Good Wine Research Articles

Alexander Ashley Weech, MD

Nov 10, 1985—Aug 17, 1977 A connoisseur of English and good wine, a teacher and scientist of repute, a physician of stature, and an editor par excellence has gone from our midst. He was a man of many talents, one of the giants of American pediatrics. Ashley will be remembered by generations of medical students and house officers whose habitat ranged from Baltimore to New York to Peking to Cincinnati to Gainesville; by clinicians for his early use of sulfonamide drugs in this country (see Am J Dis Child 124:818-819, 1972; 128:207-211, 1974); by scientists interested in plasma proteins and liver disease; and by the readers of thisJournal, which he so expertly edited from 1963 to the end of 1972. He had a fine editorial hand. A proponent of clear and precise phraseology and a believer in Bacon's dictum that writing maketh an exact man, Ashley saw to it

A Comparison of Anthocyanins and Wine Color Quality in Black Grapes of 39 Clones of Vitis rotundifolia Michx.

Abstract Levels of 5 anthocyanins (Acy) in black muscadine grapes sampled in 1971 were compared with the visual color ratings and tristimulus values [“Theta” (hue), “L” (lightness), and “Sat” (saturation or chromaticity)] (Hunter Color and Color Difference Meter) of the wines made from grapes of these same clones (vines) in 1968 and aged in the bottle for 1 year. Neither total Acy content, which varied 50-fold, nor contents of the diglucoside (diglc) of delphinidin (Dp), present in larger quantities than those of the other 4 Acy, was associated with a good wine color. In all instances, good red wine color was associated with the presence of 8 or more mg of malvidin-3,5-diglc/100-g of fresh grapes. Good color of wines was also associated with low “Theta” and “L” tristimulus values. These 2 values were well correlated with each other. Multiple correlations indicated that 62% of the variation in “Theta” was accounted for by the natural logarithm of contents of diglc of malvidin (Mv), petunidin (Pt) and cyanidin (Cy) in the grapes. However, 42% was explained by the regression of Mv-3,5-diglc alone. Malvidin-3,5-diglucosides thus had the greatest effect on the hue of the wine. Over 75% of the variation in the tristimulus “L” value of the wine was accounted for by the regression of Pt-3,5-diglc with it. Therefore, good red wine color was largely dependent upon high levels of Mv and Pt diglc in fresh grapes.

The matchmaker who fell for Brazil

Ian Gilbert, chairman of the British Match Corporation, is fond of good wine, golfing and reading biographies. But his overriding love is Brazil—a country he has courted regularly since the age of 27.

Diseases of the Nervous System: Described for Practitioners and Students

<b>Clinical Neurology</b>, by Bernard J. Alpers and Elliott L. Mancall, ed 6; 1,072 pp, 236 illus, $32, Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Co., 1971. Unlike good wines, textbooks in medicine do not usually improve in the process of aging, and authors or publishers frequently seek to inject new vigor through new collaborators or editors. Two well-known neurologic textbooks appear now in new editions. Sir Francis Walshe's<i>Diseases of the Nervous System</i>, first published in 1940, has now reached its 11th edition. In the foreword, Sir Francis stresses his intention to keep the work selective, and the book has not significantly changed in size. The material is presented in two parts, the first dealing with the fundamental aspects of neurologic diagnosis, while the second describes diseases of the nervous system commonly encountered. Chapters on the relationship of liver disease to neurologic disorder and on lead poisoning are contributed by Dr. J. M.

Good Wine in a New Vase (Horace, Epistles 1.2)

Good Wine in a New Vase (Horace, Epistles 1.2)

Comportamento de videiras Seibel na região de São Roque, no Estado de São Paulo

Para as condições ecológicas do Estado de São Paulo o grupo de videiras que se apresenta mais importante para vinho é o representado pelos híbridos Seibel. Em São Roque foram estudados 79 cultivares, dos quais foram separados 7, como superiores. Embora nenhum dêles possa isoladamente produzir vinhos harmônicos e bem equilibrados, a não ser em anos de vindimas excepcionais, sua associação permite corrigir características de acidez, percentagem de açúcar e substâncias corantes para obter bons vinhos.

