| To: Savant who wrote (437) | 1/8/2016 5:48:32 AM | | From: sense | | | | "Ultimately, for most folks, you're correct...the price point is v.important to most folks...
Both for the casual users...(on the modest prices)...and to the snobs, that like to brag about how expensive it is."
Yeah. Can't ever get away from the issues with the $ for long. My focus in wine interest tends to be on "the best"... by which I mostly mean truly well made, small production, artisanal wines... and well cellared wines worth the cellaring... which doesn't mean I don't appreciate the fact, as a consumer, that the biggest changes that have occurred in wine in the last half century haven't been at the high end in quality. Market reality today is that there really isn't much "bad" wine being made now... and that wasn't close to being true 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Still, with winemaker buddies it is usually more fun to uncork something entirely new to them... or something older... than something "known" that they should be "impressed" by because of what it costs... which, to people who can taste, is a pretty foreign concept.
I do know people who always want to talk wine... by leading with how much (high figures) they paid for this or that bottle... which, at the best, shows they use $ as a market proxy for quality, given an inability to tell the difference, otherwise. A lot of consumers are quite easily sucked into the "fad" generation focused on some "hot" new or hard to get label, or "limited release" products, etc., and end up overpaying as a result, for what is still fairly ordinary wine, that simply costs them a lot more without value for the $. Reality is some consumers genuinely want to pay more, for wines like that... because what they paid is an important part, to them, of being able to enjoy what they bought. As a producer, there's really no way to satisfy those customers, or give them what they want... other than by charging them more. I find that pretty twisted, personally... but I don't deny the truth of it. People who I tend to share with more often, will instead tend to brag on how little they paid for some wine of unusual quality that they've found in the market...
I find a problem with the inverse, too... as there's a whole new genre of snobs out there whose focus is on avoiding ever paying more than $10 or $20 for a bottle while bragging to others about believing that wine is really only for quaffing in quantity, not for "appreciating", and that others talk about quality for $ is only snobs talking bullshit. Given a market largely focused on immediate drinkability at the low end, the fact they can't taste the difference between a decent $10 quaffer for now and something of greater quality worth cellaring is perhaps an important personal benefit... but still not something to brag on. The lack of an educated palate... isn't much of a bragging point, either... not that there's ever any utility in debating the inverse snobs, given they really can't tell the difference. Reality today is... more if you can't tell the difference... you shouldn't ever have to pay more than $10 or $20 for "really good" drinkable now wine... which still leaves a pretty significant gap, for those who can tell the difference, between "really good" and "the best there is"... as tends to be true in most things. |
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| From: Savant | 1/19/2016 8:47:48 PM | | | | | | New grape hybrid....
A GLASS OF WINE BEFORE TURNING IN
A single glass at night could mean a peaceful, uninterrupted nights sleep.
NEW Wine for Seniors , I kid you not.....
Clare Valley vintners in South Australia,
which primarily produce
Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot
Grigio wines,
have developed a new hybrid grape
that acts as an anti-diuretic.
It is expected to reduce the number of trips
older people have to make to the
bathroom during the night.
The new wine will be
marketed as
PINO MORE |
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| To: Savant who wrote (435) | 2/26/2023 10:02:02 PM | | From: sense | | | | Meanwhile... 7 years later...
Yeah, the article is not wrong in relation to the numbers... but, it is wrong in not quite fully and correctly connecting the dots... and wrong in attributing any "nefarious" intent...
Winemakers typically respond to two primary concerns...
They care what the critics (and thus also consumers) think of their products... and they care that what they do in the winery sustains compliance with the rules...
The first problem there is that consumers might "say" they want to consume lower alcohol wines... but, that's not what they actually "demand"... either when perusing critics evaluations in making choices, or when tasting the wines themselves.
But, for those who DO want that... there are brands that have adopted that feature that deliberately... to make reduced alcohol or even alcohol free products... but, which products, almost no one is going to mistake as that "great wine" that they want ?
The Science Behind Nonalcoholic Win
The article you posted gets that mostly right... that the "features" consumers want tend to come paired with "riper" fruit... while "riper" fruit, for the most part, requires grapes with higher sugars... and higher sugars means either higher alcohol wines, or wines with a higher residual sugar content. California has been, for a long time, trending along that line in consumers preferences... by producing wines with BOTH higher alcohol... and higher residual sugar levels in wines that are no longer "dry"... but creeping up toward 1% residual sugar. That's not my preference in wine... Not a huge fan of Cabs (etc.) with that sweet mid-palate and sweet cloying finish.
