A real quick weekend post. I have written plenty about the health benefits of wine and my affinity to Israel has also been well documented on this site. So when I stumbled on the following post I knew I had to re-post it here for all of you. Enjoy the article, “Researchers Develop White Wine With Health Benefits Similar To Red”.
Happy healthy WHITE wine tasting!
WTG
What a difference a little marketing & the word FREE can do.
I attended the Murcia region of Spain’s wine education event at Astor Center 2 days ago, followed by an intimate lunch at 81, a restaurant on 81st St in Manhattan yesterday. The events were set up by the same gentleman who set up the tasting I attended for Rioja wines (also at the Astor Center) about a month ago. The Murcia event, like the Rioja event, was free of charge, but the Murcia event seemed to have been advertised to the general public as opposed to the Rioja event which was more of an industry only event. Well, the marketing & cost (FREE) led this event to be PACKED full of…well, lets say packed full of people who like free wine!
Cheers to red wine & a longer life!!!
The NY Times had a few wine related articles today. The first, discussed a topic that has been written about frequently here, that of “resveratrol” – the wonder-drug contained in red wine. Previous reports had indicated that the amount of resveratrol in wine were nowhere near enough to be effective from simple wine consumption. But one of the sources in todays article notes “a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine “starts getting close” to the amount of resveratrol they found effective”, as opposed to previous studies that determined that “to gain (sufficient) dosages people would have to drink more than 100 bottles of red wine a day”. An interesting read that can be found here.
The other article titled “What’s the Peppery Note in Those Shirazes?”, talked about Australian (where Shiraz originated) researchers who sought to find out why there are peppery notes in Australian Shiraz. (more…)
I have recently written about wine service in restaurants. While it is a bit of a hot topic right now (depending on who you ask) I want to take the conversation in a slightly different direction; “by the glass service”.
To bring this all together, my issue with wine service in restaurants had to do with how servers were pouring wine, or more specifically, high much they were pouring in the glass. Frankly I felt that almost EVERY TIME I allowed a server at a wine bar to pour, they would invariably pour to a level that did not allow me to swirl the wine – thereby detracting from my full appreciation of said wine.
Today I bring up by the glass service as this is something offered at my restaurants and wine bars for those who want to try a wine, but may not be prepared to buy a full bottle. It is especially helpful if two (or more) diners want different wines. (more…)
I’m revisiting this topic having previously discussed it in an April post given a recent spat of articles.
The first is written by Christopher Hitchens in Slate who takes issue with waiters pouring wine from a bottle he ordered for reasons he states in his piece (interrupting a story, pouring so that customers will feel obligated to order another bottle, etc.). And more recently, Calgary sommelier Aaron Plamondon, who refutes Hitchens piece and “defends the service industry”. (more…)