FINE WINE

Traditionally, wine tasters judge a wine by six essentials: smoothness, lightness, bouquet, dryness, body, and flavor. Thus a good red table wine, such as Gamay Beaujolais, is dry and soft with a fruity fragrance and only slightly lighter-bodied than the robust Pinot Noir. A good white wine, such as a Chablis, which is preferred for serving with the lighter-flavored meats, would be dry, straw-colored, and medium-bodied with a delicate fruity fragrance and a slight flinty taste. Cocktail and dessert wines include the pale sherries, dry and light-bodied with a slightly nutty flavor, ideal as an apertif, and the choice muscatels, sweet and smooth, best with cakes or fruit. For those who can't decide, of course, a rosé is always safe. All this is by way of calling attention to a small ( 200 pages ) volume¹which traces the medicinal uses of wine from earliest recorded use as a menstruum

Ronsard's Reflections on Cosmogony and Nature

Ronsard's last considered observation on . the relationship between philosophy and lyric poetry in the preface to the Odes (1587) is implicitly a reaffirmation of Du Bellay's confidence in the philosophic capacities of the French language,1 though expressed in a less exuberant manner: “Tu dois sçavoir que toute sorte de Poesie a l'argument propre &amp; convenable à son subject: ... la Lyrique, l'amour, le vin, les banquets dissolus, les danses, masques, chevaux victorieux, escrime, joustes &amp; tournois, &amp; peu souvent quelque argument de Philosophie” (i, 59). This retrospective program, if one may be forgiven the incongruity of the phrase, had been abundantly realized by Ronsard, in so far as “quelque argument de Philosophie” was concerned, and not only in his lyric poetry. For a moment, it is true, in a variant of 1578 of the ode Du retour de Maclou de la Haie (1550), the poet utters a gay disapproval of philosophers: “Les Philosophes je n'appreuve” (i, 208). But it is clear that Ronsard's intention is to celebrate the return of his friend with brimming cup, and the apparent condemnation of philosophers is nothing more than a warning to the enemies of good wine that their presence at the festivities would be superfluous. In the following edition, that of 1584, “Les Philosophes” became “Ces vieux Medecins.”

Fermentação do mosto de uva: influência do sistema de vinificação sôbre a acidez volátil do vinho

Foram ensaiados três tratamentos na vinificação do mosto de uva, a saber; a) fermentação natural: b) fermentação com o emprêgo da estirpe de fermento I.A. 78, e c) fermentação com associação de leveduras. Os dados obtidos mostraram que a estirpe I.A. 78 apresentou os melhores resultados na redução da acidez volátil dos vinhos obtidos.

Yeasts of Wine Fermentations from Various Regions of Italy

Yeasts of Wine Fermentations from Various Regions of Italy

The Literary Movements Defined

Even though you may not teach work any more advanced than an abridged novel in a second-year Spanish class, you are a teacher of Spanish literature. So it is not exclusively the professors of upper division and graduate university courses who should ask themselves whether they have ever thought to arm their students with clear comprehensive definitions of the literary movements. Although the literary historian sometimes tends to regard the literary movements as mere professors' distinctions, still it is basic that the potential Spanish major gain in high school or early in college a working definition of Classicism, Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, and Modernism. He can find out for himself later how seldom a given work falls entirely into any one category. It may even be wise to introduce early such other -isms as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Existentialism, Cubism, Creationism, Ultraism, Neo-Gongorism, and Futurism. If you are an experienced teacher, probably you have enjoyed a long-standing acquaintance with all these terms, but your students may have to grasp their implications piecemeal-possibly as you did. One does not have to read or understand the label on the bottle of wine to appreciate its flavor, and granted this flavor identifies itself to the connoisseur, yet does one not savor the tang all the more for having classified the wine first? Further, how does one become a connoisseur without acquiring first a system of reference, a knowledge of comparative facts of manufacture? Through my undergraduate Spanish major and three years of graduate work with most worthy professors, nowhere along that academic path were the -isms defined formally. Good wines, but lacking labels. Others must have had the same experience. Understandably the attainment of knowledge in any field is such a vast enterprise that problems of the specific course and given moment often predispose the instructor to make false assumptions. Even authors of most texts and anthologies likewise presume a knowledge of the literary -isms on the part of the reader. If it is only to make the teacher realize that he ought to give his students the facts of literary life before he begins to expound case histories, the attempts at definition to follow will have served their purpose. Art (including sculpture), music, and literature are closely allied as man's three most noble media for achieving the aesthetic ideal. We shall call these the arts. The arts have a common goal, beauty, attained through an appeal to the intellect via the senses. If our intellect is mature, usually it is sensitive to all the arts if it is sensitive to one, for seeing and hearing are but leaf and stem to a common root. The arts must overlap each other: in most music a story or picture exists or is imagined; art too tells a story; all good literature evinces rhythm and equilibrium. Since the arts are so closely related, stylistic approaches to the literary, musical, or pictorial ideal are infectious. Individual stylistic approach often is imitated finally to become stereotyped. When this happens, the resulting group stylistic approach becomes known as a school. In recent centuries, numbers of individuals who have shared the same stylistic ideals have announced publicly their champion or model or set of tenets. The result is a formal school. It may be assumed, then, that the fundamental differences among Clas-