It IS possible, still, to get "riper fruit' with lower alcohol... which you accomplish by growing grapes in cooler climates... where longer hang times with much less heat have grapes ripen a lot more slowly... and make "fruit" faster than "sugar"... but, with corresponding requirements imposed by the climactic difference. "Cool" vineyards... mean you can ripen only a fraction of the fruit you might ripen in a warmer site... so, probably, in the range from 2 (ideally) up to 4 tons to the acre... while in warmer sites you can get the same ripeness from fruit cropped at 8 to 12 tons to the acre, or more. So, you might choose to drink better quality "cooler site" wines from France, often with sugar added to get them up to 12% alcohol, and much higher natural acidity (which they're not allowed to add), rather than wines from (relatively) smoking hot vineyards in Napa or Sonoma, with 14.5% alcohol (even though not allowed to add sugar), with 1% residual sugar, and no acid at all... except for that they've added (which they are allowed to do) ? [ Naturally, the rules are different in different places... to disallow you from doing that which you have no real need for... while criticizing competitors for doing it.]
But, most consumers don't want to know any of that... and they aren't expert tasters... they just know what they like, and want to be allowed to like it without over-thinking what that is. That means both that they like those features paired with higher alcohol... but, also, that they don't trust themselves too far in judging wine quality, so "like" what they're told is good by Wine Spectator... or, whichever critic or review they follow as best matching their own preferences. And, beyond that, what you think is "good"... depends on where you are. Frenchmen generally prefer "fruitier" in terms of European wines, with higher acidity. American's prefer "fruitier" in American terms... and many actively dislike wines with higher acidity.
But, its a big market... and you can find a bit of everything, everywhere... if you know where to look.
Then, as much as they might try to deny it... the critics also bear a lot of responsibility... because the tyranny of the 100 point scale determines quite a lot about what wine makers can do, or want to do. And, in the work they do, as in other "tasting events"... one of the truisms that is when you're tasting a lot of wines, that one "just like the others" but with a little bit higher alcohol... is like that one stalk of wheat with its head poking up a couple of inches higher than all the others in the field. It gets noticed. Tasting... generates more of that bias that already exists... as an artifact in work of making the comparison.
As far as "global warming is causing higher alcohol wines"... ? Mostly... total bullshit. The alcohol in the wine is a function of the wine maker deciding... telling the grower... when she wants the fruit picked. Warmer, longer growing seasons... usually called "great vintages"... will "allow" accumulating higher sugars in grapes... but, that means nothing, does nothing, to alter the part that matters... which is the wine maker making the call on when to proceed in picking the grapes. That's a complex decision... lots of factors considered... but almost ZERO of that is going to be about "lets work to make a wine with more alcohol"... rather than "let's shoot for optimal fruit quality, and balance"... as that is defined by wine makers, aware of both "the potential in a grape," their own take on wine quality, and both "critics" and "market preferences". It would be easy to make wines with far higher alcohol than most do have... but, then, the market only demands so much of that fruitless $10 a bottle >14% alcohol cough syrup ?
The other issue... "compliance"... is as they noted... about a couple of different things. Taxes is one of them... as a wine that bumps "just" over the bracket limits... gets itself bumped up into a higher tax bracket. So, yes, there are (used to be) more than a few wines that might report containing 14.0%... rather than 14.1%... to avoid that tax bump. And,it is also true that the rules, both as written, and as enforced, are pretty "flexible" in how you report the alcohol content... not really requiring that degree of precision. Read a lot of labels, and you might find a whole lot of wines reporting 12.5% (the generic value)... or 14% (the generic limit)... in a proportion that is hardly probable... But, given rules that (did) exist... ?
Only, the rules can change... the link from about two years after our posts... And, whatever it is today... it is what it is... ? The one useful bit in that first link worth noting... is that boutique / quality producers aren't really impacted by it at all... as a tax issue. As a quality producer, you mostly won't make wine-making decisions based on that tax concern... but, as they note, either the big boys who do care about the tax issue, will "remove alcohol"... as is done by large producers in California... or, "add water" as smaller producers might... as both are quick ways to get there... only, with both of them largely destructive of wine quality.
