Archive for the ‘Health and Wine’ Category
It is a truism that to understand where we are, one must understand where we were. For folks who wonder just how the American system of alcohol control and regulation became the protectionist racket it currently is and how wholesaler middlemen in every state came to control which laws and regulations are enacted, you could do much worse than watching Ken Burns' new three part documentary, "Prohibition". The first installment of "Prohibition" aired last night and undertook to explain the…
Hello, my name is Tom Wark and I'm a binge drinker. I think I'm also a binge candy eater. It's also likely that I'm a binge golfer, but I can't find any support groups or studies to confirm these latter two problems. Binge drinking is, according to the Center for Desease Control: "a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume 5 or more drinks,…
The California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control has finally brought to light the dirty little secret behind underage drinking in Sonoma Valley: SONOMA VALLEY MINORS ARE USING THE HIGH-END WINERY TASTING ROOMS TO GET THEIR DRINK ON. A recent decoy operation meant to the expose and stop the growing craze among Sonoma Valley minors of hanging out in winery tasting rooms and getting their drunk on before marauding over to the next boutique winery was directed and paid for by…
The UK's Daily Telegraph reports on a study that delivers the astounding conclusion that folks often drink to relieve stress. This revelation might be best filed in the "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" category. Conducted by "DrinkAware", a UK-based anti-alcohol organization, the study found: "73% of the women and 57% of the men who took part citing stress as their number one excuse…On being given a list of options, pouring a glass of wine (61%) came only behind relaxing…
I often wonder why the issue of "wine writer ethics" seems to raise its head on such a regular basis. Most recently a highly respected and accomplished English writer, Fiona Beckett, broached the subject. Fiona reiterated the obvious: Critics shouldn't take gifts from the folks who's products they are critiquing. On the other hand, she notes, traveling on the dime of trade associations to wine regions and accepting wine samples from producers doesn't cross the line. The great writer Jamie…
