Special Notice

There has been constant photo posting problems in my blog, which I hope could be solved shortly. In the meantime, please refer to my Chinese blog http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/wine-luver for the most updated posts.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Babich Wine Dinner - East Coast Pinot Noir 2004

Babich Wine Dinner - Gimblett Gravels Hawkes Bay Chardonnay 2003

Babich Wine Dinner - Winemakers Reserve Gewurztraminer 2002

New Zealand Babich Wine Dinner 7/Aug/06

Hugh Johnson: Babich is a mid-sized family firm, esablished 1916; quality, value. AUCKLAND, HAWKES BAY, & MARLBOROUGH vineyards. Refined, slow-maturing Irongate Chardonnay & Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot.

"Wines of the World": Babich has been a big name on the local wine scene since the family petriach, Joe founded the company in 1916. Long regarded as an industry stalwart - albeit a conservative one - Babich has been on a spending spree. In 1998, this medium-sized winery invested in a 40-ha vineyard in Awatere Valley, Marlborough, followed by 65ha in the nearby Waihopai Valley, as well as a quarter interest in Rapaura Vintners in Marlborough. The Patriach & Mara (the family matriach) brands do their namesakes proud, while the Irongate Chardonnay is one of the country's best.

Famous wines: Irongate Chardonnay, Patriach Cabernet Sauvignon, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

Aperitif Wine = Black Label Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2005

Berry Bros Summer Sale Tasting - 19/8/06

Place: Berry Bros & Rudd Shop
Address: Shop 307-308, The Lee Gardens, 33 Hysan Avenue, Causeway Bay
Date: August 19, 2006 ( Saturday )
Time: 2 to 6pm
Fee: Free

Ponti 19th Anniversary Wine Fair - 19/8/06

Venue: Ponti Wine Cellar, Central
Address: Shop B2, 1st Basement Floor, Alexandra House
Date: 19th August, 2006.
Time:
Session 1: 1 to 3pm
Session 2: 4:30 to 6:30pm
Fee (for 1 session): $80 for VIP; $120 for non-VIP
* Entrance fee could be waived if a purchase of at least $300 is made, only valid on 19/8
* Pre-registration is required (Pls contact shop)

Is it illegal to vinify wine at home? - "Free licences for small stills for registered doctors and pharmacists"

CHAPTER CHOSEN:
CAP 109 DUTIABLE COMMODITIES ORDINANCE
Section 60 - Free licences for small stills for registered doctors and pharmacists - 30/06/1997

The Commissioner may in his discretion issue a licence free of charge toany practitioner registered under the Medical Registration Ordinance (Cap161), or to any pharmacist registered under the Pharmacy and PoisonsOrdinance (Cap 138), to keep and use on any specified remises a still of not more than 40 L capacity for the purposes only of his profession orbusiness.

(Amended L.N. 189 of 1982; L.N. 294 of 1982)

Is it illegal to vinify wine at home? - "Licence not required for home brewing"

Please see ordinance below:

CHAPTER CHOSEN:
CAP 109 DUTIABLE COMMODITIES ORDINANCE
Section 64A - Licence not required for home brewing - 28/07/2000

(1) A licence is not required for the manufacture of alcoholic liquor, other than by distillation and other than for sale, by a person aged 18 or over in premises which are used by the person exclusively as his place of residence and which constitute a separate household unit.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply-
(a) if the person who manufactures the liquor is in possession, anywhere in Hong Kong, of alcoholic liquor purported to be manufactured under subsection (1) of a total quantity exceeding 50 litres;
(b) if there is kept in the premises in which the liquor is manufactured alcoholic liquor purported to be manufactured under subsection (1) of a quantity exceeding 50 litres;
(c) unless the alcoholic liquor so manufactured-
(i) is stored in sealed containers marked legibly the words "Home Brewed, Not for Sale" or "家中自釀，不得售賣" or words to the same effect; or
(ii) is for immediate consumption.
(3) For the purpose of manufacture of alcoholic liquor under subsection (1) in any premises, a person may without a licence possess in those premises-
(a) any utensil or apparatus, other than a still or part of a still, for manufacturing alcoholic liquor;
(b) fermenting or fermented materials not exceeding 60 litres.
(4) In any prosecution for an offence under this Ordinance, the onus of proving the circumstances are such that subsection (1) applies shall be upon the accused.

