Should we consider mandatory graphic warning labels on bottles of booze? Our science reporter Tom Blackwell reviewed various Canadian discussions of the idea in these pages yesterday, suggesting that it is being looked at behind the scenes by addiction researchers. Labels with colour images of diseased esophagi on liquor labels would, of course, mimic the approach Canada has already taken toward cigarettes. So, well, why not? They say if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail: by a similar token, if your field is addiction, no doubt everything that has addictive qualities looks like an unsolved problem.
But there is one very obvious way in which liquor is not like cigarettes: scientists are reasonably sure that light drinking has positive public-health consequences. If you don’t believe me, you can look up articles like the one I have in front of me here from a 2013 issue of Annals of Oncology: its title is “Light Drinking Has Positive Public Health Consequences.” As a layman I obviously can’t be certain I have summarized this editorial correctly, but you’ll have to trust me.
Colby Cosh, “The real problem with liquor warning labels — there’s such a thing as good drinking”, National Post, 2015-12-17.
December 29, 2015
QotD: The health benefits of moderate drinking
December 26, 2015
Moderate drinking and statistical health outcomes
Aaron Carroll debunks some myths about booze and health:
Over the past year, I’ve tried to clear up a lot of the misconceptions on food and drink: about salt, artificial sweeteners, among others, even water.
Now let me take on alcohol: wine, beer and cocktails. Although I have written about the dangerous effects of alcohol abuse and misuse, that doesn’t mean it’s always bad. A part of many complex and delicious adult beverages, alcohol is linked to a number of health benefits in medical studies.
That doesn’t mean the studies provide only good news, either, or that the evidence in its favor is a slam dunk. You won’t be surprised to hear that, once again, my watchword — moderation — applies.
Research into how alcohol consumption affects health has been going on for a long time. A 1990 prospective cohort study included results of more than 275,000 men followed since 1959. Compared with those who never drank alcohol, those who consumed one to two drinks a day had a significantly reduced mortality rate from both coronary heart disease and “all causes.” Those who consumed three or more drinks a day still had a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease, but had a higher mortality rate over all.
A 2004 study came to similar conclusions. It followed about 6,600 men and 8,000 women for five years and found that compared with those who drank about one drink a day on average, those who didn’t drink at all and those who drank more than two drinks a day had higher rates of death. Results like these have been consistent across a number of studies in different populations. Even studies published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research agree that moderate drinking seems to be associated with a decreased risk of death over all.
However, alcohol seems to have different effects on different diseases. Almost all of the major benefits of drinking are seen in cardiovascular illnesses. In fact, with men, even consumption of a surprisingly large amount can seem protective.
December 17, 2015
The Minnesota Vikings wine club
For all I know, the Vikings may actually have a formal wine club (the NFL is always interested in leveraging their league and team branding for additional revenues), but this wine club is an informal group of cornerbacks and safeties:
The Minnesota Vikings, currently leading the pack for an NFC wild card playoff spot, have a top-10 pass defense that is built on tight cornerback coverage and an aggressive pass rush. And red wine.
In a move that is part health fad, part bonding exercise, the Vikings defensive backs have started dabbling as wine connoisseurs, with some believing that it may even be helping their bodies. “Whatever [you’re] doing, drink some red wine and you’ll do better,” said cornerback Captain Munnerlyn.
The Vikings’ taste for wine is the product of 37-year-old defensive back Terence Newman, who previously starred for the Cowboys and Bengals. Newman began exploring wine earlier in his career and has since emerged as the NFL’s answer to Robert Parker.
Newman began drinking Merlot four years ago, but found it too bitter and dry, he said, so he quickly dropped the habit. He later got into bolder Cabernets, which were more his style, he said. “I was married to Cabs for a while,” Newman said. “But then I had some Pinot Noir, and that’s when I said: ‘Wow, this is where I’m going to settle down.”
Over the years, Newman’s interest in wine has grown more and more serious. He orders cases of DuMol Pinot Noir and samples organic wines from Oregon. Before last season, he took a tour of the Pride Mountain winery in the Napa Valley. But this season, his appreciation for fine wine finally began to trickle down to his teammates.
Early in the season, Newman made a tongue-in-cheek reference to Pinot Noir as the secret to his remarkable longevity. His teammates drank it up. “They start joking ‘Oh, is that the key?’” Newman recalled. “But I promise you that night, five guys took pictures of a glass of wine they were drinking.”
