The Friday Fermentable
terrasig | November 14, 2008While I'm still compiling and formatting yet another fabulous overseas wine experience from Erleichda for today's main Friday Fermentable, I experienced a bizarre convergence last evening after writing my post on my dissertation defense anniversary.
After plowing through my post, I was catching up on Google Reader and was pointed to the latest post by writer-bartender, scribbler50, and his new blog, Behind the Stick. You must go read his post on, "yet another annoying snobbery afoot in that place I like to call bar-land. . .the newly minted single malt connoisseur."
The post by scribbler50…
terrasig | October 31, 2008Much hubbub is to be had today over the work of Dalhousie University mathematics professor, Dr Jason Brown, in solving the mystery of George Harrison's opening chord of The Beatles, "A Hard Day's Night," played on a Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar. The PDF of Prof Brown's report is available online.
As the report and article show, The Beatles did indeed record this in one take with no overdubbing such that Harrison could not have played the chord alone. We now learn from Brown's work and others that Harrison and Lennon played two different guitars but the nice flavor was added by producer George…
terrasig | October 24, 2008When you read The Friday Fermentable posts I've written, you know that I am not a wine writer or connoisseur but rather a wine enthusiast. (The posts by my colleague Erleichda, however, are far more content-rich.)
My original post launching this feature details my wine philosophy, one that reflects my general philosophy about life: enjoy life, learn about everything you can, but don't be a snooty, arrogant ass about it. Wine appreciation is meant, IMHO, to be inclusive, not exclusive.
Despite my not being a "professional" wine writer, I was delighted last week to receive a comment from Mr…
terrasig | October 17, 2008If you're in Australia or North America, chances are your first experience with Shiraz was in the form widely-available from Rosemount Estates. Shiraz is derived from the same stock as Syrah that is grown in France's Rhone Valley. The Australian "father of viticulture," James Busby, brought Syrah to the continent in the 1830s while collecting vines in Spain and France.
I think I bought my first bottle of Rosemount Shiraz in 1996 or 1998 for $7.99 USD; it can still be had for $10 or $11. In this grad student/postdoc-friendly price range, the wine was quite drinkable as compared with too-…
terrasig | October 10, 2008Another Wine Experience- A romp thru northern Italy: the Piemonte
by Erleichda
Following a week of hiking around lakes Orta, Maggiore and Como, the eight of us piled into a rented van with all our luggage and headed for the Piedmont (or Piemonte) region, home of dolcetto, barbera, barbaresco and barolo wines. Lucky us (or was it good planning?), we arrived in Alba just in time for lunch and a few hours before the beginning of the annual wine festival. More than 100 wine producers, and a thousand different wines, awaited our tasting glasses (10 euros for a wine glass as an admission price,…
terrasig | September 26, 2008I received this tip earlier in the week from a former PharmD student and Pharmboy lab alum who now lives in the SF Bay area. In saving it for The Friday Fermentable, I am now just another of the literally hundreds of media outlets covering the story.
If you haven't heard, there is a Chilean organic winery called Palin (but pronounced, 'pay-LEEN') that makes an organic Syrah, a lovely french wine grape.
I want to give credit (since the rest of the media hasn't) to San Francisco wine industry veteran, Amy Monroe, a marketing and sales associate at Ridge Vineyards, one of my favorite but now…
terrasig | September 12, 2008I can't believe that it's only been a year.
Back in March I wrote about the importance of local wine shops, community resources just as important as your library or local farmer. Therein I sang the praises of my local heros, Seth Gross and Craig Heffley, proprietors of Wine Authorities in Durham, NC, and their then-recent ink in Food & Wine magazine.
My latest Wine Authorities favorite is an unusual German Pinot Noir Spätlese from Weingut Schäfer in Mettelheim (US$18.99).
Yes. Red. German. A German Rhinehessen red. An overripe red. No kidding.
Their notes, accessible on their…
terrasig | August 22, 2008As a former resident of The Queen City of the Plains, my goal today was to write some travel tips for those bloggers attending the DNC in Denver next week.