(Added 57 of 2000 s. 8)

New test marks out a true champagne

If you get no kick from champagne, it might be cheap fizz in disguise. But a new test should help prevent fraudsters passing off other sparkling wines as champagne or cava.
Developed by researchers at the University of Seville in Spain, the test proved to be 100 per cent accurate in determining which of 35 samples of sparkling white wine were cava and which were champagne. It works by recognising characteristic concentrations of the complex mix of trace metals in the wine.
The trace metals come from the soil where the grapes were grown. Ana Maria Cameon and her colleagues analysed the concentrations of 16 metals in 18 samples of cava and 17 samples of champagne.
The cava was produced from grapes grown in the Penedes region in north-eastern Spain, while champagne has to be made from grapes grown in France's Champagne region.
The researchers used atomic spectrometry to measure levels of the trace metals. On average the samples of champagne contained 0.6 milligrams of zinc per litre, roughly twice the level in cava, while cava had 0.7 milligrams of strontium per litre, more than twice the level in champagne.

Premium prices
But these average figures were not a reliable guide to the wine's origin. Six samples of champagne, for example, had more strontium in them than one of the cava samples.
So the researchers turned to a commercial statistical software program called SIMCA. By looking at the levels of nine metals in the wines, this program pinpointed characteristic concentration "fingerprints" that were different in the cava and the champagne. "There were no false positives or negatives, which indicates a remarkable authentication power," says Cameon
Wines made from grapes grown in favoured localities command premium prices, as differences in the soils are thought to give wines their character.
Tests like Cameon's will cut down on general fraud such as selling table wine as Rioja or adding grapes from outside the designated area to produce wine that is labelled as appellation control, says Tom Stevenson, author of the New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia. "Three-quarters of the wine sold as 'Italian' in the US is not Italian," he says.

Above article from NewScientist.com

Wine-tasting robot to spot fraudulent bottles

A robotic wine taster, capable of distinguishing between 30 different varieties or blends of grape, has been developed by engineers in Japan. The idea is to automate wine analysis so that retailers and customs officials can easily check that a wine is indeed what its label declares. The wine-bot was developed by scientists from NEC's System Technologies laboratory and Mie University, both in Japan. It is about twice the size of a 3-litre wine box and consists of a microcomputer and an optical sensing instrument. For analysis, a 5 millilitre sample of wine is poured into a tray in front of the machine. Light emitting diodes then fire infrared light at the sample and the reflected light is sensed by an array of photodiodes. By identifying the wavelengths of infrared light that have been absorbed by the sample, NEC says the wine-bot can correctly identify the unique organic components of 30 popular wines within 30 seconds. Grape fraud Because the combinations of these components are unique to certain wine-making regions, NEC says the wine-bot can even tell where the wine came from. The company promises to extend the number of wines the device can recognise before it is commercialised, but has not revealed when this will happen. John Corbet-Milward, head of technical and international affairs at the UK's Wine and Spirit Trade Association, says deliberate mislabelling of wine is a serious problem. "There always has been such fraud going on," the told New Scientist. "If there has been a bad grape-growing year, for instance, it's quite tempting for people to make up a blend of wines that's difficult to spot." Currently, fraud detection is performed through human tasting and careful analysis of a vineyard's records. "Any new machine that can identify wine fraud is potentially very interesting if it can speed up detection processes and reduce costs," Corbet-Milward adds. Refined palate But he also notes that a wine-bot would need to be capable of distinguishing between more than 30 flavours of wine to be truly useful. This is because the global wine market includes thousands of wine varieties and blends. "The acid test would be to test a machine against a team of qualified tasters," Corbet-Milward says. He is not alone in having reservations. "There have been many attempts to do this but the calibration that is involved is truly enormous," says Geoff Taylor, managing director of Corkwise, a company that analyses wine to assess its quality. "You have to teach the sensor all the parameters of all varieties and blends of wine. Then you have to include all the subtle differences caused by the use of different yeasts and maturation environments," Taylor adds. "It's a massively complex picture." Above article sourced from NewScientist.com news service 28 July 2006

Ridlaine Goat Log & Feta Cheese

Ridlaine Goat Log

Feta Cheese

Danish feta cheese is a speciality product which can be bought in most parts of the world. The cheese is produced from cow’s milk. This makes Danish feta cheese more creamy and milder tasting which is one of the reasons for its popularity – not just in the countries with a tradition for feta cheese, but increasingly among consumers in the rest of the world.

