall be short and will derive from today's "Tastings"…
terrasig | December 16, 2006This is too late for The Friday Fermentable, but the NYT has a great travel article yoga and wine retreats to be offered at DeLoach Vineyards in California's Sonoma Valley (one of my favorite zinfandel producers).
Of course, this Americanization of an Eastern practice is not without its detractors:
"Kundalini does things to balance your nervous system," Ms. Elkes said. "And then for you to go do something that changes that? It's going to affect your nervous system after you've done all this work to balance yourself. You'll soon find out that drinking and Kundalini don't go well together."…
terrasig | November 10, 2006Readers of this near-weekly feature have been the beneficiaries over the last few weeks of the wisdom from my scientific and wine colleague, Erleichda.
Now with the feature back in my hands, I am now realizing that one difficulty in keeping up is finding wines of value that are widely accessible to readers, geographically and financially.
For example, I would love to share with you a glass of what I am enjoying currently this Friday evening: an indulgent glass of 2003 Thorpe Reserve Shiraz from the McLaren Vale of South Australia. Crafted by expert winemaker, Linda Domas, the best way I…
terrasig | November 8, 2006Natural products is an interesting field of science since various parts of it appeal greatly to different segments of the general public.
Hence, we are very excited and honored to be recognized by the culinary functional foods and nutraceuticals blog, Eating Fabulous, written by Ruth Schaffer at b5media.
Interestingly, we were recognized for our general content on dietary supplements. I must certainly make Ms. Schaffer aware of the intermittent weekly installments of The Friday Fermentable, especially with the more culinary contributions of my more learned oenology and cancer research…
terrasig | November 3, 2006Another Wine Escapade: Valle du Lot
by Erleichda
Sweetpea and I enjoy hiking as a platform for vacationing (when we're not partaking of some beach spot). We've managed to attract a few likeminded fellow hikers, and are now able to customize our adventurers to suit our collective preferences. One of my only preferences has been that we visit a place that is known for their wines. In early May, we and three other couples set forth for the Lot Valley of SW France.
Not as well known as nearby Bordeaux, or Provence, at least not by Americans, the Valle du Lot has been a thriving…
terrasig | November 2, 2006Earlier this week during Chris Mooney's NC visit, I noted two articles in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times on reports of caloric restriction (CR) and the possibility that some drugs might replicate the health benefits of CR. The coincidence seemed quite odd, so I suspected that some major scientific publication was in the hopper.
Indeed, as revealed by Shelley Batts at Retrospectacle, the red wine antioxidant resveratrol has now been shown to increase lifespan in mice in a paper reported in this week's issue of Nature (btw, vote for Shelley here to receive a $5000 student blogger…
terrasig | October 5, 2006This other thing called the day job has interfered with my finishing the last bit of the curcumin series (on the piperine/Bioperine bioavailability enhancer) and a new post for The Friday Fermentable. I've also got some biz travel scheduled today, so I hope that gives me some wine and/or beer fodder for next week.
In the meantime, I urge readers interested in herbal remedies for cancer to revisit this week's posts:
Curcumin for Cancer: Part OneCurcumin for Cancer: Part Two
And, for those inclined toward the fruit of the vine, please be sure to read last week's Friday Fermentable by guest-…
terrasig | September 17, 2006A back alley conversation among several ScienceBloggers is the impetus for this week's post.
A couple of weeks ago, Dave Munger over at Cognitive Daily asked all of us about our favorite cheap wine deals. So, with the permission of my SciBlings, I thought I'd let the readership in on the discussion and suggestions:
From the Mungers:
1. Jaja de Jau (nice Cotes de Roussillon, with great bite)
2. Goats do Roam (Grenache/Syrah from South Africa)
3. Antica Corte Valpolicella
A couple that used to be good but have fallen off in recent years. If you're still drinking these, you can find better:
1…
terrasig | July 28, 2006Welcome to our 2nd installment of The Friday Fermentable, Terra Sigillata's Friday fun-blogging feature. You can read our mission statement at the original post last week, but the goal, briefly, is to celebrate the particular class of natural products that result from the yeast-based fermentation of sugars from grapes, malted barley, and any plant-based sugar source. Our target audience is the graduate student or postdoc who, in my day, was usually pretty poor but starving for culture and knowledge (Shelley Batts' $25K graduate stipend at Michigan notwithstanding).
So, I spoke last week of…
terrasig | July 26, 2006This week's 'Ask A ScienceBlogger' focuses on reports such as those in National Geographic and DailyKos that global warming is having, and will progressively have great influence, on wine grape-growing. The idea is that grapes grown for premium wine production are much more sensitive to climate than table grapes or many other agricultural products, making them an excellent living laboratory 'canary in a coalmine." A very appropriate question this week as we launched our feature, The Friday Fermentable, last week.
This issue has been bandied the wine industry over the last several years but…
terrasig | July 21, 2006Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Friday Fermentable, the end-of-week fun feature of Terra Sigillata. As I was on vacation and sick last week, I did not accomplish my goals of wine and beer tasting to share with you specific recommendations this week. So, let us take this week to explain our philosophy:
The mission statement for The Friday Fermentable is:
1. To celebrate the convergence of agriculture, biology, botany, chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, neuroscience, pharmaceutics, and the pharmacology of natural products and herbal medicines in the production of historically-…
terrasig | July 14, 2006As alluded to on ScienceBlogs.com editors' Page 3.14 blog, many of us are formalizing our more light-hearted posts on Fridays to coincide with the inevitable dropoff in internet traffic and reality-based work.
I had intended to launch today "The Friday Fermentable," my views on the joys of partaking in the diversity of products resulting from biochemical conversion of glucose to ethyl alcohol by Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other yeasts, and the alchemy of other long chain alcohols, organic acids, and esters.
I was particularly excited because I am on vacation and am currently holding court…