Free Republic

Bae Yong Joon may be one of the few oenophiles still living in Korea based on wine's dropping popularity on the peninsula. (Photo courtesy of Arnaldo Bassini) Wine sales in Korea are continuing to decline according to a Dec. 8 Korea Times article. The Korea Customs Service told the Times that 2009 (at least the first 10 months) was the first year they noticed a decline in wine sales in Korea since the Asian financial crisis reached its zenith in 1998. However, the South Korean government expect wine imports from Europe and South America to improve after recently signed free-trade...

There is Protestant drinking and there is Catholic drinking, and the difference is more than mere quantity. I have no scientific data to back up my claims, nor have I completed any formal studies. But I have done a good bit of, shall we say, informal study, which for a hypothesis like this is probably the best kind. To begin with, what is Catholic drinking? It's hard to pin down, but here's a historical example. St. Arnold (580-640), also known as St. Arnulf of Metz, was a seventh-century bishop of Metz, in what later became France. Much beloved by...

I was driving on Riebli Road near Santa Rosa, Calif. on Nov. 1 and noticed this sign by some vines of New Vine Zinfindel(Zin). It is owned by Bastoni Vineyards, according to WineMap. The US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) reported that the 2008 average price for Sonoma County Zin, which is the basis for determining the grape sale contracts of the 2009 harvest, was $2,485.66 per ton. That's about $1.25 per pound. This is less than half that price.

PARIS – Over the years, the chief sommelier had forgotten they were there. And when the four bottles of 1875 Armagnac Vieux were finally unearthed from the labyrinthine wine cellar this week, they were covered in a black fungus that looked like matted cat fur. The landmark Tour d'Argent restaurant, which dates back to 1582, is cleaning out its 450,000-bottle wine cellar, considered one of the best and biggest in the world. It is putting 18,000 bottles up for auction in December, an event that has captured the imagination of French wine lovers. The restaurant is selling mostly wine but...

Veteran actor Sean Connery has refused to give up his favourite red wine even after been diagnosed with a heart condition. The former James Bond star has been warned to stop drinking alcohol by medics but he refuses to give up, as he believes it is good for his health. “I do drink red wine because of my friend David Murray, who owns two French wine estates. He showed me the evidence that it was good for the health,” the Daily Express quoted him as telling Wine Spectator magazine. “I favour Merlots from Chile for their value and I keep...

The blessings of the grapesBy Kate Gonzales Posted: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:35 AM CDT Father John Finley sings hymns Sunday with children after he has blessed Lavender Ridge Vineyard grapes. Enterprise photos by Kate GonzalesFinley blesses thousands of grapes with holy water. Enterprise photo by Kate GonzalesLavender Ridge Vineyard owners Rich and Siri Gilpin added an extra ingredient to their winegrapes this weekend: holy water. Friends, family and employees of the Gilpins traveled out to their vineyard along the rolling golden hills of Milton to enjoy the second annual ceremony of the blessing of the grapes. “It's just new...

Christine Vernay was on holiday in Missouri when she got the call. It was August 12 2003 and the French vineyard owner was not due to return home for 10 days; the harvest on her Rhône valley estate would begin in late September. But then a friend from the same village, Condrieu, called her husband’s mobile phone. “The grapes have ripened early. You need to come home now,” he said. France was sweltering in the most extreme heat wave on record. Christine and her husband, Paul Ansellem, caught the first flight back but by the time they reached the vineyards...

(Rising temperatures may have a devastating effect on the way French wines are made, destroying the industry.) French wines, the country's pride, are looking at a grim future failing an ambitious deal on climate change at the upcoming United Nations summit in Denmark, 50 top chefs, winemakers and Greenpeace warned Tuesday. "Climate change has made vines increasingly vulnerable," the group said in an opinion column in the daily Le Monde. "Wine," they added, "is the result of an alchemy between a native soil, or terroir, and generations of winemakers. Today this alchemy is in danger." Because of the global rise...

Scientists from Scotland and Singapore have unraveled a mystery that has perplexed scientists since red wine was first discovered to have health benefits: how does resveratrol control inflammation? New research published in the August 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal, not only explains resveratrol's one-two punch on inflammation, but also show how it - or a derivative -can be used to treat potentially deadly inflammatory disease, such as appendicitis, peritonitis, and systemic sepsis.

