Wine - 101 Truths, Myths and Legends

Roddy Button

Description

Are you a wine connoisseur? Do you prefer to try different makes and vintages or do you have a firm favourite? At the weekend, do you like to open a bottle (or two!) to enjoy with family and friends? Whatever your wine drinking habits, if you like wine, you are certain to enjoy this new trivia book. Do you know how the American 'Starboard' wine came to be named? What did the eminent scientist William Lemeck discover about champagne? Who said, "Whether wine is a nourishment, medicine or poison is a matter of dosage."? The answers can all be found in Wine - 101 Truths, Myths and Legends.With sections on names of wines, champagne, colour, history, labels, quotes, cost, and much more, you can't help but find out some fascinating new facts about wine and the myths and legends surrounding it. Whether red, white or rose is your tipple, and even if you only ever drink champagne, if you like wine and are interested in the facts and figures associated with its production, you won't want to without this book.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 09 septembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908752284
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
WINE - 101 TRUTHS, MYTHS AND LEGENDS




By
Roddy Button & Mike Oliver
Unofficial And Unauthorised




Publisher Information
First published in 2013 by
Apex Publishing Ltd
PO Box 7086, Clacton on Sea, Essex, CO15 5WN, England
www.apexpublishing.co.uk
Digital Edition converted and distributed in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2013 by Roddy Button & Mike Oliver
The authors have asserted their moral rights
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition, that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.



Amusing Names In South Africa the wine producer, Charles Back, has been irritating the French Regional Wine Authorities, especially in the Rhone, by using the same grapes as the AC Rhone wines and giving his wines a GOAT name instead of COTE (he keeps lots of goats on his wine farm Fairview in Paarl). So, instead of Cotes du Rhone he produces Goats Do Roam, and for Cotes du Rhone Villages he has Goats Do Roam in Villages. For Cote Rotie he makes Goat Roti (same 100% Syrah as Cote Rotie). He has expanded his range to annoy Bordeaux wines with Bored Doe (he also keeps deer), and Burgundy’s Cote d’Or with his new Goats Door. Long may he continue as they are fine quality wines. The American wine, Starboard, is so named because Randall Graham, with his vineyards in California, cannot call it port although it has the exact clones of grapes taken from Oporto in Portugal. He also has Syrah clones from Chateauneuf-du-Pape which he calls Old Telegram (aping Vieux Telegraphe (Old Telegraph), a top producer in the AC). Using a different image of Marilyn Monroe on the label each year, California’s Nova Wines produces a wine called ‘Marilyn Merlot’. The images are licensed to Nova Wines by Marilyn Monroe’s estate. Australia celebrates and specialises in odd or funny names for wines, though they are usually of good quality. Here are six of the best - By Farr, Mad Fish Bay, Lazy Ballerina, Turkey Flat, Ten Minutes by Tractor, Yarra Yarra and an order to ‘Mount Mary!’ Two Lesser quality slightly rude ones are - Bitch (the back label repeats this 77 times!) and Naked on Roller Skates (with an appropriate picture on the label!). Even the French are suddenly having a sense of humour when naming new French wine brands - but mainly big sellers from the south. Elephant on a Tightrope (from Vin de Pays d’Oc), Arrogant Frog, and Frogs Piss (both VDQS wines), Vin De Merde (Languedoc-Roussillon), and finally - Fat Bastard (which sells 400,000 cases in the USA alone, a marketing phenomenon). The Hungarian winery ‘Neszmely’ produces a wine with an unpronounceable (outside Hungary) grape name, so they decided to call it ‘The Unpronouncable Grape’. The actual grape name is Cserszegi Fuszeres, the pronunciation of which approximates to ‘Chair- sheggy Foo-share-us’. Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush comes from New Zealand and is a very dry and pungent Sauvignon Blanc. It’s from Coopers Creek winery, which also produces Fat Cat Chardonnay and Tom Cat Merlot. They give part of their profits to the local SPCA to protect cats. Bull’s Blood, from Eger in Hungary, was a top-selling wine in the UK during the 1960s to ‘80s. The name comes from the Siege of Eger by the Turks in 1552 - the Eger soldiers drank the local red wine to fortify themselves in battle and it stained their beards and white tunics red. The superstitious Turks thought they were drinking the blood of bulls to make themselves fierce and became fearful and demoralised and ran away, ending the siege. Now the good burghers of Eger have decided that Bull’s Blood had too down-market an image and have renamed the wines Egri Bikaver. From 2004, they have gained protected origin status. They have the same blend of three grapes, but now have a posher name.



Champagne It was the British Navy in 1689 that first introduced the practice of breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull to baptise and launch a ship. It’s bad luck for the bottle not to break, first time, on impact, and it’s common practice nowadays to prepare the champagne bottle beforehand, to ensure it shatters, by scoring the middle using a diamond cutter. It’s not true that the champagne bottle didn’t break on the launch of the Titanic. The White Star Line never had a baptism launch ceremony for their ships - they just hit the blocks and tackle and let her slide into the water.