Note in the second link... the tax credit also changed... so ? There's really not any linkage that exists between "the taxes"... and "wine quality concerns"... much less "truth in labeling concerns... with the impact of the tax structure being mostly destructive of wine quality...
So, what's a consumer to do ?
Smaller producers will mostly be happy to talk to you about their wines... what they seek to make in them, etc., more even than you want to know. Find smaller quality focused producers you trust, who are willing to speak truth... while selecting those working in growing regions where "what you like" tends to be what they make anyway... because that's what happens where they are growing grapes and making wines. Deal with them directly... and add a relationship to your life, rather than another trip to the grocery store, to puzzle over the incomprehensible selection.
And, at some threshold in larger scale... producers will be happy to connect you to their marketing department.
Large producers, still... pick any big name producer in California... they're mostly all using the "alcohol reduction" technology... a dirty little secret called "the spinning cone"... the same as that noted in the Smithsonian article as giving alcohol free wines. They don't want you to know that use it to reduce the alcohol in their wines... because the wines that result are both less than they should be... and, they are really no longer "wines made by fermenting grapes... that reflect the qualities the grapes contained"... but are wines made by removing alcohol and other volatile compounds from wine... then putting some volatile compounds back... which may or may not be exactly the same as the ones removed... ie, they have about as much of the romance of the vineyard in them... as a glass of Kool-aid served in a vineyard. |
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| To: Savant who wrote (437) | 2/26/2023 10:57:24 PM | | From: sense | | | | On the bee problem...
As it happens, have been spending a bit of time on that again, recently...
A lot has changed in the last couple of decades... since the problem of colony collapse first appeared.
It's much better understood, now...
And, there have been a lot of adjustments made in addressing it...
A big part of that is... urban dwellers who think living in the country means "clean air"... have no idea.
Agriculture has been increasingly made dependent on "big pharma for plants"... and, the number and quantity of things being applied to plants... and thus injected into our air... has continued to skyrocket over the years...
Most of farm country now resembles "living under constant chemical warfare attacks" more than it resembles "clean air and the great outdoors"... as I think most imagine it to be.
For the bees... that was (and remains) certainly the case. A couple of new products that were introduced, in particular, appear responsible...
So, bee keepers have become more aware... and adjusted management of the bees... They now are far more aggressive in moving hives from "working sites"... to R&R sites... where the bees get a respite from the chemical warfare... and a chance to recuperate... Bee's now take longer holidays than they used to... and do so in more deliberately selected sites... where the plants they're able to access are more carefully selected to help them recover... That also means that hiring bees as pollinators is now a lot more expensive... given their reduced work week...
I've had a couple of bee wranglers asking me to set up "bee resorts" for them...
More interesting, perhaps... is that the ongoing industrialization of agriculture... now means that urban areas, as bad as urban pollution is, and all... are far better locations for bees than ag lands are. Probably the key reason we didn't risk losing bees entirely when the problem was at its worst... was that there were reservoirs of wild populations living in the cities... where they weren't having the same difficulties as their country cousins.
Today, that remains true. Bees are better off in near urban areas where there are far more flowers, and a vastly larger diversity of them, than exist in the sterile landscape of the modern industrial ag monoculture.
So, with that awareness, there are now a lot more urban beekeepers, too...
Have been planning an urban installation this week...
It's made more complicated, because... in farm country, if you want bees... you figure out what you need to do, do it, and then you get bees. In the urban landscape, though, they assume you're an idiot... and they won't LICENSE you to keep bees... unless you attend their classes, pass their tests, to prove... worthy of earning the honor of being certificated as an apprentice beekeeper... rolls eyes...
So, am I attending apprentice beekeeping classes ? Hell no. My daughter is doing it...
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| To: Savant who wrote (444) | 2/27/2023 5:53:04 PM | | From: sense | | | | Mostly a massive failure...
Two major reasons...
One, herbicide/pesticide over-spray by a local wheat farmer killed a lot of trees outright... damaged most of them, and, damage was not limited to just the orchard. They killed a number of 100+ year old giants on our property, and throughout the neighborhood bordering their wheat fields for a couple of miles. That in result of spraying an herbicide intended to prevent emergence of weeds... a pre-emergent... but, they didn't spray it until after the trees had budded out, well outside legitimate boundaries. The worst impacted of them dropped flowers, leaves, entire shoots... the best of them "quit growing" and didn't grow again the rest of the season. As fruit trees are highly dependent on the first three or four years of growth... losing a key year... means, even if they survive, a decade or more of delay being imposed. So, also invalidating the results of any "study".
