Banner Elk Winery promotional video. I really liked their Marechal Foch and Seyval Blanc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rn9kpFmiRA
Posted:
2/14/2012 6:16:06 PM by
Ed Williams | with
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This time of year I'm hunting a box of Godiva, mindful that 1) my wife loves chocolate and 2) there's anecdotal evidence chocolate is an aphrodisiac.
And now I've stumbled over a study linking moderate consumption of wine by women to, um, how do I put this delicately … a heightened sense of amore.
Researchers at the University of Florence, Italy studied 800 women ages 18 to 50 and examined wine consumption and sexual response cycle. Researchers concluded: Women who drank two glasses of wine a day are more sexually active than those who abstain. That same research included this side note: Dark chocolate, also rich in antioxidants, is said to similarly affect female libido.
Su-weet. And it's research. You can look it up.
Red wine's link to cardiac health and cancer-fighting compounds are well known. But wine and sex?
Back in college, I may have stumbled on that discovery - this was long before those Italians got all scientific. But I was in Journalism school and that's well south of the sciences so I failed miserably to appreciate placebo effect, blind studies, regression toward the mean, and valid sampling.
With Valentine's closing in, this chocolate/wine thing sets a mind to racing. And so I broach it with my wife, with my instinctive guile and savoir faire.
Me: Says here, I give you chocolate and wine, you turn into Super Freak.
She: One super freak in this household is enough.
Me: This is research. You can look it up. Says here chocolate has chemicals that elevate dopamine and seratonin in the brain, same as when people take Ecstasy.
She: We're both too old for Ecstasy.
Me: You're never too old for ... I'm talking Godiva here, not drugs.
She: You never know what you're going to get with a box of chocolates.
Me: Says here I'll get nothing if I don't bring a box of chocolates.
She: Did you also read how chocolate has a laxative effect? Does that turn you on?
Me: Well, uh...
She: Look, I know chocolates. The two chemicals - phenylethylamine and trypophan - come in such small increments as to have any negligible effect. You'd have to eat super freak doses. At which point, there's that laxative effect. So, let's not go there.
Me: But, um, I got you some Godiva choc…o…letts.
She: Did you know that studies show that many women - when anyone bothers to ask - would choose chocolates over sex? Now that's research. You can look it up.
I can see what's she's doing. Thirty years of marriage gives me the Sixth Sense to reverse direction.
Me: Says here, two glasses of red wine will heighten your, um … says here you'll get frisky if you'd try some more Chianti. Let me just top of your glass there.
She: Let me understand. This research is from Italy? One of the world's biggest wine producers? Where Italian men have a certain predisposed piggy view toward women?
Me: Hey, this is research. You can look it up.
She: Ok, Doc, let me lay it on you. That same wine makes you Happy - then less Bashful. I like that. Then you get all Sneezy, followed by Grumpy and Dopey and not necessarily in that order. And it always ends that same old way, Sleepy.
I can see where she's headed. And that whole dwarf thing? That's a little off-putting, don't you think?
So I return to reading the Italian research. It concludes: "A thorough comprehension of the mechanics underlying female sexuality remains difficult."
And that's why I'm just going to order roses this year.
Posted:
2/14/2012 6:13:20 PM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments
Feb. 18 - Fat Saturday Mardi Gras Festival, RayLen Vineyards. www.raylenvineyards.com
Feb. 25 – A Day with the Winemaker, Raffaldini Vineyards. Winemaker Kiley Evans leads tours and educates guests about grape growing and winemaking. www.raffaldini.com
March 3-4 - Vineyards of Swan Creek Wine & Cheese Weekend, including Laurel Gray, Raffaldini, and Shadow Springs vineyards. Local cheese paired with wines. www.laurelgray.com
March 17 - St. Patty's Day and Pinot Green-gio, Chatham Hill Wine, Morrisville. www.chathamhillwine.com
March 17 - St. Patrick's Day House Party, McRitchie Winery & Ciderworks, Thurmond. www.mcritchiewine.com
March 18 - Amateur Wine Competition, Silver Coast Winery, Ocean Isle. www.silvercoastwinery.com
March 24 - Shuck, Slurp, Sip Oyster Festival, RayLen Vineyards, Mocksville. www.raylenvineyards.com
March 25 - Annual Chili and Chambourcin Day, Hanover Park Vineyards, Yadkinville. www.hanoverparkwines.com
March 31 – Spring Festival, Shelton Vineyards, 10 am – 6 pm. www.sheltonvineyards.com
March 31 - April 1 - Vineyards of Swan Creek Spring Herb Festival, including Laurel Gray, Raffaldini, and Shadow Springs vineyards. Local herbs paired with wines. Take home a potted herb. www.laurelgray.com