November 12, 2015
Small claims court case with wider copyright implications
Michael Geist discusses a recent small claims court judgement:
… the case involved the president of the Canadian Vintners Association (CVA), who received an email from Blacklock’s Reporter, an Ottawa-based political publication, advising that he was quoted in an article discussing a recent appearance before a House of Commons committee. The man did not subscribe to the publication, which places its content behind a paywall, so he contacted a member of the association who was a subscriber and asked if he could see a copy of the article. When Blacklock’s Reporter learned that he had received a copy from the subscriber, it demanded that he pay for a full subscription or face a copyright infringement lawsuit.
While this does not sound like a copyright case, the Ottawa court ruled that the man had violated Canada’s copyright rules by breaching the publication’s paywall (an act it described as a circumvention of a digital lock) and awarded $11,470 in damages plus an additional $2,000 in punitive damages.
The Canadian digital lock rules were enacted in 2012 under pressure from the United States, which wanted Canada to mirror its safeguards on e-books, DVDs, and other digital content. Those rules typically cover circumvention of popular consumer products, but rarely involve website access. In fact, there are several U.S. cases that have concluded that sharing a valid username and password combination with someone else does not constitute circumvention for the purposes of the law.
Yet in the Blacklock’s Reporter case, the president of the CVA did not even try to access the publication’s site with someone else’s credentials. Indeed, it is difficult to see how asking for a copy of a lawfully obtained article could possibly be considered circumvention of a digital lock. Moreover, there is also a strong argument based on several Supreme Court of Canada decisions that providing the copy qualifies as fair dealing under Canadian copyright law.
As a small claims court ruling, the case has no value as precedent (and could still be appealed). However, it places the spotlight on the restrictive digital lock rules that have already caused a chilling effect within Canadian educational institutions, which often fear that circumvention for legitimate, educational purposes may violate the law.
November 8, 2015
QotD: Small bits of French revenge
But [the German] is no gourmet. French cooks and French prices are not the rule at his restaurant. His beer or his inexpensive native white wine he prefers to the most costly clarets or champagnes. And, indeed, it is well for him he does; for one is inclined to think that every time a French grower sells a bottle of wine to a German hotel- or shop-keeper, Sedan is rankling in his mind. It is a foolish revenge, seeing that it is not the German who as a rule drinks it; the punishment falls upon some innocent travelling Englishman. Maybe, however, the French dealer remembers also Waterloo, and feels that in any event he scores.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, 1914.
October 9, 2015
Cyprus, the Crusades, and Commandaria
Paul Lewandowski on the quite distinctive wine of Cyprus and its place in history:
Cyprus was not just the home of Richard [the Lionheart]’s first victory; it was also the site of his marriage. His fiancé, Berengaria of Navarre, was the daughter of Sancho VI of Navarre. The marriage was a politically beneficial one. Some scholars believe that Richard and Berengaria were actually romantic lovers, since they had met many years prior, and Richard married Berengaria despite his betrothal to the Countess of Vexin. Regardless of the reason for the marriage however, Richard threw a party worthy of a king. Richard, who was unfamiliar with Cyprus, had the local wine variety served at his nuptials. Upon tasting the wine, legend has it the king proclaimed that it was, “The wine of kings and the king of wines.”
Wine in the middle ages was generally awful. The logistical difficulty of preserving wine meant that additives must be used to preserve the wine. This could include marble dust, lye-ash, or pitch. Of course, this made wine awful by today’s standards. To make it slightly palatable, the wine would sometimes be cut with honey, dried fruit, or even salt water. Wine in the middle ages was valuable not only because it could render the drinker intoxicated, but because it was also a source of potable water. Wine only began to improve when it became a commodity, a tradable good that competed with beer and tea. For someone used to a saltwater-and-pitch concoction, an authentic, Cypriot dessert wine must have tasted truly amazing. It comes as little surprise that after the crusader’s time in Cyprus, the island and its wine were deemed valuable.
Richard would go on to sell the island to the Knights Templar not long after departing for the Middle East. In 1192, the Templar Order resold the island to another nobleman. However, the Templars were so smitten with the local wine, they retained a feudal estate where wine could be produced. They named their estate La Grande Commanderie, which roughly translates to “the main command post.” The region soon became known as Commandaria. Wine production increased as the Knights Templar sought to fund their operations through the export of wine. The Templars also provided the wine to pilgrims journeying toward Jerusalem. Soon the wine assumed the name of the region, and Commandaria became famous throughout Europe. Its popularity remained high for centuries, as late as the 1870s, when the region was producing 230,000 liters of wine annually for export to Austria alone.
