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The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
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Author:  TheFuzzy [ Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
Jean,

Lovely. Couple years ago, I went to a conference in Bozen. Loved the wine there ... that's the Greis winery collective. And yes, they all speak German there ... as far as the citizens are concerned, they're still part of Austria.
Author:  jeanf [ Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
TheFuzzy wrote:
Jean,

And yes, they all speak German there ... as far as the citizens are concerned, they're still part of Austria.


Which is why our Italian Club is the International Tyrolean Trentini of North America. Wouldn't want to get us mixed up with those other trentini. ;) :lol: (edit to add that I'm meaning that we are the Austrian Italians....my uncle was convinced that anything south of their village was southern Italy!) We eat a lot of saukraut and pork products, and potato pancakes. Not your typical Italian food.
Author:  TheFuzzy [ Sat Jun 04, 2011 1:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
All,

Pleasant Valley winery reviews up:
http://www.fuzzychef.org/archives/Amado ... -2011.html
Author:  wino [ Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
I must apologize for the very late response to JeanF. To date we have another leak in our thrice repaired roof, MIL left the hose on and the basement is flooded - again, we are going on another business trip shortly, and the dryer just broke! YIKES!!

Re: your intolerance of tannins - chianti & valpolicella will most certainly have young (short) tannins - I’m surprised you can drink them. As wines age tannins become elongated (soft is a term often used) so you might try older wines (Spain loves to release their wines at an older age). Also, I would strongly recommend taking something like Allegra before drinking (12 or 24 hour). It will stop your allergic reaction and it does not interact with alcohol. Some people use Advil. Red wines stuff me up so I use Allegra quite often. Tannins come from seeds, stems, and skins so the longer the juice sits in contact with them the more tannins. Try talking to some very knowledgeable wine sellers. The specialty stores in Ontario usually have at least one geek on staff; ask them as they rarely get to strut their stuff! Interestingly, white wines don’t bother nearly as much but evil wine snobs note that there is wine and then there is white wine… :twisted:

You are quite fortunate to live in Ontario as you can order directly from many wineries in that province. One of my all time favorites is Colio http://www.coliowinery.com/ Although it is technically illegal to ship wines across borders in Canada most wineries will. Mt Boucherie in BC http://mtboucheriewinery.com/ has excellent quality at a very reasonable price and will ship. There are many others in BC. I would call them to discuss the tannin issue and follow their advice with a sample case of 12 individual bottles. Keep notes of your experience with each bottle and you will very quickly determine what suits your budget and physical tolerances. It is amazing how few people own a pad of paper, pen, and brain…

Once again, my sincere apologies for this late response.
Author:  jeanf [ Thu Jun 09, 2011 11:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
Wino, don't worry about it. Good luck with all the goings on! And thanks for the information...I'm going to go chat up the LCBO guy next time I'm in there. ;)
As for tannins...you know....I don't even know for sure that that's the problem. :oops: I just know that after drinking a Cab Sauv I'd get a major headache the next day. Then the next time, same thing. After the 3rd or 4th time I started to put it together and someone told me that that it must be the tannin in that wine and I kind of assumed that was what the problem is. :D I'll try to find out more on possible causes.
If I'm somewhere and a Cab Sauv is what the host is serving I do take advil at that time so as not to be rude. Plus I really like Cabs, just try not to o.d. on pain killers figuring I don't want to develop a tolerance towards them. :lol:
I do like young wines though, at least for everyday.

I grew up on homemade wine, which would colour my sprite from the time I was 6 or so. The nuns were shocked when I told them I drank wine with dinner every night.
Author:  wino [ Thu Jun 09, 2011 4:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
Then I would recommend Allegra. I get it from Costco and it is only slightly more expensive at Wal-Mart. Being in love with cabernet is a good problem, unfortunatley they are loaded with tannins and take a few years to soften. And nobody sells old cabs . . . :(
Author:  TheFuzzy [ Thu Jun 09, 2011 9:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Wine and Headaches
Jean,
If your main issue is an allergic reaction, then it's actually probably a specific protein in the wine. Scientists are currently looking for a way to remove that protein:

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010 ... -allergies

That being said, many people are sensitive to high doses of tannins, or of sulfites, or both. But less than think they are sensitive; only 1% of the population is actually allergic to sulfites, for example. However, tannins, sulfites, alcohol, and glycoproteins can act to make you more sensitive to other allergens in your environment.
http://www.drvino.com/2010/04/26/wine-s ... d-alcohol/

Red wine also has unknown chemicals known to encourage migraines in those who are already vulnerable to them:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2894493

Wine also can contain a variety of other chemicals which can cause reactions:
http://allergynotes.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... s-may.html

If you really want to pin this down, you'd need to keep notes on what kinds of wine you drank, and when, and when you got headaches, and how bad they were. Important things to note:

  • Red vs. White
  • Tannic or not (Cabs, Barolos, heavily oaked chardonnays are tannic)
  • Young or old wine
  • American, European, or "Sulfite-free" wine
  • How much wine
  • With food or on its own
  • Were you having an allergic day otherwise

If you kept several weeks of such notes, you'll be pretty far along in determining which wines were safe for you to drink and which weren't. Short of that, you're unlikely to ever know for sure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_wine_headache
Author:  wino [ Fri Jun 10, 2011 9:36 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
I agree wholeheartedly! As I said earlier, "It is amazing how few people own a pad of paper, a pen, and a brain…"
:lol: :D


Ya gotta love research that involves wine :!:
Author:  Da Bull Man [ Fri Jun 10, 2011 1:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
wino wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly! As I said earlier, "It is amazing how few people own a pad of paper, a pen, and a brain…"
:lol: :D


Ya gotta love research that involves wine :!:


I got two out of three... ;)
Author:  jeanf [ Fri Jun 10, 2011 1:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Serious Eats Amateur Wine Taste-Along by Kenji Alt
Thanks Gentlemen (yes, I know Wino, you've been called worse)

I get the real bad "can't move your eyballs" type headaches, so while keeping a notebook sounds like a great idea, I'm not going to chance one of those. So I'll stick with the advil/allegra option for when I drink a wine I suspect might cause issues.
Interesting on the long aged tannins as well as the bee factor. The second would make an interesting murder mystery idea.
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