March 31 - Shallow Ford Wine Trail Wine & Dine, Hanover Park Vineyards, Mocksville. www.hanoverparkwines.com
April 11-15 - Blue Ridge Wine & Food Festival, Blowing Rock. www.blueridgewinefestival.com
April 14 - British Car Gathering, Shelton Vineyards, Dobson. Austin Healeys, Jags, MG's, Triumphs, Bentleys… and wine. www.sheltonvineyards.com
April 14 - Four Seasons Wine Dinner, Raffaldini Vineyards, www.raffaldini.com
April 21 - Great Grapes Wine Festival, Cary. www.uncorkthefun.com
May 4 & 5 - 3rd Annual Budbreak Festival. Mt. Airy. www.budbreakfestival.com
May 5-6 - New wine releases from Vineyards of Swan Creek, including Laurel Gray, Raffaldini, and Shadow Springs vineyards.www.laurelgray.com
May 7 - Shine to Wine Festival, North Wilkesboro. www.downtownnorthwilkesboro.com
May 12 - Summer Concert Series, featuring The Breakfast Club, Shelton Vineyards, Dobson. www.sheltonvineyards.com
May 19 - 11th Annual Yadkin Valley Wine Festival, Elkin. www.yvwf.com
June 2 - 7th Annual Salute! Wine Festival, Winston-Salem. www.salutencwine.com
June 16 - Summer Concert Series, featuring The Tams, Shelton Vineyards, Dobson. www.sheltonvineyards.com
July 7 - 20101 Sangiovese Release, Raffaldini Vineyards, Ronda, www.raffaldini.com
July 14 - 3rd Annual Shagging in the Vines, Autumn Creek Vineyards, Mayodan. www.autumncreekvineyards.com
July 21 - Summer Concert Series, featuring Hot Sauce, Shelton Vineyards, Dobson. www.sheltonvineyards.com
July 21 - Four Seasons Wine Dinner, Raffaldini Vineyards, Ronda. www.raffaldini.com
Aug. 4 - Mead Day 2012, Starlight Mead, Pittsboro. www.starlightmead.com
Aug. 18 - Afternoon with the Winemaker, Raffaldini Vineyards, Ronda. www.raffaldini.com
Aug. 25 - Summer Concert Series, featuring Band of Oz, Shelton Vineyards, Dobson. www.sheltonvineyards.com
Sept. 15 - Summer Concert Series, featuring The Swinging Medallions, Shelton Vineyards, Dobson. www.sheltonvineyards.com
Sept. 15 - 7th Annual Festa Italiana! Raffaldini Vineyards, Ronda. www.raffaldini.com
Posted:
2/10/2012 9:49:53 PM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments
* One the state's newest billboards offers a buccolic scene and this tagline: "Wine needs time to breathe. And so do you."
* Longtime RagApple Lassie winemaker Linda King has resigned. She will continue on in a consulting capacity at RagApple for the next year. Meanwhile, she's launched her own consulting business. You can reach her at ladyofthegrape@gmail.com
* Wine production costs are up - now between $4,000 to $6,000 per acre. Rising fuel costs drive some of this. My guess is many wineries will respond by increasing acreage yield, never a good thing for quality grapes.
* Worldwide, bulk wine inventories are way down so expect those cheap California, Australia, Chilean, Argentinian, New Zealand, and Spanish wines to creep up in price later this year.
* RayLen's famed "South Mountain Vineyard" Chardonnay label - from Larry Kehoe's Morganton-area vineyards - was initially called Silver Creek Vineyards until someone in California called and complained because Silver Creek was already trademarked. This is called a "learning moment" in the wine trade.
* Divine Llama Vineyards in the Yadkin Valley was generous enough to share with us over lunch his Chardonnel, several Traminettes, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc- all good. We're working to get them on board as a monthly feature soon.
* Round Peak Vineyards just released its 2009 Sangiovese and as far as heft and body go, it's chunky monkey. It's all good.
* Calaboose Cellars, the state's smallest winery tucked away in western mountains, makes a killer wine from the Norton grape.
* Parker-Binns Vineyard near Mill Spring opened late last year. Their 2010 Pea Ridge White is 100 percent Chardonnay - and really, really tasty.
* For grins, I tried newly-opened Sullivan Estate's Blackberry wine. Not at all what I expected. Faintly-hued and produced in a dry-style. Quite elegant.
* I sat with the crew from Grove Winery over dinner. There was lots of wine as I faintly recall, most from Grove, some swapped or purloined from other wineries' tables, and lots of stories - some of it perhaps even close to the truth. This correspondent is here to report that what happens at the Grove Winery dinner table stays at the Grove Winery dinner table.
* Somewhere in all this, I got volunteered to judge wines on May 4 before the May 5 Bud Break Festival in Mt. Airy.
Posted:
2/5/2012 3:27:32 PM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments
This winter's N.C. Winegrower's Association conference sounded a familiar, albeit muted, theme: Winemaker, heal thyself.
"We all want to be winners. But we have to do it together," association president Steve Shepard said, reminding colleagues that flawed North Carolina wines were still being sold, sullying the reputation of an artisan industry poised for more growth.