Commandaria is made from two strains of native Cypriot grapes: Xynisteri, a white grape, and Mavro, a red. Both are dried partially in the sun before fermentation and pressing. This concentrates the sugars, giving the wine its sweet character. Following fermentation, the wine is aged a minimum of two years in oak barrels, but high-end Commandaria is often aged longer. The result is a sweet dessert wine with honey, fruit, and toffee flavors. It is often fortified, but even unfortified Commandaria can exceed 15% alcohol by volume.
Commandaria is the world’s oldest continually cultivated wine. Descriptions of the wine and its unique manufacture appear in accounts as early as 800 BC. Some scholars claim the wine is over 3,000 years old. Its long history makes it the stuff of legend. It is supposedly the winner of the first recorded wine tasting in history, held in France in 1224. The Ottoman Sultan Selim II is said to have invaded Cyprus just to get the wine. Still another legend is that the grapes from Cyprus were exported to Portugal and were used in some of the earliest port wines. Before assuming the name Commandaria, it was known as “Mana” because it was considered a divine gift.
September 26, 2015
The LCBO backs away from auctioning rare wines in Ontario
Rick Van Sickle on the LCBO’s recent decision to hand over the rare wine auction market to a private auctioneer:
Quietly last week, Ontario’s booze monopoly finally threw in the towel over its glitzy rare and fine wine auctions and awarded the contract to an independent auction house — another case of letting private industry do a job that the LCBO couldn’t handle.
Canadian auction house Waddington’s will now conduct the auctions under a special licence through the LCBO.
The company added a new addition to their portfolio of fine art and luxury goods – Waddington’s Fine Wine and Spirits Auctions. “Ontario wine enthusiasts will now be able to better manage their cellars of fine wines and spirits with this connection to the enormous world wine market,” said Waddington’s President Duncan McLean.
The Toronto-based, Canadian-owned auction company was awarded the exclusive contract to provide fine wine and spirit auction services in Ontario under the authority of the LCBO, a first for an Ontario auction company. Waddington’s conducted the LCBO’s Vintages Fine Wine and Spirits auctions from 2009 until 2013.
The inaugural live fine wine auction will be conducted Dec. 12 at Waddington’s Toronto gallery, and an online fine wine auction will be offered Nov. 23-26. These auctions launch what will be a regular schedule of wine and spirits auctions and events for which Waddington’s is currently accepting consignments. All wines consigned are stored in a secure, temperature, light, and humidity-controlled wine vault.
Straight Up: The Issue of Alcohol in Ontario
Published on 24 Nov 2014
A documentary exploring the peculiar system of alcohol retail and distribution in Ontario.
The beverage alcohol system in Ontario is unique in the world. A government monopoly and a few private companies enjoy preferential access to the province’s consumers. Meanwhile, about 300 Ontario breweries, wineries, and distillers face a number of bureaucratic and structural barriers that effectively shut them out of the market in Ontario. This film tries to explain the origins of the beverage alcohol system in Ontario, and what it means for producers and consumers in the province today.
H/T to Eric Beiers for the link.
September 15, 2015
Ontario wineries and the demands of the Chinese market
In the most recent edition of his wine review newsletter, Michael Pinkus just barely avoids sounding like an editorialist from the anti-Chinese era of American yellow journalism (er, sorry) over Chinese money being used to buy up Ontario wineries to concentrate on icewine production for the Chinese market:
Hinterbrook, Joseph’s, Marynissen, Alvento, Lailey – all wineries in Niagara that have seen a major shake-up of ownership over the past few years; in fact it is reported that about 8 or so wineries have seen new ownership, which potentially can be seen as a good thing: a revitalized interest in wineries in Ontario’s largest growing area.
Now before I go any further, I’m sure this topic is going to spark some controversy and some of the comments I’ll make might come off a tad inflammatory, but hear me out over the next few paragraphs.
The majority of these wineries have been purchased by those of Oriental decent, namely Chinese interests, who see exporting Ontario Icewine back to the homeland as a path paved with gold … On the positive side this provides wineries and workers with jobs, another bonus is that Icewine is still being made here at home, instead of being falsified, forged, misappropriated, and wrongly-labelled elsewhere; and some longtime growers and owners are finally cashing-in after a lifetime of tilling the soil, and growing the grapes to make the wines we all know and love … but at what cost to the industry and reputation of Ontario wine?