And, not just plants. A local wildlife rescue operation lost recuperating birds they kept in outdoor aviaries... the spectacular growth of the quail and pheasant population, which we'd helped enable... all suddenly gone. Our elderly neighbors became ill... and moved away.
Two, not unrelated... an intense eruption of fireblight... which was uncontrolled in the neighboring orchards whose owners had abandoned them.
But, prior to the disasters occurring... I learned a whole lot in a short time. Got to evaluate qualities of fruits from a large number of cider varieties... and a couple of dessert apples...
And, did complete a good number of other projects, which helped out others... improving the local direct to consumer farms... tomato trials, strawberries... and got them adopting quite a bit of permaculture in how they're growing them... Selected seed sources for local oaks... and helped them plant a lot of oak trees... which will mean acorns for the pigs...
My own experience with the cider varieties seems it is being duplicated by others... not only at the application level... but at the nursery level... While there are some spectacular cider varieties out there... they tend to be "very high risk" for growers, only in part because of disease susceptibility... and, far more... too often ignored... older varieties tend to be far more susceptible to the chemical assaults imposed by neighbors that are now a routine part of agriculture. Modern varieties, intentionally or not... are selected to survive in the chemical dominated landscape that defines our modern reality.
So, the nursery operations have been throttled back... making it harder to get heirloom varieties as easily as was true, for a time... But, that's at a time that "interest" has soared... pandemic driven, largely... so that obtaining trees to plant is harder, now... and costs two to three times what it did a short while ago.
The key takeaways... there are a solid handful of "antiques" that are fairly robust... along with a handful plus of modern varieties that not only incorporate quite good disease resistance as the objective.. but, also, have better chemical tolerance as an inadvertent selection factor...
If I were starting over to make a small planting to use in cider production... I'd go organic... meaning... plant only that handful of highly disease and chemical resistant apple varieties... knowing the product wouldn't be nearly as good as it might be... but having a product being a better plan than having a dead orchard.
Have also relocated... still have access to the (surviving) plant materials I've left there... but now working on enabling new efforts in places that are far more isolated from other agriculture...
Should note... the difficulties almost exclusively impacted apples... All the others I planted... a range of plums, and a range of tart cherries... shrugged it all off, and kept going. The plums in particular, encountered difficulty only in result of growing too fast... and not being properly pruned after I left them...
But, French heirloom prune plums... and "Thomas Jefferson's favorite" plum... spectacular. Cherries I planted were English Morello, Northstar, Sure-fire... and a variety I don't see listed any more, anywhere... that was a seedling found growing wild in Manitoba... super cold hardy... All proved valuable... and, from a growers perspective, they compensated well for each other in terms of the annual crop variations imposed depending on seasonality. But, if you've never had a cherry pie made from freshly picked English Morello... you've never really had a cherry pie... Unbeatable flavor, but, perhaps... not a quality that is optimal for being preserved... which others seem to do better.
The level of care I provided to the cherry and plum plantings... was zero. They had no problems...
My biggest regret from that couple of years... had nothing to do with the other disasters... was entirely self imposed. I spent years searching and sorting citrus plants for sale... finally found one, that had been growing in the ground in a back yard in New Jersey for ten years... said to be tolerant to -10F below... a Chinese import from before they cracked down on that... Got a couple, and grew them outdoors in pots for three years... during which time they blithely survived temperatures as low as -25F... which decimated the trifoliate oranges I grew as controls... Very excited by that... purposed to plant them out... so, moved them for that purpose... then, forgot about them... and, without water during a heat wave, killed them.
And, now... can't locate them any more... as it seems "someone" has made that impossible... and has disincentivized the grower from making them available... So, the future of the citrus industry of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, western Montana, and coastal/southern British Columbia... died in my back yard. |
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| To: sense who wrote (445) | 2/27/2023 6:14:04 PM | | From: Savant | | | | cold hardy citrus....darn, that's a shame...
plums, I have 3 varieties...one of which is a yellow Shiro plum...hardy down to at least minus 15 F...perhaps more.... I really like that one.
For some reason, perhaps excess heat & drought this past summer ...one of them died.
I also like growing potted figs...need to take them indoors during the winter.
