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Vol. 2  No. 3  -  July/August/September 2008

News about wine making and wine appreciation by our Deaf fellows and friends, news not about people

Editor: Rusty Wales, the vintner of Prince of Wales wines
Webmaster: Bobby Skedsmo, the creator of the Estate of Skedsmo wines

Wine Quotation:   "Making good wine is a skill; making great wine is an art" Robert Mondavi, the pioneering vintner who helped put California wine country on the map, died at his Napa Valley home recently (May 2008) . . . (1913-2008)
Editor's notes: Mr. Mondavi drank red wine every day in his adult life and he lived to be 94 years old . . . drinking red wines must be a great healthy habit!

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Editorial Comments:   Sulfites and Your Wine

With a glass of wine in my hand, I received the similar comments from some friends, "I love wine but its sulfites give me headache . . . ".  Allow me set the record straight:

    • All wines contain sulfites. Yeast (without which wine cannot be produced) naturally produce sulfites during fermentation so there is virtually no wine which has no sulfites at all.
    • The US and Australia require a "sulfite" warning label but nearly all winemakers add sulfites, including those in France, Italy, Spain, etc. (see the "Answer to trivia question.." below). European wines have sulfites as much as US wines but their laws do not require warning labels.
    • Sulfites do not cause headaches! There is something else in red wine that may cause headache (maybe amines?) but the cause has not yet been discovered. To avoid headaches, try drinking as much water as the wine you drink and also eat food while enjoying wine.

If you still think sulfites are causing your headache, try eating dried apricots.  These 2-oz dried apricots typically have 10 times the sulfites more than a glass of wine.  If you eat those apricots and have a reaction (headache), then you know you may be allergic to sulfites.


Fun fact:  Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of the United States, was a winemaker and avid wine collector. A bottle of his 1787 Bordeaux, Chateau Lafite, was sold during an auction in 1985 for $160,000, long after it had turned sour and undrinkable!

Wine Making:  Never make your own wine before?  Are most manual booklets difficult to read?  Have no fear!  Bobby, our very own Deaf Grapevine webmaster, has developed an easy-to-see/easy-to-understand photographed wine making, step by step.  Never before has such instruction anywhere been so clear until Bobby created this one.  It is with our pride that we install this instructional manual for beginner wine makers to our DG.
Visit Winemaking Step by Step Instruction by Skedsmo

Answer to the trivia question from the last issue:  Sulfites are added to wine: d) to sanitize bottles. Winemakers have been adding sulfites to wines for thousands of years. The Greeks and Romans did that in their times. Besides sanitizing, sulfites protect damage to the wine caused by oxygen and also it prevents organisms from growing in the wine causing vinegar.

Today's trivia question:  Tannin is:

      a) the acid or "dry" of wine
      b) taste of full-bodied wine
      c) a preservative coming from grape skins/seeds during fermentation
      d) color of grape skin.

( answer in the next Deaf Grapevine newsletter, October/November/December '08 )


News in the Deaf World:
There was the big fund-raising event in Palm Springs on March 29th, 2008 and the Deaf Seniors Foundation of Palm Springs conducted this event to raise funds to be applied toward a future senior housing's community center needs.  This event included Rusty's wine appreciation workshop, wine tasting and wine auction.  The event concluded with a great dinner catered by Matt Baker, the deaf owner of Feast On This catering services and his crew.  Photos were taken by Billy Barr.

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The first placard of 22-slide wine workshop, so much to learn about wine!

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Event chairperson Barb Goldman made some humorous comments
as workshop presenter Rusty Wales and Emcee Mel Carter looked on.

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The audience (part of 89 attendees, already exceeding the capacity limit) eye-listened with great interest

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Wine stewards, Stephen Schultz and Bob Miller, served Pinot Grigio wine
for tasting during the workshop

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The participants were experiencing the sequence of "look, smell, and taste"

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The auction had already began as Mel Carter tried to entice higher bids.

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The delicious dinner was the best time for socializing,
as we say "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may diet!"  (I said "diet"!)



Current List of Winemakers' Records

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