TheWino.net

Snooth.com: Wine 2.0

A friend sent me a link to this really cool web 2.0 (for a lack of a better term) wine site called Snooth.com.  Snooth allows users to create their own set of rankings, review wine, aggregates both user opinions and professional ones and create friendships with other wine fanatics.  I've felt for a long time that the web needed this, and as I mentioned on my fantasy football league blog, PAFFL.com, yesterday on a post for a Indianapolis Colts social network, there is a need for passion vertical networks. 

I've been away...

work has been crazy but I've still been maintaining my wino ways, just not reporting on them as frequently as I'd like. 

Water vs. Wine

My wonderful grandfather sent me the following 'joke' email, which normally I would simply chuckle but thought it was an important, albeit childish, story to us 'classy' WINO's out there.   Here it is in its entirety:

"It has been scientifically proven that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1  kilo of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of Poo. However, we do not run that risk when drinking wine or rum,  whiskey, beer or other liquor because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

Atherton Wine Theft...

Between this past December 27th and January 4th, a resident of exclusive Atherton California was burglarized, but in a unique twist all that stole was wine, valued up to $100k.  In all the burglars got away with 450 bottles of wine, including a rare $11,000 1959 magnum from the Château Pétrus in Bordeaux, France.   However to put this all in perspective, the lead detective on the case, Sergeant Todd Wade, also is investigating a murder in nearby East Palo Alto. 
“An 18-year-old girl was shot point-blank in the head and I received no calls about it,” he said. “The wine theft? A gazillion. It kind of shows you where people’s values lie.”  In Atherton, Sergeant Wade is on to something :)

Red Wine Increases Human Longevity?

In a study by researches at Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging released yesterday, there is growing evidence that the natural compound of resveratrol may slow aging and block diseases associated with rich diets. 

"The significance of the study on a scale of 10 is 11 in the aging and longevity field," said Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., who didn't take part in it.  But he cautioned that the study didn't prove that resveratrol slows aging. That's because blocking the diseases associated with rich diets isn't the same as retarding general aging, which isn't considered a disease.

WWF Supports the Continued Use of Cork...

As reported by Vinography.com, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) is fighting against a study that claims over 95% of wine closures by 2015 will be alternatives to cork.   Their fight is with the potential cork industry demise, specifically stating that it would cause poverty, would be harmful for certain animals, would result in more forest fires and is a sustainable activity.  Furthermore they claim that alternative closures are generally bad for the environment.  The Vinography article on this can be found here.

Judgemet Day: Part Deux - 30 years later...

In an thirty year anniversary re-enactment of the "Judgement in Paris" this past weekend in simultaneous tastings in London & Napa, the results were surprisingly the same.  California wines took the six of the top ten spots in the Bordeaux category, and each of the first five.  Showing once again that not only could those wines hold up against the best France had to offer at a young age but they've held their ground over 30 years.  San Francisco Chronicle had the details

Wine Spectator Blogging...

Wine Spectator, the old venerable wine magazine, has stepped into the twenty-first century with a list of blogs from their core writers.  Though the structure of the blogs themselves leave a little to be desired, the fact they're conforming to new publishing techniques shows that they're willing to evolve.  I appreciate their efforts. 

The individual blogs are:

Harvey Steiman

James Laube Unfined

James Suckling Uncorked

James Molesworth "Stirring the Lees"

Marvin R. Shanken's Blog

Wine Drinkers Healthier?

In an article from this month's Wine Spectator, a study that came out from the BMC Public Health, says that light or moderate drinking of wine was not associated with being overweight or obese.  According to the report, nondrinkers (those who consumed one or two drinks a day) were 54 percent and 41 percent, respectively, less likely to be obese. Furthermore the study showed that people who purchased wine often purchased less harmful foods, whereas beer drinkers purchased quick meals, highly processed foods.

Again though its studies like these that are often self selecting.  Meaning wine drinkers are already health conscious relative to the general population.  That said its good to see further confirmation that drinking wine, in moderation, can be (and should be) part of a healthy diet.

Napa Luring Upscale Visitors..

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article in today's paper about Napa's focus on upscale visitors and their desire to reduce the number of partygoers.  The story says Napa winemakers use to happily give tastings away tastings but today commonly charge between $10 & $20 per person. 

Niebaum-Coppola has even taken the extreme measure of changing its Napa Valley grounds, renaming it the Rubicon Estate and charging $25 fee for every visitor who wants to enter the grounds.  Their goal is to reduce the crowds and party revelers who took advantage of the location for years. 

What wine lovers know is that the industry has matured and the days of free pours are long gone.  I believe this evolution is good for anybody who cares about the beauty of Napa Valley and want the quaintness of the experience to persevere.