Wine

Scholarly Wine Articles

November 6th, 2006

I did a search on Google Scholar for wine. A lot of articles were returned in the search result. At first glance, I could not figure out why these results had been returned. At closer inspection, the author of the first few articles had the last name of Wine.

RH Wine has written many articles in the field of biology. JJ Wine has authored many papers on Cystic fibrosis. RN Wine writes on topics in the field of toxicology. These are just three of the authors with results dominating my search for wine on Google Scholar.

I changed my search in Google Scholar from wine to red wine. The first scholarly article returned in my search for red wine was “Inhibition of oxidation of human low-density lipoprotein by phenolic substances in red wine”. This article was published in 1993 in the British edition of Lancet.

An article entitled “The red wine phenolics trans-resveratrol and quercetin block human platelet aggregation and eicosanoid synthesis: implications for protection against coronary heart disease” was published in Clinica Chimica Acta in 1995. There were five authors cited on this paper.

The American journal of clinical nutrition published “Consumption of red wine with meals reduces the susceptibility of human plasma and low-density lipoprotein to lipid peroxidation” in 1995. This paper has been cited over two hundred times. The author credited with writing it is B Fuhrman.

There were over sixteen thousand results returned when I did my Google Scholar search for red wine. The article entitled “Antiplatelet activity of synthetic and natural resveratrol in red wine” is another article that has been cited many times. The International journal of tissue reactions published this article in 1995 and now it has been cited 116 times.

The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry published an article in 1980 entitled “Wine aroma composition: identification of additional volatile constituents of red wine”. The article has been cited five times. The author, P Schreier, has also written an article entitled “Flavor composition of wines: a review”.

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Custom Wine Racks

November 6th, 2006

I found a really great site for custom wine racks. I found wineracks.com and I absolutely cannot decide which design I like best. They have a selection of smaller capacity wine racks that can store three to forty eight bottles of wine.

Wineracks.com has wine racks in both wood and metal. I’ve found several that suit my current needs and several that I wish my needs would suit! Some of the different styles are just simple stackable racks that assemble without tools. There are other wine racks that are elegant, solid oak racks with tabletop and stemware storage.

The twelve bottle modular wine racks are made of pine and can be configured in many different ways. There are kits available to add and expand these wine racks. Wineracks.com has this item listed for $22.50.

The Cha Cha Wine Racks sold by wineracks.com are made of colored plastic. They snap together with clips and come in four colors. The colors that the components for these wine racks come in are orange, light blue, green and white. Each color is sold separately for $22.50.

I was particularly taken with the Lisbon wall wine racks. They are black wooden wine racks that hold both bottles and stemware. Wineracks.com has the Lisbon wall wine racks listed for $69.00.

I am pretty sure that I do not want the Accordia wine racks that wineracks.com have for sale. My mother had one that looked like this when I was growing up and I always thought that it was ugly. I much prefer any other style.

The Bali fifteen bottle wine racks were inspired by contemporary Indonesian style. I like the wavy look of these wine racks. The price for the Bali wine racks is $96.00. These come in a natural color. There are also twelve bottle Bali wine racks that are $72.00 in either crimson color or black.

I do believe that my favorite wine racks have to be the cellar cubes. Wineracks.com has the cellar cubes in both unfinished Pine and Mahogany. The Mahogany cellar cubes sell for $59.95 and the Pine cellar cubes sell for $34.95. These wine racks require simple assembly and the holes are pre-drilled and the hardware is provided.

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Mongrain Glass Fancy Wine Glasses

November 6th, 2006

Mongrain Glass makes beautiful and fancy wine glasses. James Mongrain is the artist behind this beauty. The thing that impresses me most about James Mongrain is that he has worked with Dale Chihuly since the late 1990’s. Dale Chihuly is a world class glass artist.

I looked through the Mongrain Glass website at the pictures of fancy wine glasses. The white glass goblets were magnificent, as were the chartreuse and yellow. I looked further at the Solid Series and there were more fancy wine glasses in blue, pink and the prettiest black glass I’ve ever seen.

James Mongrain and Mongrain Glass have so many fancy wine glasses for sale. It is important to keep in mind that each of the pieces is handmade and one-of-a-kind. If you want to order any of the Mongrain Glass fancy wine glasses, you need to e-mail or call with your order.

Mongrain Glass has a series of fancy wine glasses called the Creature Series. These are so beautiful. The stems of the fancy wine glasses are creatures like swans and sea horses. There is one design in particular, that has a frosted look to it. There are even dainty flowers around the base of these fancy wine glasses.

The Modern Venetians line of Mongrain Glass fancy wine glasses are very sophisticated in appearance. The glass detail work brings lace to mind because of its intricacy. I would have a very hard time trying to choose which line of Morain Glass fancy wine glasses I wanted. I actually like them all.

In addition to fancy wine glasses, Morain Glass makes commissioned pieces of art. Some of the pieces pictured in the gallery on their website were very large. There are no prices listed on this website, but these look like they cost many thousands of dollars.

Fancy wine glasses really do seem to be a small part of what Morain Glass does in their studio. I found a picture of a piece of art entitle Vortex. Vortex is described as a 7-foot stainless-steel slice of sensuality. The foundation of this piece of art is set in steel and a collection of glass forms illuminate neon light from within. The union of glass and steel in this piece of art is somewhat of a contrast, both in form and idea. Glass and steel are two distinct elements that have been joined so intimately it’s as if they are one.

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Wine Coolers: What’s so great about flavored malt liquor anyway?