Dense and opulent, with a sweet nose, $20K bottle of wine stolen in Hopkinton August 1, 2009 07:34 PM By Terri Schwartz, Globe Staff This was no bottle of "Two Buck Chuck." A Hopkinton liquor store owner says thieves stole a bottle of wine worth $20,000 from his store.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Alabama's ban on a wine that features a nude nymph on the label became a business opportunity for a California vintner who is preparing a marketing campaign to capitalize on being "Banned in Bama." The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board recently told stores and restaurants to quit serving Cycles Gladiator wine because of the label. Board attorney Bob Martin said the stylized, art-nouveau rendition of a nude female with a flying bicycle violated Alabama rules against displaying "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner." Bill Leigon, president of Hahn Family Wines in Soledad, Calif.,...

Researchers concluded that levels of sexual desire were higher in women who were moderate drinkers of red wine than in their counterparts who preferred other alcoholic drinks, or were teetotal. One theory put forward by the team of Italian doctors who carried out the study is that chemical compounds found in red wine may improve sexual functioning by increasing blood flow to key areas of the body. The researchers said: "While this finding needs to be interpreted with some caution, it nevertheless suggests a potential relationship between red wine consumption and better sexuality." In the project, described as the first...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- A wine label showing a nude nymph is too racy for Alabama's liquor control agency, which has told restaurants and stores not to sell the product.

When Korbel Champagne Cellars’ owner Gary Heck sued to find out who was saying nasty things about him on the Internet, he might have been surprised to discover an answer so close to home. The anonymous critic on Craigslist was his daughter Richie Ann, according to papers Korbel filed in Sonoma County Superior Court. Heck and Richie Ann Samii are embroiled in a bitter legal fight over a multimillion-dollar stake in Korbel, America’s top seller of traditional sparkling wine.

Seoul to enforce new restrictions on goods going into N. Korea By Tony Chang SEOUL, July 9 (Yonhap) -- Seoul will stiffen control of South Korean goods going into North Korea, mostly banning luxury items such as wine and fur, the Unification Ministry said Thursday. The restrictions, to take effect as of Friday, are in accordance with U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1874 adopted after North Korea's second nuclear test on May 25. The resolution prohibits weapons trade with Pyongyang and calls on member states to tighten the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after its first nuclear test in October 2006....

Well, pour yourself a glass of vino to go with that lobster tail tonight because wine prices have fallen so much, winemakers in Australia are complaining that wine is now cheaper than some bottled water. WATER! Dan Murphy, a major wine-retail chain in Australia, is currently selling cleanskins, bottles of wine without a label that are usually sold in a case, for 1.99 Australian dollars, or about $1.60, the Sunday Mail reports. That’s less than half of what wine cost 10 years ago, the New York Times reported. “Australia can’t even bottle air and make money selling at that price,”...

In a surprise discovery that may help boxed wine shake off its image as a gauche alternative to bottles, scientists in Canada are reporting that multilayer aseptic cartons (a.k.a. 'boxes') may help reduce levels of substances that contribute odors to wine and can lower its quality. Gary Pickering and colleagues note that trace amounts of chemicals called alkyl-methoxypyrazines (MPs) are generally negative to wine quality, masking the desirable fruity and floral flavors and giving wine an unpleasant green taste. With the wine industry still searching for a way of reducing MP levels, the scientists decided to look at the effects...

Alexander Autographs A bottle of wine from Adolf Hitler’s personal wine cellar at his mountain retreat, the Berghof. It was supposed to be a straightforward news story: an auction house was finding that items believed to have belonged to Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were in high demand, even in a recession. But a coincidence along the way led to a mystery. It all began when the auctioneer, Alexander Autographs, in Stamford, Conn., announced the sale of possessions from the respected collector John K. Lattimer. Building on connections made during his time working at the Nuremburg war tribunals, Dr. Lattimer...

NASHVILLE – It’s not wine in grocery stores, which is dead for this year, but Tennessee wine drinkers will be legally able to buy limited amounts of wine from out-of-state wineries for shipment here under a bill that won final state legislative approval today. Efforts to pass similar legislation have failed for the past several years in Tennessee but is now on its way to Gov. Phil Bredesen, who has not signaled any opposition and is expected to sign it into law. If he does, it goes into affect July 1. The bill allows out-of-state wineries to register with Tennessee...

ROME - Italian authorities have just reported a national outbreak of Wine Flu. They say that it is the first such outbreak since the dreaded Perry Como Wine Flu Epidemic of 1989. Noted Italian Wine Flu Expert Giardino Tortellini stated that the early symptom of the Wine Flu is an insatiable craving to listen to Frank Sinatra records. He added that this is soon followed by the urge to pour Italian Wine on everything from breakfast cereal to baloney sandwiches, and fish sticks to chewing gum. The next stage is an obsessive desire to say typical Italian phrases such as...

