In vino veritas.......

... and sometimes a lot of other stuff that shouldn't be there!
It's always been the case. Wine is held by some people in a sort of "snob" value, mainly by those who know very little about it.
The Japanes and the Chinese are now catching up with the Europeans and Americans, both on drinking the stuff and being taken for a ride by unscrupulous dealers.
The latest one attracts attention again to the higher priced (and over priced) wines from the Bordeaux region of France. All of these bottles......are fakes, and expensive fakes to boot!
This doesn't really bother me too much, I am not a consumer of Bordeaux wines, the real ones are prohibited, firstly because of their price, and secondly because of their (for me) extremely high content in "tannin" - or "uric acid" . This is produced naturally in most Bordeaux wines, particularly high in the red variety, and it serves for prolonging the "ageing" process....the higher the "tannin/uric acid" content, basically means the longer one can lay the wines down, over many, many years.
Of course, this leads to "trickery" - home wine makers can buy the stuff ready for use, the problem is that most home wine makers don't know just how much is already contained in their home made wine.
Not important you think.....WRONG!
You see - uric acid naturally or artificially created, is responsable for something other than the storage period of wine.
It's responsable for a nasty little condition - most painful - that little illnes called........Arthritis or Arthrosis! Commonly called GOUT, and generally associated with aristocratic gentlemen with their feet heavily bandaged and up high on a footstool...it's a source of amusement, but, beleive me - if you've got it.....it is not at all amusing,  and can be highly dangerous as well.
 Yes, these images are of extreme cases, but each individual reacts differently ..but is it really worthwhile paying expensively priced wines to get here...?
The Japanese and Chinese are slowly making their own discoveries - particularly with "doctored" Bordeaux wines. Of course not all Bordeaux wines are "doctored" but more and more are becoming so. Cheap imitations - mixes of rough and ready wines from all over the world are taken, synthetic products (such as the same "coolant" you put into your car radiators) are added to alter the taste and sweetness and all kinds of other products that do this and that, until you could almost beleive you WERE drinking high class vintage stuff - and the price is appropriate!
Highly dangerous cocktails of chemicals totally unnatural and totally dangerous.
One of the ways to be sure, or almost, that you're drinking what you paid for, is to look very carefully at any labels on the bottles. The intelligent wine cheats are - thankfully - not so intelligent when it comes to labelling their lethal products! Not always quite as directly as this one..... but generally there is something to be discovered - somewhere....now and then in the restaurant itself..after all - somebody has to refill- somewhere!
As a last illustration, I recall in the 70's/80's a scandal breaking concerning Austrian wines, so "pansched" (German word meaning mixed up) with the famous car coolant that the authorities actually used it on Austrian and Swiss motorways in winter as a replacement for salt - to melt the ice and snow....
From here..........       ........to here....

.................passing later to here......

........all in the name of "Gastronomy".........

Bonne Appétit    -    A Votre Santé! 


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iwmpop (mr le marquis).    -   Vauvert, France    -     Juillet 2011

Le vin - Wine - Weine

The only things I would say is that:
1. Apart from Breakfast, any meal without wine is wasted.
2. This site IS American, so some of the ideas may not pass in European palates. Replace them....!

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You are receiving this email because you are subscribed as a member of Snooth.   Spotlight on: Wine 101 August 31, 2010 So You Want to Build a Cellar? A simple guide to home cellar construction We all love the idea of having a dedicated cellar, a distinct shrine, er, room to store our treasured bottles. So, what does it really take to convert part of one’s basement, or any room for that matter, into a real wine cellar? Well, that really depends on what one is starting with and where one wants to end up! At its most basic, a passive cellar can be just a few cases tucked away in the dark corner of a basement. Coming from the east coast of the USA, and having lived in rural Italy, I have been fortunate to have very good cellar conditions occur naturally in both places. Of course, many people -- apartment dwellers, for example, and even most homeowners -- don’t have the luxury of a below-grade cellar with stable climate conditions. So, what’s a wine lover to do? Read the Full Article » Gregory Dal Piaz is a proponent and admirer of a broad range of wines and styles. During his decades of collecting and tasting he has discovered that a wine need not cost a fortune to drink well. Feel free to ask him questions at the Snooth Forums where he regularly engages with beginners and experts alike. Related Articles on Snooth What Makes a Great Cellar? A look at the impact of light, vibration, and other conditions on a wine cellar. Read more » Keeping Your Cool Discover the perfect cellar temperature and learn why it's an important factor in collecting wine. Read more » Snooth Inc. / 49 West 24th Street / 5th Floor / New York / NY / 10010 To make sure this and future emails arrive in your inbox rather than your junk mail folders add "noreply@snoothmail.com" to your address book or safe list. To unsubscribe from this type of email, click here. To manage your notification preferences or to unsubscribe from all Snooth emails, click here. Having trouble viewing this email? Click here.