We have been battling a snake-belly-low reputation for years – one that never lets us forget we put Baby Duck and inferior Baco Noirs (with apologies to Henry of Pelham) into bottle. Now we have some of our most beloved names (namely Lailey and Marynissen) seemingly on the brink of becoming Icewine houses. The fear here is that Ontario will be bought up by foreign interests and our wines moved off-shore, and most, if not all our grapes used for the purpose of making Icewine – for all intents and purposes killing off our quality domestic dry wine production.
These fears were realized once again in July after reports were confirmed that Lailey had been sold. They then closed their doors for “renovations”, subsequently re-opened to sell their remaining inventory, and netted their entire 2015 crop to be used in the production of Icewine … As the French say, “quel domage!” (what a pity) – those beautiful old vines of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, that fantastic Syrah, the Sauvignon Blanc … all the grapes that were lovingly nurtured so that they produced the fruit to make wines full of terroir / character will go into lifeless sweet Icewine. Frustration and dismay were echoed time and time again on Twitter and FaceBook with the hashtag “RIPLailey”.
No matter how we may try to romanticize them, wineries are just businesses. Not only businesses, but farm-related businesses. Farming is a hell of a way to earn a living — ask any farmer — so if someone comes up to your farm gate and offers you enough money to sell up … at least some farmers/grape growers/winery owners are going to take the cash and split. From the list of wineries that Michael lists, I’d had poor experiences at three of them … bad enough that I’ve never been back. If my experiences were typical of other customers, then selling up was a great thing for the former owners. Treat your customers like shit, don’t expect them to come back (but do expect them to mention you to all their friends).
If someone thinks that it’s worth the money to buy up these places and convert them to all-icewine production and concentrate on exporting to China, great. More wineries are opening every month, so the loss of a few under-performing (and customer-abusing) “old names” has more chance to improve the overall wine scene in Ontario.
September 8, 2015
Helpful wine pairings for parents
The Rambling Redhead offers wine pairing advice for parents:
1. Riesling pairs perfectly with an explosive poopy diaper.
If your newborn baby had an explosive bowel movement, leaving your hands literally shit-stained from the yellow substance we call “poop”, we suggest chugging a glass of Riesling immediately. Riesling is refreshing, tends to be sweet and has a low acidity level. You’ve handled enough liquid that smelled of pure acid today, so kick back and enjoy this smooth, light wine that usually possesses the smell of apples. How lovely.
2. Chardonnay goes great with a middle schooler’s attitude adjustment.
If your middle-school child, let’s call her Megan, gave you non-stop attitude today and yelled the words, “You’re the worst parent ever!” or “Why can’t you be cool, like Addison’s mom?!” then you would most likely benefit from a good buzz. We recommend Chardonnay for your drinking pleasure this evening. Chardonnay has been described as tasting sweet like various melons and has a subtle creaminess. Subtle creaminess sounds divine. Megan’s insults sound annoying.
[…]
5. Pinot Noir goes well with dented or scratched vehicles.
If your teenager was involved in a minor “fender-bender” today (aka – she backed her new car into your car that was parked in the driveway) then we recommend a Pinot Noir. This wine is very delicate and fresh, unlike your daughter, whose sole purpose in life seems to be attempting to destroy all of the cars you own. The tannins in this wine are very soft, making it the opposite of bitter. Nobody needs a dry wine when their daughter is constantly participating in a real-life game of bumper cars…. you’re already bitter enough, thanks to her.
July 16, 2015
“Biodynamic” wine-making – New Age woo-woo marketing bullshit … that sells
On a recent wine tour in the Beamsville Bench region, I watched a fascinating interaction between a winery representative and a potential purchaser. Out of respect, I won’t identify the winery (although there are a few in both Beamsville and Niagara who profess to be “biodynamic” wineries), but the question was asked and the poor winery employee had to fight against her own clear instincts and try to describe in positive terms the utter bullshit that is “biodynamic” theory. Kindly, the questioner allowed her off the hook quickly and our group moved off to taste some other wines.
At Boing-Boing, Maggie Koerth-Baker links to an older article at the SF Weekly saying:
[…] biodynamic farming is, essentially, organic farming … plus a heaping helping of astrology, mysticism and some delightfully medieval-gothic growth preparations. (One involved taking fresh cow skulls, stuffing them with oak bark, burying them at the fall Equinox, unearthing in spring and adding minute amounts of the resulting goop to compost piles. Ostensibly to promote healing in plants.) Perhaps unsurprisingly, large, independent, peer-reviewed studies haven’t found much of a difference between biodynamic and organic grapes. Now, some folks like biodynamic wine, and that’s cool. I just think people ought to know what it is they’re paying a premium for.