November 6th, 2006

Itching to try the latest flavor rage in wine coolers? It came to my attention recently that many people don’t know that wine coolers are simply flavored malt liquor. It surprises me even more that that info itself doesn’t seem to mean much to many people. What’s wrong with pina colada flavored malt liquor wine coolers? Well, nothing, unless you want to drink more than one or two. If you’re anything like me, more than one or two wine coolers will leave you with hangover symptoms later on that day or the next.

If you really want a strawberry daiquiri or pina colada, why not just buy the fixings to make those mixed drinks? Of course if you’re on a budget it’s probably better to just buy the wine coolers. But if you’re planning a big party or otherwise have a bigger drink budget, I strongly suggest making your own mixed drinks rather than buy a huge lot of wine coolers. Malt liquor is notorious for producing headaches and all the other hangover symptoms.

Mixed drinks don’t have to be all that expensive to make either. If you plan ahead a little you can decide on a few different mixed drinks to have on hand at your next party and save some money by using the same base liquor. For example, rum is a great liquor for fruity drinks. Pina coladas, daiquiris and many other drinks call for rum, so that’s a great standby as far as liquors for mixing go. And of course vodka is a good all round liquor that can make many types of less fruity drinks. So, a trip to the liquor store to purchase a bottle of vodka and a bottle of rum will yield all kinds of mixed drink options.

There are some excellent bartender and drink mixing websites out there that can help you make the most of your next mixed drinks occasion. There are even websites where you can input all the ingredients you have on hand and it will spit out a list of drinks that you can make. Webtender.com is just such a site. Go to http://www.webtender.com/cgi-bin/imbselect to input your available ingredients. Chances are you’ll be surprised to discover all the possible drink combinations using only the ingredients you have on hand.

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How to Create Custom Wine Cellars

November 6th, 2006

If you’re interested in designing your own custom wine cellar there are a number of options available to you. The best news is that there are wine cellar designs for everyone from the avid do-it-yourselfer to the complete woodworking novice.

There are modular wine racks that are available in different grains and finishes, with the least expensive generally being a wood such as pine. Most modular wine rack dealers will offer other materials such as red cedar or finished wood as well. Of course you can always save some money and finish the wood yourself if you desire a particular type of finish or color for your wine cellar racks.

There are many wine racking companies that offer crown molding and skirting pieces so that you can easily combine different styles of wine cellar racking materials and types. This approach can yield some very unique custom wine cellar designs.

There are built in glass racks that are made to fit snugly within a rack system. A good place for one of these individual units would be above the table top piece mentioned above. This would add to the ambience as well as functionality of your custom modular wine racking system.

If you want something a little different than the traditional wood wine cellar racks, there are attractive metal trellis rack pieces that are very economical, yet stylish. These tend to look classier than the wood modular wine racking pieces, especially for placement in bar areas that will be viewed by visitors.

If you would like to add a table area to your wine cellar while increasing the storage capacity of your cellar at the same time, a wine bin table may be the best addition to your modular racking system. There are taller, wine tasting tables that hold just over 100 bottles or about 180 bottles of wine, and there are shorter wine rack tables that hold more than 200 wine bottles in case bins.

There are many online dealers and manufacturers of wine cellar racking pieces that also offer custom computer design services to help you achieve the exact wine cellar layout that you have in mine. With many of these professional services you can then have the plans sent to you and decide if you will build them yourself or have someone else build them for you.

With all of the wine cellar design options available to you, there are many ways to accomplish the perfect wine cellar design for you and your situation. There are many wine enthusiasts online communities and the like where you can find others interested in the same things that you are and maybe gain some other ideas about wine cellars and the design aspect of creating your own wine cellar.

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Great Wine Bars In San Francisco

November 6th, 2006

A16 tops the list of the best wine bars in San Francisco. The owner-sommelier Shelley Lindgren’s wine list is focused on Southern Italian varietals. This wine list is an integral part of the A16 experience and what makes it the best of the wine bars in San Francisco.

Andalu on 16th Street is another one of San Francisco’s finest wine bars. They are awesome because they offer small plates with big flavors. This is one of the San Francisco wine bars that has an approachable wine list and offers 35 wines by the glass. The crowd there is mixed and energetic.

Wine bars don’t usually come as good, or as small, as Bacchus on Hyde Street. Bacchus has knowledgeable bartenders that make innovative saké cocktails and they pour over 50 wines that range in price from under $10 a glass to more than $200 a bottle. The signature drink at Bacchus is their sake-version of the mojito.

Cav is one of the wine bars in San Francisco that takes itself extremely seriously. Cav has a well-chosen wine list of over 300 international wines. Some of the wines on the list are offered by a taste, or the glass. The chef has crafted unique takes on lots of dishes and Cav actually offers a cheese course that is served at the proper temperature and is on par with some of the finer restaurants in San Francisco.

Wine bars like Piccolo on Fillmore street handpick the wines on their wine lists. Piccolo is one of the wine bars that choose limited availability and small production wines. They prefer to concentrate on Italian wines. The owner of Piccolo has wonderful antipasti on his menu. There is fierce competition between wine bars to have the most excellent food to accompany their spirits.

Varnish Fine Art is both an art gallery and one of the top wine bars in San Francisco. The atmosphere at Varnish Fine Art is comfortable and it draws a post-work crowd for beer or wine during happy hour. The wine list at Varnish Fine Art is well chosen and features a number of delicious fine wines, as well as soju and saké cocktails.

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