DRINKING up to half a glass of wine per day can help you live up to five years longer - at least for men, according to a new study. The impact also depends on the exact amount drunk - more than half a glass starts bringing life expectancy down again, according to researchers from Wageningen University in The Netherlands. "Drinking wine was strongly associated with a lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and death from all causes," said the study. Effects varied, however: men who drink up to 20 grams of any type of alcohol per...

Supermarkets are arranging wine tasting sessions around "good" and "bad" days as dictated by the lunar calendar. So does the Moon really change the taste of wine? A German great-grandmother called Maria Thun is wielding huge influence on the British wine industry. A calendar she first published in the 1950s categorises days as "fruit", "flower", "leaf" or "root", according to the Moon and stars. Wine is best on fruit days, followed by flower, leaf and root days. The worst day is marked as "unfavourable" in the calendar. (See factbox below for forthcoming "good" and "bad" days). Tesco and Marks &...

Restaurants boost business in recession with BYOB deals: Bringing your own bottle of wine to your favorite restaurant is getting cheaper and more popular. With sales and traffic dwindling, many restaurants are either offering BYOB nights or chopping the "corkage" fee to open bottles bought elsewhere, to entice more wine-drinking diners to pay for a meal out. "My fiancee and I are wine freaks, so we have been going to more BYOBs as a way to continue to drink great wine while not blowing our budget," said Christopher McGrath, a 26-year old money market trader and liability manager who lives...

Pro-Palestinian activists who picketed a Toronto liquor store got more than they bargained for as customers swarmed the store and bought out the entire inventory of Israeli wine in 30 minutes. The Canadian version of "Freedom Riders" motorcycle club was also present. Video at link.

YAKIMA, Wash. — With more than 600 wineries across Washington state, a legislative proposal to sell state wines at the Capitol's gift shop was intended as a toast to the booming industry. But some brewers in the nation's largest hop-growing region say their products should be included, too. A bill sponsored by Rep. Bob Hasegawa, D-Seattle, would allow the Legislative Gift Center on the first floor of the Capitol building to add bottles of Washington wine to its ample product display, which includes locally produced candies, candles, gourmet foods and flowers.

Jerry Mullane, vice president of state for Anheuser-Busch, just weighed in with a statement about the increased excise tax on beer. "We have made it clear to legislators that this shortsighted proposal will threaten jobs at breweries, wholesalers, suppliers and retailers in Central New York and throughout the state," Mullane said. "We strongly urge legislators to reject this proposal when it comes to a vote before the Assembly and Senate." Legislative leaders agreed in a three-way budget proposal unveiled today to keep wine out of New York grocery stores. But they approved an excise tax hike on beer -- albeit...

The wine steward Kermit Lynch has been preaching the sermon of simplicity over prestige since opening his shop in Berkeley, Calif., in 1972. Here, Lynch has put together an assortment case exclusively for The Moment — the only quantifier being cheap, but not cheap tasting. Prosecco — Palazzo di Sommariva; $15 I have a weakness for Prosecco, yet it took me years to find this classy, crisp, dry, minerally example. 2007 Graves Blanc — Chateau Graville-Lacoste; $19 An unusually delicious, impeccably vinified dry white Graves, as versatile in its uses as wine can be. 2007 Calvi Blanc “E Prove” —...

The world's oldest champagne, bottled before Victoria became Queen, is still drinkable, with notes of "truffles and caramel", according to the experts. An "addictive" bottle of 1825 Perrier-Jouet was opened at a ceremony attended by 12 of the world's top wine tasters. Their verdict: the 184-year-old champagne tasted better than some of its younger counterparts

FRONT ROYAL, Va., March 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- Do you drink wine? Millions of people do, but most are unaware of the fact that many winemakers give financial support to Planned Parenthood, the world's leading pro-abortion behemoth. "I like a glass of wine every now and then," said Thomas C. Strobhar, chairman of Life Decisions International. "I am appalled that so many winemakers fund the Culture of Death. I urge my fellow pro-life activists to let winemakers know that they have a 'choice.' They may continue to fund Planned Parenthood and lose a lot of business to competitors or they...

Welcome To The Hiney Winery The Hiney Winery was established in 1979 by Uncle Harry Hiney. He had the idea of putting his Hiney in a flip top disposable can. Family friends convinced him that his Hiney was too good to keep to himself so they bought the warehouse behind the library and the rest is history. Since that time people all over the area have been enjoying Hiney Wine. The tradition is being kept alive by Harry’s two nephews, Big Red and Thor, who refuse to put their name on their Hiney until its perfect. That way you know...