Shepard, one of the state's longest tenured winemakers at RayLen Vineyards, encouraged wineries to take advantage of the quality assurance and lab analysis services offered at N.C. State, ASU and Surry Community College.
Wine consumption in North Carolina is staggering, Shepard noted, but only two-tenths of a percent of consumed wine in North Carolina is made in North Carolina. "Imagine if we moved from 0.2 to 0.3. We wouldn't have enough grapes, we'd all sell out. But we're not going to get there without better wines."
Last year, nervous laughter filled the conference when Childress Vineyards winemaker Mark Friszolowski addressed the NCWGA audience: "Nobody tells Mom, 'Boy that's an ugly baby, ' What do we do? Someone says, 'Here, taste my Cabernet,' and you smell it and go 'Eeww.' And what do we say? 'Hmm, good fruit. And I like that it's kind of hazy.' "
It's time for honesty, he added.
And at last year's conference, Dr. Trevor Phister, then a food science professor at NCSU, reminded winemakers how NCSU offered free lab analysis of wines to detect volatile acidity, oxidation, too much or too little sulfur dioxide, microbial and bacterial contamination. The program had been in place for more than a year - and yet only two wineries had availed themselves of that service.
Hanover Park Vineyards winemaker Michael Helton, among the second-generation N.C. wine pioneers, last year implored his colleagues to take a pragmatic approach: "Let's look at another term: Knowledge. It's education, it's a focus on learning more about what your are trying to do."
And a year ago, Shelton Vineyards winemaker Murphy Moore begged the question: What's the next step in launching a quality assurance program?
A year later, there is still no formal quality assurance program in North Carolina. Recently, when the NCWGA called for volunteers to help chart a course for such a program, only four people stepped forward to help.
"We need two to four more people to help us look at the best way to move forward," said Ken Gulaian, a NCWGA Director and owner of Round Peak Vineyards. "Every bad bottle has a tremendous impact on us."
A number of wine-producing states have implemented quality assurance panels, including Colorado, Nebraska, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. Models vary: Some states focus on ferreting out flaws to improve consumer perception. Others pair "defect" panels with "hedonistic" panels that look at how close a wine comes to the fundamental stylistic characteristics of the varietal.
And in some places, wines not up to snuff in those states are not allowed access to festivals and do not receive a "quality assurance" seal or stamp on bottles - which sends a not-so-subtle message to consumers.
NCSU Extension Viticulture Specialist Sara Spayd criss-crosses the state, examining vineyards, evaluating plant health and advising grape growers. She thinks the N.C. wine industry's resistance to a quality assurance program is a deeply rooted one:
* While wines are evaluated blind and the feedback is confidential in lab analyses, she says, wineries fret gossip, that word of wonky wine will leak;
* Farmers are traditionally suspicious of regulatory oversight and grading a product. That, she says, seems particularly pronounced in the South;
* Finally, wineries fret the end-game: A "stamp of approval" they may or may not get, raising consumer's eyebrow.
This year, Shepard again tried again to make some strong medicine go down without gagging: "This idea of a quality stamp - it would be voluntary."
In his recent book The Modern American Wine Industry: Market Formation and Growth in North Carolina, Wake Forest Sociology professor Ian Taplin offers an exhaustive study of opportunities and challenges facing the industry. Taplin gave this pointed assessment: "Because some incumbents still lack requisite knowledge yet continue to think that they have the necessary skill sets, while others are bereft of the knowledge … the industry continues to be beset with considerable variation in quality. This can damage the overall reputation of the sector if consumers come to think that most producers lack consistency in their finished product."
Since 2005, the number of wineries in North Carolina (now 108) doubled, exhibiting phenomenal growth and catapulting North Carolina into the national Top Ten.
Taplin asserts that "the continued novelty factor associated with local producers selling direct from the winery" has insulated North Carolina wine's weakest links from the marketplace's natural punishing consumer behavior.
Further, he notes, more wineries are focusing on weddings, receptions, and special events to derive additional revenue streams. Those ancillary activities "can easily cause them to be less than thorough or committed to making the best wine possible," Taplin writes in his new book. "If this happens, they run the risk of becoming quaint locations but not necessarily the purveyors of decent wine. This can eventually affect industry reputation."
That's what veteran winemakers like Shepard, Friszolowski, and Helton have preached for years, all the while watching wanna-be wineries swell the ranks with entrepreneurs seeking the good life. In many instances, Shephard, Friszolowski and Helton have mentored new entrants to the marketplace, convinced that when their offspring flew the nest, the newcomers were committed to learning to learn.
But is that really happening?
Reaching a clustered critical mass that allows a destination/hospitality industry to leverage its travel/tourism presence is a good thing. Newcomers entering with naivete, an under-capitalized business plan, and a short profit horizon only encourages short-cuts and an indifference to knowing what it does not yet know.
RayLen's Steve Shepard reminded his colleagues of the resources at hand - free of charge: "Some of us don’t use them. Some of us need to use them. Let these guys help you."
Posted:
2/5/2012 3:26:32 PM by
Ed Williams | with
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