Grapevines, Kunde Estate, Sonoma
Who knew that California wine country had seasons? I didn’t!
(Autumn at Valley of the Moon winery, Sonoma)
Last night’s dinner: charcuterie, fromage, et vin, at Buvette Chez Simone, in Montreal’s Mile End.
C’etait Magnifique!
NY Times gets a winning headline
This story shows up in the most popular stories on NYTimes.com today. I think it’s almost exclusively on the headline word choice (though the article is pretty interesting too, in a nerdy sort of way).
Lack of Sex Among Grapes Tangles a Family Vine
TweetFor the last 8,000 years, the wine grape has had very little sex. This unnatural abstinence threatens to sap the grape’s genetic health and the future pleasure of millions of oenophiles.
he lack of sex has been discovered by Sean Myles, a geneticist at Cornell University. He developed a gene chip that tests for the genetic variation commonly found in grapes. He then scanned the genomes of the thousand or so grape varieties in the Department of Agriculture’s extensive collection.
Much to his surprise he found that 75 percent of the varieties were as closely related as parent and child or brother and sister. “Previously people thought there were several different families of grape,” Dr. Myles said. “Now we’ve found that all those families are interconnected and in essence there’s just one large family.”
Thus merlot is intimately related to cabernet franc, which is a parent of cabernet sauvignon, whose other parent is sauvignon blanc, the daughter of traminer, which is also a progenitor of pinot noir, a parent of chardonnay.
This web of interrelatedness is evidence that the grape has undergone very little breeding since it was first domesticated, Dr. Myles and his co-authors report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
![Well This Is Something You Don’t See Every Day of the Day: 500 and one-thousand liter self-serve wine tanks have been popping up in supermarkets across France, and — regulations permitting — could make the trip across the pond within a year.
The cost-savings are passed on to the consumer in the form of low prices of 1.45 euros/liter (about $2/liter). She installed her first machine in June 2009 at the Cora supermarket in Dunkirk and now has them installed in eight supermarkets in France. The wines vary; one is a 2009 from the Rhone, technically a vin de pays méditerranée.
Unleaded please.
[thedailywhat:consumerist.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l8ssu8Ryls1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Well This Is Something You Don’t See Every Day of the Day: 500 and one-thousand liter self-serve wine tanks have been popping up in supermarkets across France, and — regulations permitting — could make the trip across the pond within a year.
The cost-savings are passed on to the consumer in the form of low prices of 1.45 euros/liter (about $2/liter). She installed her first machine in June 2009 at the Cora supermarket in Dunkirk and now has them installed in eight supermarkets in France. The wines vary; one is a 2009 from the Rhone, technically a vin de pays méditerranée.
Unleaded please.
(Source: thedailywhat)
So after guilty-pleasure-watching the latest episode of Real Housewives of DC, I started to wonder about just how awful the Salahis are, and wondering about their (or Tarek’s mother’s) vineyard, Oasis Winery.
I was simply amazed at the lack of grammar, spelling, and general proofreading on the front of their website. See for yourself (and don’t worry about finding out who named them a “Top 10 winery in the world” — it’s not mentioned, but it may have been Michaele Salahi):
About Oasis
Celebrating over 33 years of winemaking in Virginia
Just under an hour drive from our Nations Capitol near the Blue Ridge Mountains, lies the world famous winery and wine experience - “OASIS”. Oasis Winery is a premium boutique winery, Rated Top 10 in the World, and can be found in select premium locations such as Relais & Chateuax properteries to 5 star Hotels to your local wine merchant - and in some instances exclusively available at the winery via Internet orders or a personal visit to the winery. The Oasis setting is majestic and breathtaking as the winery visitors center and the vineyards overlook the US National Park/Skyline Drive. Oasis, one of the oldest vineyards in the state, offers visitors both a romantic and comfortable retreat, in addition to facilities to host meetingsl lunches, dinners and special events. The view from the winery is like a mural painted by Mother Nature; a vista of row after row of vineyards set on gently rolling hills, with a beautiful water fountain centering out of the lake, framed by the majesticmountains towering behind, offering cool gentle breezes on Oasis award-winning viticultural practices. (via Oasis Winery. Rated Top 10 in the World! - The OFFICIAL and authorized website of Oasis Winery, Oasis Vineyards, Oasis Enterprises)
Pennsylvania to reform alcohol sales by introducing wine vending machine, with a catch…
Dear state alcohol boards, Rube Goldberg called, and he wants his machine back:
The vending machine dispenses bottles of wine like a soda machine does, but there are a few hoops to jump through before a purchase can be made.
Here’s how it works. A customer inserts a driver’s license and then looks into a camera. Someone at a call center makes a quick judgment about if the person on camera is the same person on the driver’s license. Then, the customer must breathe into a Breathalyzer. According to the NY Daily News, state officials say the whole process takes 20 seconds. (via Wine vending machine complete with breathalizer | MNN - Mother Nature Network)
Or you could just allow grocery stores to sell beer or wine, and have the cashier check ID. Or you could continue your hodgepodge “you can buy a six-pack in a bar, or you can go to a beer distributor, or you can hit up a liquor store” system and add something else that nobody’s asking for. And to top it off:
there isn’t a single Pennsylvania wine being offered in these machines. There are more than 100 wineries in the state, but not a single one of the state’s wines is being offered in any of the 53 options per machine.
Not that PA wines are great shakes — but you’d think that a revenue generator might want to generate some revenue for local small businesses, right?
(h/t Jack)
