Wine
gregladen | August 4, 2015A guest post by Robet Hollander, Winemaker
2redWinery, makers of the award-winning Ziniphany© Zinfandel and #2red is 38% towards goal on Indiegogo with all proceeds supporting prostate cancer research through the Robert and Susan Hollander Foundation, an IRS approved 501c3 organization. Campaign supporters, in exchange for their tax-deductible support, can secure wine from the 2015 vintage or from the award-winning wine library of 2redWinery.
Robert Hollander, the winemaker and principle of 2redWinery, started small-volume winemaking in 2007 to indulge a long-standing passion. Passion…
pgleick | July 16, 2013
The evidence from real-world observations, sophisticated computer models, and research in hundreds of different fields continues to pile up: human-caused climate change is already occurring and will continue to get worse and worse as greenhouse-gas concentrations continue to rise.
Because the climate is connected to every major geophysical, chemical, and biological system on the planet, it should not be surprising that we are learning more and more about the potential implications of these changes for a remarkably wide range of things. And while it is certainly possible – even likely – that…
pontiff | October 19, 2009The grapes have been picked up
and the fermenting has (hopefully!) begun. This year I'm trying two types of grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese.
terrasig | September 20, 2009I'm not drinking these days but scribbler50 at Behind the Stick is still my favorite bartender.
This week, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Yea verily, go forth this morning and read.
terrasig | July 3, 2009As I agonized over what I'd write about for this week's installment of The Friday Fermentable, my Wine Authorities newsletter arrived followed by their tweet on their inaugural music video.
Wine Authorities, my local wine merchants and community gods, have been spreading the gospel of rosé wines as a summer alternative to the red wines we enjoy most of the rest of the year. But contrary to the sweet white zinfandels and such that might turn off those who enjoy good wine, there is now a plethora of foreign and domestic wine offerings (and values) that show off red grapes in a lightly-crushed…
terrasig | June 26, 2009
Figure 1. SouthernFriedScientist (@SFriedScientist) and Kevin Zelnio (Deep Sea News; @kzelnio) and their 40s preparing to leave to attend the 4th International Symposium on Chemosynthesis-Based Ecosystems - Hydrothermal Vents, Seeps and Other Reducing Habitats - in Okinawa, Japan. Yes, Dr Zelnio, those are absolutely gorgeous beards.
I don't know if Kim Severson of the New York Times knew this when writing her thought-provoking article earlier this week, but it coincided with the annual meetings of the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA) and the College of Problems on Drug Dependence (…
terrasig | May 16, 2009So it's a bit late on a Saturday here and I will not try to snow you into thinking that I actually had a Friday Fermentable post that I just accidentally forgot to post yesterday.
However, I wanted to leave you with a link to a column by the husband and wife wine columnists for "Tastinggs" at the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy J Gaiter and John Brecher. Dottie and John capture the vibrancy of wine and its role in celebrating life like no other pair in the business.
They are serious but are not snobs - they encourage the full enjoyment of life that includes wine. Plus, they are the only wine…
pontiff | May 11, 2009This weekend was bottling weekend. Bottled up nine gallons of cab, Il Monstro Viola (this was the year that the purple monster in our front yard died) yielding 55 bottles of wine. Interestingly the two carboys I used had distinctively different tastes, one had a much stronger oak taste than the other. But both batches, this year, had a lot less of that "juice" taste than my previous years. Off to storage you go, Il Montro Viola:
terrasig | May 8, 2009I was having a lovely conversation this week with scribbler50, our beloved blogging bartender at Behind The Stick. Describing him as "just" a blogger does not do him justice; scribbler50 is a writer. If you haven't been over to Brother Scribb's crib, do yourself a favor and read a few of his essays. In fact, read the whole archives.
Scribb and I got into a discussion of wine connoisseurs sometimes being as pretentious and annoying as the single malt scotch drinkers about which he has written with piercing accuracy and humor. Thinking that perhaps he had offended me, he qualified the…
razib | April 30, 2009
I'm in the mood for a "feel good" story with the past week's fixation in swine flu. Half A Glass Of Wine A Day May Boost Life Expectancy By Five Years:
The Dutch authors base their findings on a total of 1,373 randomly selected men whose cardiovascular health and life expectancy at age 50 were repeatedly monitored between 1960 and 2000.
Here are the findings:
And men who drank only wine, and less than half a glass of it a day, lived around 2.5 years longer than those who drank beer and spirits, and almost five years longer than those who drank no alcohol at all.
Drinking wine was strongly…
terrasig | April 17, 2009Our dear colleague, Erleichda, is back with another wine dinner experience. For those new to the blog, Erleichda is my slightly-senior colleague from whom I have learned a great deal about life and science. Recently retired from the discovery and development of life-saving anticancer drugs, he posts routinely on the escapades of his travels and wine dinners with his friends, known by the name "Jim's Disciples" to acknowledge their recently departed founder. This is an older column that I missed posting awhile back so here it is for your enjoyment.