Feta is a classic and famous Greek curd cheese whose tradition dates back thousands of years and is still made by shepherds in the Greek mountains with unpasteurized milk. It was originally made with goat's or sheep's milk, but today much is often made commercially with pasteurized cow's milk (the firmer cow's milk version is made for export). The curdled milk (curdled with rennet) is separated and allowed to drain in a special mold or a cloth bag. It is cut into large slices (feta means 'slice') that are salted and then packed in barrels filled with whey or brine.
Salted and cured in a brine solution (which can be either water or whey) for a week to several months (this is why it is sometimes called a 'pickled' cheese). Feta dries out rapidly when removed from the brine.

Feta cheese is white, usually formed into square cakes, and can range from soft to semi-hard, with a tangy, salty flavor that can range from mild to sharp. Its fat content can range from 30 to 60 percent; most is around 45 percent milk fat. It is now made in many countries, but usually the pasteurized cow's milk version, on a commercial scale.

Feta is delicious crumbled over salads (the Classic Greek Salad), or together with sliced tomatoes, sprinkled with olive oil and fresh herbs. It is also used as a filling for puff pastry (feuilletes)

Genetic variation gives a taste for alcohol

12:00 15 November 2004
NewScientist.com news service
By Anna Gosline

People with a gene variation that dulls their taste buds to bitter flavours drink twice as much alcohol as those with more sensitive palates, suggests a US study. The discovery may assist doctors in the battle against alcoholism, which is strongly connected to early drinking behaviour.
People generally fall into three categories of taster. Supertasters have an acute sensitivity to bitter chemicals, while nontasters only sense bitterness at higher concentrations. Medium tasters fall in between.
Previous studies have shown that nontasters find alcohol - such as whisky, wine or beer - more pleasing and sweet than supertasters. There is also evidence that alcoholics and their relatives are more likely to be nontasters. But results have been contradictory, probably because grouping people into taster categories is partly subjective.
The bitter chemical 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) is often used in taste tests and in 2003 a gene influencing the sensitivity to PROP was discovered. The gene, TAS2R38, codes for a taste bud receptor and has several natural variations.
Valerie Duffy at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, US, and her colleagues set out to see if the TAS2R38 variation could accurately predict sensitivity to bitterness, and whether that in turn influenced alcohol consumption.
Overriding tastes
The team screened 53 women and 31 men, all light-to-moderate drinkers, for their response to PROP and their TAS2R38 gene profile. They also recorded each person's self-reported alcohol consumption and the number of taste buds on each person's tongue.
All but four people had either had two copies of one gene variant group (PAV/PAV), two copies of the other main variant (AVI/AVI), or one of each (PAV/AVI). These groups corresponded well to the PROP tasting categories with PAV/PAV individuals being the most bitter-sensitive and AVI/AVI the least.
The researchers also found that genotype had a strong relationship with yearly alcohol consumption. PAV/PAV people had, on average, 133 drinks a year, those with PAV/AVI had 180 and those with AVI/AVI had 285.
"For the person who tastes the most bitterness, it makes sense that you aren't going to want to drink as much alcohol," Duffy told New Scientist. However, she warns that people may often override the demands of their taste buds by drinking highly sweetened beverages, or ignore them completely in some social situations - like student parties.
Worldwide impact
Dennis Drayna, at the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders in Rockville, Maryland, US, headed the research team that discovered TAS2R38. About half of the world's population have at least one copy of the low-sensitivity variant AVI, he says.
Understanding how it affects alcohol taste and consumption could have huge implications, he adds: "It is well know that there are genetic influences on alcoholism, but it is a very difficult tangle of facts. That taste appears to be so clear a factor is very exciting. The finding may have a substantial impact on the worldwide problem of alcoholism."
Julie Mennella at the Monnell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, US, agrees: "Taste is usually the primary reason kids give for not using alcohol. Whether the genetic differences that underlie sensitivity to bitter tastes contribute to early experimentation with alcohol is an important area for future research."
Journal reference: Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (DOI: 10.1097/01.ALC.0000145789.55183.D4)

Above article sourced from NewScientist.com news service