Sam Ward’s Bargain with President López of Paraguay

S AMUEL WARD was one of the most colorful celebrities of the mid-nineteenth-cenitury United States. A man of many talents, he excelled in mathematics and languages, both ancient an-d modern, possessed a prodigious memory, and was the most popular wit and raconteur of his time. Nobody rivaled him as a connoisseur of good wines and good food ancd as a master in the ilntricacies of contemporary politics and lobbying. His most remarkable gift was perhaps his capacity for friendship. Included amrLong his intimate frienids were Longfellow (who in fact was his protege), Washinlgton Irving, Thackeray, William H. Russell, James A. Garfield, William M. Evarts, S. L. M. Barlow, Thomas F. Bayard, Lord and Lady Rosebery, and Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil. He guided Oscar Wilde about New York and New Englandl in 1882.1 How he won the confideniee of President Carlos Antonio Lo6pez of Paraguay, a distrustful and difficult character, we shall see. Samuel, or Sam as he was generally known, Ward came from a distinguished family, whose anlcestors occupied a high position in colonial society. His father was a successful baniker, ancd olle of his * The author is professor of Latiui Aumerican studies at the Uiiiversity of Texas. 1 The imost complete and detailed biography of Saiui Ward is Uncle Samit Ward avd His Circle, by Maudi Howve Elliott (Newv York, 1938), a. chariniug book where Sam Ward 's career is followved througlh excerpts from his diaries, mnemnoirs, anld hundreds of letters exclhalnged with his relatives anid frielnds. Good biograplhical sketches are foulnd in Carvel Collins, ed., San WFard inthe Gold RHsh (Stanford, 1949), Introduction, pp. 3-16, anid Epilogue, 173-176, alnd in Franik Maloy AnlderSonl, The Mystery of Public Man,' A Historical Detective Story (Uniiversity of Miillesota Press, 1948), clhapter XIX. After a patienit research of mauiy years, Professor Andersoll reached the colnclusioln that Saull Ward was the author of Tile Diary of a Public ManI published in 1879 in the North American Review, wlvose idenitity is a. mystery of long standinig ill Americani bistory. Roy N. Lokkenl, however, findcls in Professor Alndersoni 's book maniy laculiae, anid states that uiltil they are filled, the mystery of 'A Public MIani remiiainis unlsolved (The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XL, No. 3, December, 1953, 419-440).

Mr. Weston's good wine∗

Mr. Weston's good wine∗

The Florisbad and Taungs Skulls

'GOOD wine needs no bush' ; nevertheless South African anthropologists are very grateful to Sir Arthur Keith for his unfailing interest in their work and particularly for his recent note on the Florisbad skull1. It is, as Sir Arthur says, an outstanding landmark in human palaeontology, and well worthy of sharing attention with Rhodesian man. But just as there is little agreement about the exact position of the latter in the human scale, so the status of Florisbad man is not yet settled.