TO the anger of the wine industry and disbelief of lovers of a good drop worldwide, the French Government has told its people to stop drinking wine. The French Health Ministry has made alcohol one of the chief villains in a drive against cancer. "The consumption of alcohol, and especially wine, is discouraged," say guidelines drawn from the findings of the National Cancer Institute. A single glass of wine a day will raise the chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 per cent, claims the ministry's brochure. Forget those 1980s findings that antioxidants in wine were good for health,...

I am a, well, maybe not avid home vineyardist, but at least a guy who tries to grow wine grapes. (If my lazy efforts produce anything drinkable it is usually nothing short of miraculous.) My home state of Missouri is one of the larger winegrowing regions (hovering around tenth largest) in the United States, and Missouri wines are exceptional, garnering innumerable medals at competitions worldwide-including in contests in California. Missouri wines are so good because Missouri is a lousy place to grow good wine grapes, which means that extra care has always been required to produce fine wine. It is...

Drinking just a small glass of wine a day can more than double the risk of cancer, a study claims. It says that consuming just one 125ml glass of wine increases the chance of developing mouth and throat cancer by 168 per cent. Other cancers are also more likely to strike regular drinkers, the study by France's National Cancer Institute (INCA) reports. Dominique Maraninchi, INCA's president, said: 'Small daily doses of alcohol are the most harmful. There is no amount, however small, which is good for you.' The findings go against previous research, which has found that the antioxidants in...

The biggest online wine retailer in the US is quitting the state of Michigan in protest at a new law which bans retailers from shipping wines to consumers. While Michigan's retailers can deliver wine to neighbouring Ohio, they are banned from doing so in their own area, unless they use their own employees to do so. The law specifically bans the use of third-party delivery services such as FedEx and UPS. Now online retailer Wine.com is exiting Michigan, claiming that the state is 'missing an opportunity' and will lose valuable tax revenues as a result of the new law. The...

Marinating beef in red wine or beer may reduce the levels of potentially cancer-promoting compounds, according to a study from Portugal. According to researchers from the University of Porto, the beer or red wine marinade reduced levels of heterocyclic amines by up to 88 per cent. Heterocyclic amines, formed during the frying or grilling of fish and meat, are reported to promote carcinogenesis in humans. In addition, the beer marinade was found to produce a final product with the “usual overall appearance and quality of the pan-fried steaks”, wrote the researchers in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. In...

“The Widow Clicquot,” Tilar J. Mazzeo’s sweeping oenobiography of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, is the story of a woman who was a smashing success long before anyone conceptualized the glass ceiling. Her destiny was formed in the wake of the French Revolution when, Mazzeo suggests, “modern society — with its emphasis on commerce and the freedom of the individual — was invented.” Barbe-Nicole, daughter of a successful textile maker turned Jacobin, is portrayed as someone whose way of doing business helped define the next century. Fate cursed or blessed her with the mantle of early widowhood. Her husband, a winemaker from...

Chinese passenger brings festive cheer to Aéroports de Paris and Aelia with €46,423 duty free wine purchase – 25/12/08 Source: ©The Moodie Report By Martin Moodie FRANCE. A Chinese passenger yesterday created an all-time individual purchasing high for Aéroports de Paris by spending €46,423 on a range of great French wines. The shopper made the purchase at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport Terminal E’s La Galerie Parisienne store, run by the Société de Distribution Aéroportuaire retail joint venture with Aelia. The traveller bought the following wines: – Côtes-du-Rhône La Tche 1991 – Château Lafite Rothschild 1947 – Chateau Petrus 1986...

All that chocolate might actually help finish the bumper Christmas crossword over the seasonal period. According to Oxford researchers working with colleagues in Norway, chocolate, wine and tea enhance cognitive performance.

It's always difficult shopping for someone with doesn't need socks or pajamas. But if you are lucky enough to have a wine enthusiast in your life, then finding the perfect gift is easy. Wine and its accessories have become so pleasingly proletariat that you can keep the cost under $20 and still score a top rating from the grateful gift recipient. And if you want to splurge, there are some get-serious options like the new Williams-Sonoma Wine Club or a jolly good bottle of Cabernet. Here are a few suggestions for the wine lover on your list: •There's an aroma...

A new insight into the reason for aging has been gained by scientists trying to understand how resveratrol, a minor ingredient of red wine, improves the health and lifespan of laboratory mice. They believe that the integrity of chromosomes is compromised as people age, and that resveratrol works by activating a protein known as sirtuin that restores the chromosomes to health. The finding, published online Wednesday in the journal Cell, is from a group led by David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School. It is part of a growing effort by biologists to understand the sirtuins and other powerful agents...

