"grapes" news and stories

National Geographic, of all places, has put together a helpful glossary of the newest in vineyard standards and and farming practices. We all know about organic wine, but what about wines that, say, pair well with your astrological sign? We've summarized a few for you here:

• Biodynamic wine - Is grown using biodynamic agriculture, which means that farmers pay close attention to the holistic properties of the soil, and the relationship that is established between the soil, plants, and animals. Farmers also use astrological signs as a guide to planting and harvesting. Sound hokey? Maybe, but you can bet wine made from a biodynamic grape has been tended to with the utmost in TLC.
  

• Low-sulfite wine - Sulfites occur naturally in wine, but winemakers usually add more to prevent spoilage and oxidation. Some organic wine, as regulated by the USDA, cannot contain added sulfites, to the relief of people who are allergic. These wines tend to contain about 10 and 20 parts per million of sulfite, compared to conventional wines with 80 to 120 ppm or higher.
  

• LIVE/Salmon Safe wine - LIVE stands for Low Input Viticulture and Enology, Oregon's initiative to limit the use of chemical pesticides on its farms. Salmon Safe works with LIVE to ensure that chemical runoff isn't affecting nearby salmon. If you buy wine with either of these labels, it means an independent contractor has inspected the vineyards and assured that they were compliant with rigorous standards.
  

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Yesterday around 3:30 pm I found myself rummaging around in the fridge for a snack. I came up with a few slices of swiss cheese and a bunch of red grapes. When I was working full time in an office, I would always find myself slumping around 3 pm or so and would often run out for a smoothie from the cart down the street. When it was raining, I'd get really lazy and wend my way to the building vending machine for a hit of M&Ms. Now that I work from home, I'm often too lazy to convince myself to leave my apartment for a snack and so instead put together comical combinations like leftover brussel sprouts and handfuls of cashews.

Settling back down in front of my computer, I started thinking about the myriad forms an afternoon snack can take and wondering about the afternoon snack habits of others. And that's where you, loyal Slashfood readers, come in. Tell me about your afternoon snacks. Confess your odd habits or your need to have a cup of mint green tea at precisely 2:37 pm every afternoon.

(If you're curious about the snack habits of others, check out Lunch, a food blog that chronicles the daily lunch and snack consumption of two women in NY or Snack Pack, the blog devoted entirely to snacks, written by some folks at the St. Petersburg Times).

Don't tell me that after watching the mvie Sideways you didn't have the teeniest tiniest inkling of a fantasy of dropping everything, moving to wine country and making your simple living as a winemaker. Heck, I had that dream. I even had that dream back when I first saw French Kiss.

But that was a dream. Reality is you have a career, a family, friends, and a whole host of other responsibilities.

You may not be able to go and live on a vineyard, but San Francisco company CrushPad can at least get you as close to making your own wine without leaving your real life. Crushpad provides grapes from California vineyards, and from there, you decide how much you want to be involved in making your own wine, using resources like their team of winemakers. You don't even have to live in California!

A detailed examination of the US wine and spirits market has revealed that the country will be the world's leading wine consumer by 2010, with consumption up to 3.8 billion bottles of wine annually. It should also be the second largest wine importer, moving up from its current position in third place behind Germany and the UK, though imported wines represent less than 1/3 of all the wines consumed in the US.

The study was conducted by the International Wine and Spirit Record (IWSR) for VINEXPO, the world's leading wine exhibition held annually in France. It looked at wine trends from 2001-2005, calculating trends from that period and making projections based on them, in addition to considering economic and political factors that might play a roll in the next three years. Worldwide, wine consumption will be up everywhere, with consumer spending expected to be up almost $2 billion more than a decade ago. China and Russia will enter the top ten list of wine-consuming markets and per-capita wine consumption will be up, as well.

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A few months ago, I posted about the debate that several vodka producing countries are having over what should and shouldn't be called vodka. An article in today's New York Times picks up the story. Basically, certain countries, including Finland, Sweden and Poland, contend that for something to be called vodka, it must be distilled from either potatoes or certain grains, not from things like grapes or maple syrup. These countries are seeking labeling restrictions for these "non-traditional" vodkas. BBC News reported that such restrictions could affect up to two thirds of all the vodka currently produced in non-Baltic EU countries. The NYT article also points out that vodka's history and original ingredients are up for debate, citing possible Russian, Polish, Italian and Arabian origins that may have included plums, apples or grapes.