Sir William Hardy, F.R.S

THOSE who enjoyed Hardy's friendship, and even those who could hope for no more than occasional contact with him, will deeply feel the loss of a strong and vital personality radiating an influence which stimulated effort, cured discouragement and could reawaken flagging enthusiasms. Hardy entered into everything he did with zest, and this seems to be the word which adequately describes his own attitude to life. He met each successive experience with fresh interest, and brought his whole nature to the appreciation of whatever it offered of value. His enjoyment of intellectual pleasures was itself almost sensuous, while his delight in the beauties of Nature, or in the appeal of fine pictures and music, was always mingled with—and, for him, intensified by—the intellectual reactions they evoked. Life's minor pleasures appealed to him and he loved a good wine, and a good story, in the telling or the hear-ing, and he enjoyed both best in good company.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

13 EADERS of Mr. Bertrand Russell's philosophical £v works know that one of his pupils before the outbreak of the war, an Austrian, Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein, caused him to change his views in some important particulars. Curiosity can now be satisfied. The “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus “which Mr. Ogden has included in his new library of philosophy is a remarkable and strikingly original work. It is published in German and English in parallel pages. It is difficult to appreciate the reason for this, seeing that the author is evidently familiar with our language and has himself carefully revised the proofs of the translation. Also we should have liked to have the Tractatus without Mr. Russell's Introduction, not, we hasten to add, on account of any fault or shortcoming in that introduction, which is highly appreciative and in part a defence of himself, in part explanatory of the author, but for the reason that good wine needs no bush and that Mr. Russell's bush has the unfortunate effect of dulling the palate instead of whetting the appetite. In his penultimate sentence Mr. Russell says; “To have constructed a theory of logic which is not at any point obviously wrong is to have achieved a work of extraordinary difficulty and importance.” We agree, but how uninspiring when compared with Mr. Wittgenstein's own statement of aim: “What can be said at all can be said clearly, and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. By Ludwig Wittgenstein. (International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method.) Pp. 189. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., Inc., 1922.) 10s. 6d. net.

A Treatise on the Dynamics of a Particle

THIS treatise is intended for the student. It has all the merits as well as the limitations which characterise Dr. Routh's other well-known text-books; and, on the principle of reserving the good wine to the last, we will first consider its limitations, more particularly as an introduction to dynamical science.

The Student's Hand-book of Historical Geology

GOOD wine needs no bush, but every prudent vintner will carefully abstain from hanging out a sign calculated in any way to convey to the passer-by the impression that the liquor to be obtained within is of inferior quality. If authors were equally cautious, we should not see, as in the case before us, a good book disfigured by a frontispiece, to say the least, not calculated to produce a favourable impression on the mind of one who opens the work for the first time. The plate in question is a fanciful representation of what some one has imagined may have been the distribution of land and sea during the Carboniferous period. It depicts the present bed of the North Atlantic as then occupied by a broad tract of continental land. Now, when we picture to ourselves a long tongue of land running out, during Carboniferous times, from Scandinavia across the Highlands of Scotland and on to the north and west of Ireland, we are well within the bounds of legitimate speculation. The arguments in favour of such an hypothesis are too well known to need reproduction here. Again, when we look at a geological map of North America, and note how the great central tract of Palaeozoic formations is even now hemmed in on the north and east by a belt of Archaean rocks, we are indulging in no improbable supposition if we infer that, during Palaeozoic times, the eastern Archaean strip extended further to the east than now, and that from it was derived part of the material for the formation of the rocks of the Palaeozoic basin. But it is obviously quite another thing if, on the strength of these two highly probable suppositions, we proceed to fill up the whole of the intervening ocean. It is a puzzle to our mind to imagine on what grounds any one can pretend to know what was the condition of things in mid-Atlantic so far back in the earth's history, and any attempt to lay down such a map as figures in the frontispiece to the present volume seems to be about as striking an instance as can be found of the unscientific use of the imagination. The Student's Hand-book of Historical Geology. By A. J. Jukes-Browne. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1886.)

“Good wine needs no bush.”

“Good wine needs no bush.”

Our Book Shelf

A WORK by Mr. Williamson is like good wine, and needs no commendation from us. We note that this has reached a fourth edition, but Mr. Williamson does not rest content with what he has already achieved. He has given a touch here, brought out into greater prominence a feature there, and not only so, but he has at last added a new detail in the shape of a chapter on multiple integration. In our notices of former editions we have drawn attention to the absence of such a chapter, and we are glad to see that he has at last introduced what he hopes “will be found a useful addition to the book.” We need only remark further that this edition has 393 pages against 375 pages in the third edition.