DescriptionName:Georges III Cabernet Sauvignon
Color:Red
Grape(s):Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation:Oakville Napa Valley California
Maker:B Cellars
Vintage:2006
Cost:$55.00
Comments: Available only through winery and fine dining restaurants

Food PairingsMeats & Seafood: Poached, grilled, fried, baked or roasted beef, lamb, game and game birds.
Sauce: Au jus, savory, tomato, mustard, peppercorn
Cheese: Soft or hard goat cheese, hard cow and sheep cheese
Other: Chocolate
Taste ProfileNotes:This Cabernet hails from one of Rutherford’s most coveted vineyards; a Rutherford Bench plot originally planted by the well known Georges de Latour III in 1933. Its classic roots offer ample doses of black cherry, cola and the infamous “Rutherford Dust” aromas. Layers abound on the palate including cherry, currants and black fruit jam with a bold, firm structure and age worthy tannins. Unfiltered and unfined.
Quick Classification:Big Red

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2010 -- Two decades of atomic bomb testing in the atmosphere are yielding an unexpected bonus for consumers, scientists reported here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). It's a new test to determine whether that Bordeaux or burgundy is from a fine vintage year and commands premium price or actually is a counterfeit vin ordinaire or cheap plonk worth much less.

Graham Jones, Ph.D., who headed the research, said that misrepresenting the vintage -- the year the wine was made -- is an ongoing problem. He is with the University of Adelaide, Australia. Some years bring perfect growing conditions for vineyards in a country or region of a country and the grapes produce exceptional wines that command premium prices. In other years, bad weather, such as heavy late-season rains that bloat grapes with water or long hot, dry spells at harvest, means poor quality wines. Some wine experts estimate that up to 5 percent of the fine wine sold today is fake.

"The problem goes beyond ordinary consumers being overcharged for a bottle of expensive wine of a famous winery with a great year listed on the label," Jones pointed out. "Connoisseurs collect vintage wines and prices have soared with 'investment wines' selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars a case at auction."

Jones said the wine industry is fighting forgeries with special seals and high-tech labels. The method for authentication of a wine's vintage may provide added confidence that the vintage on the label is the vintage in the bottle.

In their leading research, Jones and colleagues found that radioactive carbon dioxide produced from atomic bomb tests in the atmosphere absorbed by grapes can be used to accurately determine wine vintages. The new technique is similar to radio-carbon dating, used for years to estimate the age of prehistoric objects. It works by comparing the amount of carbon-14 (C-14), a less common form of atmospheric carbon, to carbon-12 (C-12), which is more stable and abundant. The ratio of these two carbon forms, or isotopes, has remained constant in the atmosphere for thousands of years.

"Until the late 1940's all carbon-14 in the Earth's biosphere was produced by the interaction between cosmic rays and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere," Jones says. "This changed in the late 1940's up to 1963 when atmospheric atomic explosions significantly increased the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere. When the tests stopped in 1963 a clock was set ticking ? that of the dilution of this "bomb-pulse" C-14 by CO2 formed by the burning of fossil fuels."

He explains that traces of radioactive carbon are captured by the grape plants through the absorption of carbon dioxide and eventually transformed into alcohol and other carbon-based components of the wine. The "bomb-pulse" of the atmosphere is eventually absorbed into the wine.

"The year that the grapes were grown fixes the age or vintage of the wine," Jones says.

"The carbon-14 isotope ratio of the wine alcohol can therefore be used to determine the vintage of a wine."

The scientists used a highly-sensitive analytical device called an accelerator mass spectrometer to determine the C-14 levels in the alcohol components of 20 Australian red wines with vintages from 1958 to 1997 and then compared these measurements to the radioactivity levels of known atmospheric samples. They found that the method could reliably determine the vintage of wines to within the vintage year.

In addition to testing alcohol, measuring the age of other wine components, such as tartaric acid and various phenolic substances, can help improve the reliability of the technique for detecting fraud, Jones notes.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Author: Unattributed
Web Site: The American Chemical Society
Source: www.scienceblog.com

DescriptionName:Rutherford Ranch Zinfandel
Color:Red
Grape(s):Zinfandel
Appellation:Napa Valley California
Maker:Rutherford Wine Company
Vintage:2006
Cost:$18.00
Comments:
Food PairingsMeats & Seafood: Poached, grilled, fried, baked or roasted beef, lamb, game and game birds.
Sauce: au jus, savory, tomato, mustard, peppercorn,chil
Cheese: Hard cow and sheep cheese
Other: Spicy foods and cuisines
Taste ProfileNotes:An elegant, complex bouquet of ripe boysenberries, black pepper and French vanilla, blending ripe blackberries with plum and vanilla. A very balanced Zinfandel with rich tannins and a long, lingering fruit finish.
Quick Classification:Dry Red

Do you recall the movie Sideways that was popular in 2004? For those who didn’t see it, Sideways is the story of two middle-aged friends, Miles and Jack, who set out on a final week of fun before Jack gets married. They drive north from Los Angeles to the wine region around Santa Barbara in Miles’ sporty little convertible. Jack is a less-than-successful actor just looking for a good time, but Miles is all about the wine, fancying himself as something of a connoisseur. They visit a number of wineries where Miles says things like “the estate chardonnay is quaffable but far from transcendent” and “the cab franc is hollow, flabby and overripe”. Later at dinner with some women they’ve managed to meet, Miles, in full snob mode, says "If anyone orders Merlot I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any #@!% merlot." In contrast, Miles frequently waxes poetic about the wonders of Pinot Noir.

So now you’re thinking, great movie review, but what does this have to do with anything? Well, it turns out that this simple little movie has had a profound effect on the wine industry. So much so that its impact has become known as the “Sideways Effect”. People who had never heard of Pinot Noir began drinking it in abundance and people who thought they were chic drinking Merlot suddenly wanted nothing to do with it. The California Highway Patrol reported a jump in highway incidents in Santa Barbara County, saying the movie led to a virtual stampede to the Santa Barbara wine country, causing a rash of drunk driving arrests and crashes. The area has 90 tasting rooms.

Analyzing Pinot Noir and Merlot sales between 1999 and 2008, a recent study showed the "Sideways Effect" has had a
Paul Giamatti portrays Miles Raymond in Sideways