Days That End in Y

The Wines from Spain Far from Ordinary Wine Guide guide is out again, and of course, it’s free. Get the latest 2008 edition here. And since wine goes great with food, there’s also a free guide to Wisconsin cheese available.

Or at least you think so!

A study conducted at Caltech shows that “increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks”. In other words, those expensive wines could simply be duping you. The next time you think something tastes better after seeing the price tag, then you might want to try a double-blind taste test just to make sure.

The full abstract is online for free, but the article unfortunately isn’t. However, there are a number of articles out there with more data from the study. The one at News.com is probably the best.

Considering the fact that I was fifteen when Dave Barry wrote the column Sour Grapes and Mud, I’m definitely not surprised I haven’t seen it before! It seems that wine culture hasn’t really changed at all. In fact, it may have gotten worse. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the column:

When you see a winery that you like, you go inside for wine-related activities, which are mainly 1) tasting wine, and 2) trying to adopt thoughtful facial expressions so as to appear as though you have some clue as to what you are tasting.

The wine is then bottled and transported to the Pretentious Phrase Room, where professional wine snots perform the most critical part of the whole operation: thinking of ways to make fermented grape juice sound more complex than nuclear physics.

I wanted to shake them and shout, “What’s WRONG with you!? When I was your age, I was drinking Sunshine Premium brand beer (motto: ‘Made From Ingredients’) at $2.39 a CASE!”

Dave, you have got to write an update!

Via Eats

Yeah, it’s been done before, but that was over 2000 years ago.

Apparently, there was supposed to be a Ratatouille wine, which was to be a 2004 Chardonnay. Unfortunately, the product was canned after some annoying opponents of underage complained to Disney.

As Carlos Mencia would say, this is dee-dee-dee. It’s not like small children are going to be clamoring over wine with a rat on the label. Besides, our view of drinking wine is rather unenlightened in this country, and with Ratatouille’s French bent, it’d be nice if some of their attitudes rubbed off on us here. Then again, I suppose if Big Tobacco can’t use a cartoon camel, then I guess Big Alcohol can’t use a cartoon rat either.

Via Luxist

We unfortunately hit a few snags on our little trip through Finger Lakes wine country. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from them! While I sort through my tasting notes and photos, I’ll leave you with ten tips that’ll make any trip along the Cayuga Wine Trail (or really, any wine trail) better.

1. Don’t speed around Richmondville, NY on I-88.I received a ticket on this barren highway late at night, and I have no idea from where that cop came! Unfortunately, I may be forced to plead guilty due to the inconvenience of possibly having to go there to fight the ticket.
2. Buy the Vino Visa in person at one of the wineries.There’s a very annoying handling charge that exists online, but it can be avoided by buying it in person at Americana, Knapp, Montezuma, or Six Mile Creek. Even if they’re out, they should be able to give you a voucher in place of the actual Vino Visa, which is what happened to us. We did get some weird looks at some wineries, but the voucher worked fine.
3. Don’t buy Vino Visas if you’re planning on buying lots of wine.First, a couple of the wineries don’t charge for tastings. Second, most of the wineries (if not all of them) refund tasting fees if you buy wine.
4. Take at least two days to travel along the Cayuga Wine Trail.While it may be feasible to do all of the trail in one day, you’d have to rush it and you’d probably have to skip lunch. Neither is good for safely tasting all that wine! Plus, your taste buds will start to get tired. After a while, everything starts to taste the same, or worse, everything starts to taste better than it really is.
5. Don’t go during special events unless you really love crowds.This weekend was the Grapehound Wine Tour. We avoided most of it, but we didn’t realize that they would hit up two of the wineries we went to on Friday! We were surrounded by wet dogs and their owners and had to wait for what seemed like forever in order to do tastings. The winery staff all seemed rather stressed, and the experience was pretty bad. Plus, hotel prices go through the roof during special events and weekends. Paltry one-star and two-star hotels were easily charing $100+ for Friday night. We decided to move our schedule up by a day to avoid paying through the nose.
6. Learn Priceline bidding strategies early.We booked one of the hotels via Priceline for a pretty decent price. How? I read up on bidding strategies at BiddingForTravel.com. Something that’s very interesting, especially for rural areas, is that you can sometimes enter in nearby locations to get immediate rebids on hotels. For example, if you want to stay in Ithaca at a 2½-star hotel but lose your first bid, then just start a new bid for nearby Cayuta or Spencer! This will save you a lot of time, money, and frustration.
7. See some of the other nearby attractions.Whether or not you believe me, there are a lot of other cool things in rural New York. There are museums, shops, restaurants, etc. While wine is definitely the main attraction, it’s worth it to see a gorge, eat some vegan food in Ithaca, or play some mini golf.
8. Spit. Don’t swallow.Generally, I frown on the entire idea of spitting, but let’s examine this one logically. We visited twelve wineries on Wednesday. At each winery, I sampled about six wines. Each sample was about one ounce. That means that I easily could have drunk 12 servings of wine! Let’s face it. That’s a lot, and that’s way more than you should have while driving. I could have easily ended up with not only a speeding ticket but also a DUI.
9. Stop for lunch.There are some amazing restaurants in the area, especially in Ithaca. I’m slowly posting pictures to Food Porn on DTEIY. The three restaurants that we went to were Moosewood, Lost Dog Cafe, and Simply Red Lakeside Bistro. They were all excellent and come highly recommended. Besides, not only can you satisfy your epicurean craving, but you can prevent yourself from getting too drunk too fast this way.
10. Check the weather beforehand.The weather was horrible on Friday! There were torrential downpours that made driving incredibly unsafe and that made visiting a couple of the wineries somewhat miserable. While rain is great for the crops, it’s not so great for the tourists who prefer lovely views of Cayuga from the scenic byway.