The link is broken, but from the old URL, it’s probably this one:
When asked just what was going on, Eierman shot a glance at Jessica LaBounty, Benziger’s marketing manager, who closed her eyes and gave a quick nod. The gardener proceeded to explain that the severed heads were a vital ingredient in Biodynamic Preparation No. 505: Finely ground oak bark will be placed into the cows’ fresh skulls and stored in a shallow, moist hole or rain bucket throughout autumn and winter. The resultant concoction is then applied, in nearly undetectable quantities, to the gargantuan compost piles; Benziger’s promotional literature claims it “stimulates the plant’s immune system and promotes healing.”
Light-years from the surreal scenes at the Sonoma winery, glasses tinkled and forks hit plates of house-marinated olives in a dimly lit San Francisco storefront. Sharply dressed men and their attractive dates laughed over full pours of red and white at Yield Wine Bar in San Francisco’s up-and-coming Dogpatch neighborhood. Nearly half of the 50 wines served that night were grown Biodynamically — a fact prominently displayed on the bar’s menu. When asked what, exactly, this means, bar co-owner Chris Tavelli described Biodynamics as “the highest level of organics, you know, organic above organic.”
Among those who earn a living selling wine to the general public, this was a typical answer. Those with a vested interest in moving Biodynamic wines almost invariably use the words “natural” and “holistic” — terms that are malleable and vague, but near and dear to every San Franciscan’s heart. Its producers and sellers describe the process as “organic to the nth degree,” “the Rolls-Royce of organic farming,” or, simply, “the new organic.”
It’s an explanation Tavelli and fellow wine merchants have to make — or, more accurately, not make — now more than ever. Winemakers recently began aggressively marketing their Biodynamic status as a selling point, claiming their product to be both the “greenest” and most distinctive-tasting available. In San Francisco, Jeff Daniels of the Wine Club has added 10 new Biodynamic labels in the last year alone; Kirk Walker of K & L Wine Merchants says customer queries about Biodynamic wines have jumped in the past few years from roughly one a week to more than 30. Dozens of other San Francisco winesellers concur that they’ve augmented the number of Biodynamic wines they carry by four, five, or even 10 times of late. National chains report the same, and rank San Francisco as perhaps the nation’s top consumer of Biodynamic wine.
July 6, 2015
The 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War “was nearly the death of French Riesling”
Paul Lewandowski on the non-military impact of the Franco-Prussian War:
The name “Franco-Prussian War of 1870” conjures few images in the popular consciousness. It is an obscure war that is easily overshadowed by the Napoleonic wars of a few generations earlier, and the First World War a couple generations later. However, fans of military history and wine aficionados should both be intimately familiar with the conflict that is considered the first “modern” war, and was nearly the death of French Riesling.
The balance of power established in Europe after Napoleon’s defeat in the early 1800s had begun to erode in 1870. The greatest threat to this order was the upstart principality of Prussia. This relatively small nation had forged its independence and thrust itself onto the world stage through martial prowess and total devotion to military readiness among its people. Nineteenth-century Prussia was in many ways the first “garrison state.” By the late 1860s, the crafty Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck had consolidated Prussia into the hegemon of northern Germany. Everyone in Europe recognized that Prussia was a rising European power. France meanwhile, was the aging colossus of the European order. It had been a global power for hundreds of years, sparring with the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs for power and control of the European continent. For France, the world was changing, and the stagnant nation failed to change with it.
[…]
Alsace produces almost exclusively white wines. Historically the primary varietals are Rieslings and Gewürztraminer, both of which are also produced in Germany. Alsatian wines distinguish themselves from their German counterparts by their intense dryness. While German wines traditionally retain some sugar following fermentation, Alsatian wines are produced with almost no residual sugars.
Riesling is considered a “top three” white wine, together with Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. It is most commonly grown in Germany and Alsace, but it is also cultivated in the United States, Australia, and Eastern Europe. Gewürztraminer meanwhile, is a wine variety that got its name in Alsace, though the grape it is derived from, the Traminer, has a somewhat hazy origin. Traminer is uniquely suited to Alsace, as it is considered by winemakers to be among the more difficult varietals to cultivate. Growers regard Traminer as “fussy” about different soils, unproductive, disease-prone, sensitive to frost, unruly on the vine, and inconsistent in result. Before modern cultivation methods, Gewürztraminer was difficult to cultivate consistently outside of Alsace.