We don't run too many press releases from businesses, but this one was too novel to pass up. Keep reading: Student traveler to Israel launches a unique product for Christians A student traveler from Atlanta, Georgia took a trip to Israel and came back with a business to benefit the Christian community. The fruit of that trip is The Grapes of Galilee™, wines produced in the historic land where Jesus dwelled. "The history of this wine is something that we can all share together," says UC San Diego student Adam Haroz, who with his father founded Haroz Vintners. "I hope...

An organic wine from Chile has oenophiles in San Francisco turning up their noses. But there’s nothing wrong with the wine. It’s the name that bothers them: Palin Syrah. The wine from a boutique vineyard in Chile was once a strong seller, but now it’s an outcast in the City by the Bay because its name comes way too close to a certain governor from the state of Alaska, says Celine Guillou, co-owner of the Yield Wine Bar. Palin Syrah — pronounced Pay-LEEN — takes its name from a ball used in a Chilean-style hockey game, and it has been...

An organic wine from Chile has oenophiles in San Francisco turning up their noses. But there’s nothing wrong with the wine. It’s the name that bothers them: Palin Syrah. The wine from a boutique vineyard in Chile was once a strong seller, but now it’s an outcast in the City by the Bay because its name comes way too close to a certain governor from the state of Alaska, says Celine Guillou, co-owner of the Yield Wine Bar. Palin Syrah — pronounced Pay-LEEN — takes its name from a ball used in a Chilean-style hockey game, and it has been...

A wine's quality has little to do with terroir. The champagne producer Johann-Joseph Krug (1800-1866) said “a good wine comes from a good grape, good vats, a good cellar, and a gentleman who is able to co-ordinate the various ingredients”. “Terroir” did not come into it. Nor did the down-to-earth German emigré make any mention of “old world”. Today the evidence is clear that he was right. Witness the frenzy of France’s winemakers in their attempts to hold on to market share against the determined assaults of the New World. Terroir and its associated mystique are at best exaggerations. The...

As of this moment, the state of affairs between Israel and the Arabs is discouraging from the Israeli standpoint and encouraging from the Arab point of view. Everything appears to have been reversed: If in the past Israel relied on its wiles and the Arabs fell for its ruses, now the relationship has been turned upside down, as so often happens in life. Again and again, we encounter this reversal of roles. Once, unable to deal with the superiority of Israel's cunning, the Arabs were sustained by delusions or waited for miracles. Now the situation is topsy-turvy: The Arabs rely...

A vintner is alleging that the man who wants to open a retail wine store on North Santa Cruz Avenue in Los Gatos told him "God will punish" him if he spoke out against the application. Entrepreneur Rahul Ravulapati, who owns a winery in Livermore, says he never threatened anyone and accused the vintner, Fred Faltersack, and other Los Gatos wine makers of discrimination. "These people are blackmailing me," Ravulapati said after the July 9 planning commission meeting, where commissioners unanimously recommended against approving the permit. The dispute started last month when Ravulapati called local vintners to ask if they...

Rosé, long dismissed by purists as uncultured plonk, has overtaken white wine in volume of sales in France, buoyed by a fashion for pink. While much of France's wine growers battle lower consumption and persistent overproduction, pink wine - which comes into its own in the summer heat - is enjoying la vie en rose as never before. It is estimated that more than one in five bottles of wine sold in France is a rosé, with the gains coming from falling red sales. A hot summer could push the amount of rosé drunk to more than half of all...

The Bordeaux region's St Emilion wines have been stripped of their top classifications by a French court, which has ruled that "grand cru classés" labels should be taken off bottles. The ruling follows a year-long legal fight by four wine makers whose wines were demoted in 2006. They argued that the system used to rank wines after a tasting was "partial". "It's an aberration to condemn the classification over so little," said Nicolas Thienpont, owner of Chateau Pavie-Macquin, recently awarded the second highest rank of St Emilion premier grand cru classé. "All those who have worked so hard to move...

Two wine presses found in Egypt were likely part of the area's earliest winery, producing holy wine for export to Christians abroad, archaeologists say. Egyptian archaeologists discovered the two presses with large crosses carved across them near St. Catherine's Monastery, a sixth-century A.D. complex near Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula. (See a map of the area.) More presses are likely to be found in the area, which was probably an ancient wine-industry hub, according to Tarek El-Naggar, director for southern Sinai at Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Weeks after discovering the first wine press, excavators unearthed a nearly identical...

I have hang over of Biblical proportions. As in my head is splitting like the Red Sea. Fire and brimstone are flying from me like the wrath of an Angy God. I believe the Germans caused this by immigrating to Texas and brewing a concoction known as "Shiner Bock." Anyone have any suggestions?