Deaf Grapevine

 

 

Vol. 9  No. 3,  Fall 2015

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:   "Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder."

Aldous Huxley
English-born novelist who wrote the classic "Brave New World".
1894-1963

IMAGE #1

GrapevineGrapevine

Editor Rusty's Rap:  Wine and Sulfites

One of Dr. Keith Roach's daily column, "To Your Good Health" involves the question of what, if any, problem exists with sulfites present in wine? Sulfites are used as preservatives in many foods including most wines. People claim red wine causes headache because of sulfites. Actually it is not true! Typically, Merlot wine has about 50 ppm (parts per million) and white wines or sweet wines tend to have higher sulfite concentration, up to about 300 ppm. In contrast, there are other food with much higher sulfites concentrations, such as raisins and dried fruits. For example, dried apricots have 1,100 ppm!

Some people have reactions to sulfites BUT these reactions are not headaches. The most common reactions or allergy to sulfites are rash or itch, diarrhea, stomach cramping and a wheezing or cough. To test yourself as whether you have an allergy to sulfites, taste dried fruits. If you don’t have any reactions eating these fruits, then you are ok with wine and many other food.

Why headache after drinking wine? It is simply because of alcohol and the sensitivity of your brain cells. Other compounds in wine, histamines and tannins, may more likely connected to the headache effects. As I have always emphasized in my wine workshops, it is best to enjoy wine AND water, drinking in turn wine and water all night long. And then in morning you will wake up smiling without any headache!

IMAGE #2

Harvesting Time for Grapes:
View the video of grapes harvesting with new technology!  Harvesters have picked grapes for decades, though high-end wine grapes are still mostly hand-picked. But new harvesters could change that. New harvesting technology makes grape harvesters gentler. They are also able to optically sort grapes during harvest to remove material other than grapes and inferior berries, and can even de-stem when desired.

Picking grapes by hand costs up to $250 per ton in labor costs, compared to the labor cost of operating a mechanical grape harvester that's around $35 to $40 per acre. The purchase cost of a new harvest machine, with sorting capabilities, can be around $350,000.

Some vineyards, built on extremely steep slopes, have been in trouble for years. Cultivating and harvesting grapes on hillsides is elaborate, expensive and dangerous. Machines and tractors that cut, spray and harvest the rows of vines on flat land are of hardly any use in such hills.


Winemaking:

The real fun behind winemaking is to invite a friend while you make wine. My wine buddy Larry Petersen from Seattle stayed at my house overnight after his business trip. I thought it would be a sweet time to have Larry help me start winemaking.

IMAGE #3

For Step 2, I had Teresa, the chairlady of Deaf StompFest 2015, assisted me racking/siphoning from Primary fermenter to a carboy (oh no, no photo!). Then on to bottling, I had Paul McComb from Bakersfield, CA (originally from Washington State) lend his hand.

PHOTO or VIDEO #4

Those who helped me learned something about making wine. And I actually learned from them during the process of wine making! What fun!

Fun Fact:  

Which country uses more land for growing grapes for wine, France or China?  Answer: China . . . overtakes France in vineyards this year! However, there is a huge lag in wine production in China. It may take only a few years before Chinese vineyards yield more wine as there is a great growth of wine consumption in China, nearly 50% increase since 2000!


News in the Deaf Community:

(1)  There are only a very few tickets left for 2015 Deaf StompFest. Actually, it was sold out but we the committee moved onto a larger space that holds more people. Thus more tickets were available and we continued selling tickets. Hurry and don’t miss out this year! Once again, here is the formal announcement!

FLYER #1

A self-guided tour through Willamette Valley on Sunday September 20 (day after StompFest) is being established and a pamphlet will be shared with StompFest guests soon.

(2)  DCARA hosted a fundraising event at the Deaf Community Center in San Leandro on May 9, 2015. Bobby Skedsmo joined them for an afternoon of fascinating culture and history of Wine & Chocolate Tasting Party. The party was presented by Deborah O’ Willow – Chocolate Diva Presenter: Loves learning history about everything especially Chocolate and Elizabeth Grigsby – Wine Diva Presenter: Sophisticated Wine Drinker, Studied Wine Culture and History at San Francisco State University. It included Tasting & Hors d'oeuvres.

Wine Folly:

1 or 2 CARTOONS

(thanks to Vadja for his submission)


GrapevineGrapevine

Current List of Winemakers' Records

Go back to main page

blogspot stats

View My Stats