Fresh, jam, and fig liqueur |
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| To: Savant who wrote (446) | 2/27/2023 6:57:12 PM | | From: sense | | | | I bought trees from a variety of sources for my project... intending to compare them as cost vs tree and graft quality, subsequent survivability, etc.
The number of nurseries has proliferated... was booming back then... and many of those that were new back then are now better seasoned... or, a few, no longer as competitive. I think the access to the heirlooms will be sustained... in spite of the disaster engulfing the core of the apple collection in Oregon... as a lot of those nurseries are both tree providers and cider producers themselves...
But, still, I bought trees from Trees of Antiquity that I judged were "the best"... in every aspect... they also the source of the Jefferson Plum. The only issue there today is... lack of availability... which pushes you into searching elsewhere for sources... some of which, obviously, are buying up ToA's stock, and reselling it a 2X or more.
From my time in the Dakota's... learned not to buy "local" varieties from Arkansas, or even suitable varieties the plants of which had been grown out in more southern climes... rather than imports from Manitoba...
That wasn't an issue for the ToA trees I grew east of the Cascades...
From my time in the Puget Sound... learned to not ignore local potential in the "wild" or "escaped" population... Spent an entire day tasting through the fruits growing in a large, dense grove of crab apple trees... which remains among the most challenging "tasting adventures" I've ever endured... One of my preferred selections, taken from an "apple tree forest" growing in old ditch where the Experiment Station used to dump the clean-up from tree fall coming off nearby crab-apple and apple tree trials... is now marketed as "Puget Spice"... which, unfortunately, I did not include in my trials... as it was "not yet available", then...
I did work to extend that awareness... in future efforts... Spending time poking around in eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and Idaho... I found derelict orchards that have survived until now... without any care... a couple of them in spite of growing right next to wheat fields... Its clear that a lot of the trees growing in those sites now are not the originals, but are seedlings that have survived... along with a couple of very large, very old trees that carry on... One of those I found on a ranch I visited repeatedly until I caught the owners outside... and stopped to chat... They had one big happy tree, golden skinned fruit with texture like a honey crisp, but with the crunch, an intense rush of sugar... peach/cotton candy/apple... and so juicy, each bite left juice dribbling down your chin... They also had a couple smaller relict survivors, all varieties unknown...all of which had been carried to that spot by the founders of the ranch, the same family living there now... the great (?) grandparents carried them while crossing the country in a covered wagon... in 1854...
There is more interesting potential out there, I think... than is being appreciated... particularly in either the genetics by rigorous selection, or by the way they grow more resiliently in the wild as forest plants... seeming to insulate them both from disease and chemical assault... in spite of being exposed, and unprotected... |
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| To: sense who wrote (447) | 2/27/2023 10:12:52 PM | | From: Savant | | | | "They had one big happy tree, golden skinned fruit with texture like a honey crisp, but with the crunch, an intense rush of sugar... peach/cotton candy/apple... and so juicy, each bite left juice dribbling down your chin."
reminds me ...About 50 yrs ago, had an old varietal winesap apple tree...was about 30 yrs old, at least when I acquired it...had much better sugar/acid balance than the newer types ...next to it was a stump that was at least as old, or older...
One day a small tree grew out of the stump...maybe a seed from the winesap...don't know...after several years, it had fruit that was golden...sweet, crisp, and juicy...delicious.. Unfortunately, it got chemically poisoned...and then the winesap died......and then a tart pie cherry tree died...wonderful flavor also. |
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| To: Savant who wrote (448) | 2/27/2023 11:14:36 PM | | From: sense | | | | One day a small tree grew out of the stump..
Most people not aware that an old tree that dies... might not actually be dead for a long time. The root systems of old trees can carry on for a long time after the trunk fails...
Worth looking for in relation to old trees in the forest... with elders sustaining "communication" with younger plants through root networks, long after the above ground portion of the tree has died, and even rotted away, not leaving much evidence of what going on below...
Sadly, became relevant recently to the Pacific Northwest's granddaddy apple tree...
Vancouver’s Old Apple Tree dies at age 194
Oldest Apple Tree in the Pacific Northwest Lives On
Local nurseries over there were selling trees derived from it a while back, don't know if still are... but, also, the fruit from it wasn't all that much to get excited about... its mostly a novelty thing... although the longevity of it suggests it might be a good choice for breeding... as obviously well suited to the region, and long lived.. |
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