However, I got a bit sidetracked by the case a couple of weeks ago about the gentleman who died of cyanide poisoning at a hotel near the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. You'll recall that "a pound" of sodium cyanide was also found with his dead body in room 408 of The Burnsley Hotel at 10th Ave. & Grant St. one needs only 50-100 mg of sodium cyanide to kill oneself so I still don't know what the other 453.9 grams was intended for.…
terrasig | August 1, 2008This morning our dear friend and colleague whose wine escapades often fill this spot awoke to the rewards of retirement. My senior cancer research colleague, Erleichda, has just closed the book on 30 years with a single pharmaceutical company, unheard of in today's climate of layoffs and jumping from one company to the next.
My friend began in this industry when it was still considered a noble pursuit and continued to be an ambassador for all that is good about pharmaceutical research & development, with his primary concern the welfare of those stricken with cancer and the cultivation…
terrasig | July 18, 2008Among my favorite wines are those made from old-vine zinfandel, defined as vines with an age of greater than 50 years. Immigrants to the US from Italy, as well as Croatia and Eastern Europe, planted vines in various parts of California over 100 years ago, well before systematic irrigation.
Most of these old, untamed vines were ripped out when the California wine industry exploded in the 1970s and were supplanted with nicely manicured and trellised vines possessing a more defined genetic heritage (and much greater yields per acre). The wily old zin vines that remain are true survivors,…
terrasig | July 11, 2008Another Wine Experience: A Romp thru Northern Italy's Lake Country
By Erleichda (about the author)
We touched down very early in Milan on what, for all eight of us, would mark the beginning of our hiking week in the Lake Country of northern Italy, a destination we had chosen after last year's successful Lot Valley (France) hiking experience. Sweetpea had to crash as she is circadian rhythm-challenged (easily jet lagged) while the rest of us got our leg muscles warmed up by walking to the Duomo and then climbing up to its roof for a great view of the city. By the time we walked to La Scala…
terrasig | May 23, 2008Another Wine Experience - Syrahs from Europe and the US
By Erleichda
We've been having so many of our wine dinners the past two years that the group has had to return to its favorite haunts. Such was the case one Friday evening as we set about to taste Syrahs from the US and Europe. I have generally preferred my Syrahs blended, which is to say accompanied by other grape varieties such as one finds in the Rhone wines from the south of France. But tonight it was to be a tasting of just Syrah.
Getting a head start before any appetizers arrived, we passed around the first bottle of the evening…
terrasig | April 11, 2008Another Wine Experience: North American Meritage
by Erleichda
The wine-dinner group met recently at a local unpretentious BYOB restaurant. We are surely fortunate to have so many of these restaurants in the vicinity for they curtail greatly our costs for dining out.
The theme for this evening's wine tasting was the blend of Bordeaux grapes known hereabouts as "Meritage." The term Meritage is a registered trademark, and red wines bearing this description must contain at least two of the grapes used in the mix found in the red wines from Bordeaux, i.e., cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet…
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…
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…
terrasig | January 5, 2008The e-ink wasn't even dry last night on my Friday Fermentable post about the Flying Dog Open Source Beer project before I received a comment from Josh Mishell, Creative Manager for the brewery:
Thanks for writing about our Open Source Beer! $12.79 is a great deal, considering we sell it out of our tasting room for $18, as well.
By a strange stroke of luck, your blog entry is very timely. Today is the first Friday of the month, and every first Friday, beer bloggers everywhere write on a common theme (we call it "The Session"). I think it's a unique thing in the blogger world, and love being a…
terrasig | January 4, 2008I can't believe I missed this earlier in the year: Colorado's Flying Dog Brewery created a beer based upon a basic recipe together with reader suggestions in what was called The Open Source Beer Project:
You are holding what we believe is the first Open Source Beer to hit the market in the United States. We started with a basic Doppelbock recipe and solicited suggestions from homebrewers on our blog. We took your comments and crafted this Doppelbock, aptly named Collaborator. The blog, the recipe, and the label are online at opensourcebeerproject.com, if you'd like to brew some yourself.…