Given the region’s unique productivity, Germany sought to obtain Alsace in the Armistice of Versailles. Once they took control of the region (along with parts of Lorraine), Germany’s actions became puzzling. They outlawed the production of Rieslings and Gewürztraminer in Alsace. Instead, the government imported low-quality, high-volume grape varietals like Chasselas and Elbling. Why would Germany want to destroy the unique productive capacity of their newly acquired region?
June 21, 2015
Chile’s red wine regions
Chile has emerged over the last decade or so as a dependable source of relatively inexpensive — and good value — red wine. Here is Wine Folly‘s brief overview of the distinctive wine regions of Chile:
It seems unlikely that the thin, long country of Chile is a larger producer of Cabernet Sauvignon than the US, but it’s true!
Chile’s vineyard area dedicated to Cabernet Sauvignon is second only to France. The country has become a winemaking hot spot due to the cooling effect Chile receives from the Pacific Ocean and the Humboldt Current. In other words, Chile has an ideal climate for wine. Chilean red wines have gone from good to exceptional in recent years and yet, they still offer good value.
Click to see full-sized image at WineFolly
Most of Chile’s vineyards are located in the Central Valley Region, which is a large region that contains several smaller valleys including Maipo, Colchagua and Maule Valley. Most of the Central Valley is wide and flat and this is where the bulk of Chilean wine is made. If you’re looking for age-worthy wine however, the fine wines of Chile tend to be found in the foothills (areas with higher elevations), especially the sub-regions of Puente Alto (in Alto Maipo or “High Maipo”) and Alto Cachapoal (“High Cachapoal”). Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux blends have a signature tart-and-fruity style, typical of a cool-climate wine. The tartness (aka acidity) comes from cool ocean breezes being pulled inland by the incredibly tall Andes Mountains.
June 4, 2015
Life is too short for you to drink bad wine
To help you avoid drinking bad wine, Amy Otto identifies the three most common causes of wine being unpleasant to drink:
You’ve scanned the wine list to find the perfect match. A few catch your eye. A nice Russian River Valley pinot noir, a Stags Leap District cabernet, or perhaps a New World Sangiovese. What’s not to love?
Your waiter presents the bottle to your table. You nod in approval. The wine is poured; you lean into your glass hoping to catch the lovely aroma, and instead your nose crinkles and puzzlement sets in. The glass is emitting an odor that reminds you of when it rained on that pile of newspapers you were going to recycle. It seemed like the perfect choice. How did this happen?
Despite a winemaker’s best efforts, occasionally you will run into a wine that is flawed. That’s why you try the wine before you commit to the bottle.
A good restaurant won’t object to taking back a bottle that has a clear flaw — that’s what you need to do when you taste the sample from the freshly opened bottle. You’re not trying to determine whether you like the wine, but you are given the opportunity to discover whether the wine has a flaw. Don’t be the asshole who sends back a perfectly good bottle of wine to impress your date or your business associate (and yes, I’ve seen it happen).
May 15, 2015
Wine may not be acceptable for vegan diets
By way of Real Clear Science, Sara Rennekamp explains how a product made of (mostly) grapes might still not be acceptable for dedicated vegans:
Is your wine vegan? It seems like an odd question: wine is made of grapes, grapes fall solidly under the “not an animal product” label, therefore it would seem that wine is a vegan-friendly beverage.
However, many people who adhere to a vegan diet refrain from consuming any food or drink that is processed using animal products as well as the animal products themselves. Unfortunately for vegans, some wines are processed using animal products.
The culprit: a process called fining.
The fining process, when it is used, allows winemakers to remove unwanted compounds from wine either before or after the juice is fermented. There are several reasons that a winemaker might elect to fine his wine, according to Jim Law, the owner and winemaker of Linden Vineyard in Virginia. One reason is to clarify the wine. Another reason might be to fine-tune the taste or correct an imperfection. There are other reasons, but most fining is done to address these two issues.
But before getting into the whys of fining, it’s helpful to know what the fining process does.
Freshly pressed grape juice contains a lot more than just juice. As the grapes are pressed bits of seeds, stems and skin can all make their way through the press and into the liquid wine-to-be. These add-ons can form unsightly sediment in the wine and produce an unwanted flavor to the wine, oftentimes bitterness or astringency.
Some wine makers fine their wine to get the interloping roughage out of the wine before it ends up in your glass. Wines can also be filtered to remove particles and some unwanted sediment, but only the fining process can remove imperfections like unwanted compounds that are too small to be caught by a filter, such as tannins and other phenols, and proteins.