Another Wine Experience: Dinner Paired…
terrasig | April 10, 2009This week's Seder supper with the Zivkovic family and local friends gave me the opportunity to investigate several Kosher wines from Israel. My local wine merchant, Wine Authorities, has been carrying several Israeli wines for over a year but I've only tasted one and have unfortunately lost my notes on that one. You can read descriptions on the four they are currently offering: go to this link and then click on "Israel."
Co-owner Craig Heffley tells me that he and his partner, Seth Gross, have tasted about 40 wines in the last year with 20 being quite reasonable and 10 outstanding.
Briefly…
terrasig | April 3, 2009
Arikia Millikan, then-Intern at ScienceBlogs.com (now gainfully employed Ex-Intern), demonstrates her facility in liveblogging the comparison between two pinot noirs.
So why has it taken me exactly 11 weeks to write this post? I think it's because once we post it, I have to let go of how awesome this event was. But, this post has been sitting in my queue for way too long. So, now, I must finally tell all regular readers about our proposed live winetasting on 16 January at ScienceOnline'09.
As you may know, about 240 science bloggers and associated miscreants gathered in Research Triangle…
Fullsteam Brewery founder and local-ag guru, Sean Wilson, to appear on WUNC-FM's The State of Things
terrasig | March 18, 2009The local food movement is not local here in the sprawling US. Hence why am posting this note here.
North Carolina beer saint and local-ag brewer, Sean Lily Wilson, will be on the radio in about an hour. We featured Sean back in January when the state's flagship newspaper named him Tar Heel of the Week for his efforts to modify our draconian beer laws to allow high-gravity beers, especially many of our European favorites, to be sold statewide.
Sean's a good man, a great dad, and epitomizes community on so many levels. If you're not local, you can listen to him together with two other…
terrasig | March 9, 2009
I'm very proud today to see one of my formative professors, Dr Fulton Crews, quoted extensively in a USAToday article on a new, web-based alcohol awareness initiative, "Rethinking Drinking," from NIH's National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Division of Treatment and Recovery Research.
While many associate heavy drinking with liver problems, it can also increase the risk for heart disease, sleep disorders, depression, stroke and stomach bleeding. Consumed during pregnancy, it can cause fetal brain damage, says Fulton Crews, director of the Bowles Center for Alcohol…
terrasig | February 20, 2009While I get to finishing my post on the much-ballyhooed ScienceOnline'09 winetasting, I'd like to share with readers a fantastic wine essay by MIT Professor of Science Writing and multiply-decorated journalist, Thomas Levenson. Tom also writes The Inverse Square Blog where each post includes at least one illustration as beautiful as his writing. Tom is also author of the upcoming book, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist, currently scheduled for release on 4 June 2009.
I had the lovely pleasure of sitting between Tom and Rebecca Skloot…
terrasig | February 13, 2009Like many of my readers, I am continually blown away by the parenting skills and science education abilities of my friend and colleague, Dr Janet D Stemwedel (aka Dr Free-Ride). Among her many gifts is her Friday feature with her family documenting how kids learn about science. And like her commenters state, I'd love to see these posts compiled into a book.
As an aside, having children returns one, whether one likes it or not, back to the days of asking "why" about everything (or, more appropriately, being forced to answer why about things you've taken for granted for 20 or more years). One…
terrasig | February 5, 2009
As I alluded in last week's post, a friendship struck up with Australian wine writer, Philip White, led me to the outstanding artistry of George Grainger Aldridge. I asked Philip how I might engage Mr Aldridge in designing the official avatar for The Friday Fermentable series and he set me up with George. I sent George two, real-life photos of me appropriately enjoying a Thorpe Estates McLaren Vale Reserve Shiraz (as he is also in South Australia) and suggested that he read the blog a bit to get a feel for my personality. Within two weeks, Mr Aldridge sent me these three drawings.
I was…
terrasig | January 30, 2009Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, is a place that many have told me I must visit (although perhaps not now as they are experiencing record heat). In fact, a twist of science and friendships nearly brought me there for my sabbatical before I had a big change in my life. The University of Adelaide is outstanding (and home of colleague and Astroblog blogger, Ian Musgrave), the surrounding wine appellations are world-famous, and the mountains to the northwest would be a combination I'm told I'd be certain to enjoy.
Therefore, I was delighted to receive the following e-mail on 3 January from…
terrasig | January 2, 2009Let's face it, after the holidays I'm not terribly interested in drinking any beer or wine for the next two weeks.
However, two weeks from today will mark the beginning of ScienceOnline'09, the online science communications unconference being held in our little ol' neck-o-the-woods. Being as how I'll have the chance to meet so many of you then, I'd like to throw out the idea of having a live Friday Fermentable.
On the evening of Friday, 16 January, conference attendees will be gathering at the Radisson RTP headquarters hotel bar and Sigma Xi conference center between returning from…