Oh, and don’t take your kids. Seriously, WTF? I actually saw parents with their kids at wineries. What are the kids supposed to do? Swirl your wine glass for you?

All right, here’s one bonus, which I forgot to write originally. For gas, go straight to the Lake Side Trading gas station on Route 89 in Seneca Falls. It is much, much cheaper there than elsewhere in NY. It’s run by the Cayuga Indians, and I assume they’re exempt from certain taxes as a result.

Our southern neighbor Connecticut now apparently has a formalized wine trail. I’d always known there were wineries there (all fifty states in fact!), though I’d never realized there were so many!

Speaking of wine trails, during our trip along the Niagara Wine Trail last week, my girlfriend finally became enthused with the notion of wine tourism. (Interestingly, she’d never been a wine drinker in spite of–or because of?–her parents being true oenophiles.) As a result, we are definitely going to the Finger Lakes, specifically Cayuga Lake, this week. It’s a little soon after our last mini-break, but this is due to her starting a new job next week and my being gone for most of August through October. The car and hotels are booked, and we’re ready to go! Thanks, Steve-o for your comments! They really helped in my planning the trip.

Specifically, we’ll drive out to Ithaca, NY on Wednesday afternoon. The next day, we’ll slowly travel north along the western shore of Cayuga Lake, hitting each winery on the way. Then, we’ll drive back down to Ithaca to meet a friend for dinner. Unfortunately, we’ll have to drive back up to Auburn for a hotel due to practically every hotel in the area being booked this weekend! But that’s OK. Whatever we don’t get done on Thursday, we’ll then finish on Friday before driving back to Boston. And somehow, I’m going to tack on a trip to Ithaca Beer Co.. Shh! Don’t tell her about the beer! You can check out the approximate itinerary with Google Maps.

And as a bonus, here’s one more trail for your amusement. It’s not wine, though. Instead, it’s the American Whiskey Trail!

There’s really never been a better time for drinkers in America’s history since Prohibition.

In this totally bizarre story, an attempted armed robbery was foiled when the victims invited the would-be robber to have some wine.

After the robber walked into a house in DC and pointed a gun at a 14-year-old girl’s head, the dinner guests reportedly offered him a glass of Chateau Malescot St-Exupery. The robber consented and said, “Damn, that’s good wine.” He then had more wine, ate a little Camembert cheese, and put away the gun. Then, he asked for a hug and left.

Note to self: buy a bottle of life-saving Chateau Malescot St-Exupery, any vintage.

If there’s one thing that will always come (or go depending on which side of the bar you’re on) with booze, it’s money.

First, there’s beer: beer prices were up 3% in May from last year due to all sorts of rising costs. Brewers have to pay more for such things as malted barley, transportation, and energy. Then, there’s increased competition and not just from beer but from other sectors like alternative energy, which is causing that spike in grain prices. Even worse, beer keg theft is up due to rising metal prices. Those deposits simply aren’t enough to get those kegs returned!

Then, there’s wine. These days, it seems that the big thing is investing in it. Even if you’re not into buying physical bottles of Lafite, you can still buy funds that invest in wines. Well, maybe not you. These funds have minimum investments ranging from

Italian researchers believe that both red and white wine make a good antibacterial mouthwashes. They can help fight tooth decay and cure sore throats.

Wine contains acids—particularly succinic, malic, lactic, tartaric, citric, and acetic—that inhibit the growth of several strains of strptococci bacteria involved in tooth decay and sore throat.

And like most other health benefits, red wine is better at this than white wine.