Health claims about drinking too much

Once again the debate about drinking one glass of wine a day is making the rounds of the press with the Times saying that a glass of wine a day is good for your health. I always find these claims amusing. There is no solid evidence that proves that drinking wine is good for your physical health. One thing is certain, is that to consume too much alcohol is damaging to your health. 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glass-of-wine-dinner-health-study-lancet-jmqskxvd8

Another certainty, is that despite how much wine you drink you are going to die and reducing the consumption of wine and cigarettes and other substances will not stop you from dying. You are going to die whether you like it or not. I am also amused by statistical studies which "prove" that if you drink one glass of wine over the arbitrary limits set by health care professionals then you will reduce your life span by an hour or half an hour or whatever.

Presumably, you could counteract the detrimental effects of wine over-consumption by not eating red meat, and to live longer by following a nutritionist's healthy diet. Life is too complicated to base your decisions on what you should eat or drink based on statistical analyses. 

I fear that this controversy will go on and on until the health professionals finally achieve their aim of no-one drinking wine or whiskey or whatever.  What about coca-cola? Why has no-one done research into the dangers of drinking more than a glass-full a day, or lemon juice or carrot juice? It is up to the individual to decide how much wine they drink. My advice is not to drink too much so that it affects your physical or mental health.

Of course drinking too much wine is dangerous , that is obvious and most of us do not need to be reminded of it. I shall continue to drink a glass of wine with a good meal or with friends because it makes me feel better,  and I am cheered up by the conviviality. I am not going to feel guilty if, occasionally, I go over the top. At my advanced years I know that I can't consume several glasses a day, so I give wine and beer a rest for two or three days a week. I am fully aware of what is going to happen but I am not ready for my last sip just yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/12/one-extra-glass-of-wine-will-shorten-your-life-by-30-minutes 

https://www.eatthis.com/drink-wine-every-night/

Yippee the supermarket shelves are filling up with wine

 I went to our local supermarket this morning to find that some of the empty shelves were being filled up with wine. Overseas readers may not now that there is a shortage of heavy lorries drivers owing to Brexit. Thousands of lorry drivers from the EU have left the UK because of the C19 pandemic and Brexit, and they are not coming back either because they feel un-welcome or they need a visa to come to Britain now to work. They are considered to be unskilled workers so not many visas are being handed out.

This is one of the victories of Brexit, and perhaps the only one, with supermarkets over-flowing with wine - it's a pity about the prices.

The supermarkets must have enormous stocks of wine if they are able to replace the empty food shelves with wine.   However, the price of wine is now so high that I doubt if it is shifting quickly, but luckily it has a long shelf life. Brexit resulted in the cost of imported wine shooting through the roof because the pound fell so heavily against the Dollar and the Euro.

I don't buy wine now unless it is discounted, but this morning I bought a bottle of one of my favourite wines, "Château Pey La Tour 2019 red", from Dourthe: this wine is typical of a good AOP  Bordeaux. It was GBP 7.99 instead of GBP10.69. This is not a bargain though compared to the prices in France.

I noticed in the aisles that the cost of a discounted Crémant de Bourgogne sparkling wine was  GBP13.99; this is as costly as a bottle of good quality Champagne that I can by directly from the suppliers in France.

https://www.waitrosecellar.com/red-wine-offers/chateau-pey-la-tour-885888

Bad harvest

2021 will have been a terrible year for wine producers in France. It is calculated that the harvest will be the worst sine 1977, with annual production down by between 24 and 30 %. Frost in the spring and mildew later on have caused havoc for growers. Some analysts have put the problems down to climate change which is creating serious damage to weather patterns, with frosts being followed by excessive rainfall. This could be the shape of things to come. We need to do more than "just limit" global warming to 1.5 centigrade we need to get back to what was normal 50 years ago. We really need to redouble our efforts. There is more than just wine production at stake the whole of agriculture could be devastated across the world. Just buying an electric car will not solve the problem. It is now time for all humans to rethink how their activities are affecting the the planet.

There is still time left, but what would the world be like without our daily glass of wine and our daily bread? 

https://www.rayon-boissons.com/vins-et-champagnes/vers-une-vendange-2021-historiquement-faible

The horse in the vineyard

 More and more wine producers are using horses rather than tractors in the vineyard. Horses perform better on difficult and steep terrain. They are more gentle on the soil and the vines. They improve the aeration of the soil and they compact the soil less. Soils tilled by horse drawn vineyard machinery are less likely to support vine pests. Horses provide manure to fertilise the soil and they hardly produce any air pollution or noise to disturb vineyard workers. The workers can stroke the horse in their wine and food breaks and feel all the better for it.

We know producers in Champagne  who have been using horses for years are part of biodynamic grape production and their wines taste exceptionally good.

I have written before about the use of "drones" or automatons in the vineyard and, possibly some future wise guy will deploy robots to tend the stables and attach the horses to the farm machinery. Their automatons will feed the horses and brush them and clean out the stables. The horses will be guided in their work  by drones with computerised voices. They will be given their injections by automated vets. The will be shod by android blacksmiths. All this will be done to provide economies in the vineyard.  This is a rather a dire prospect for the poor old horse who might never get to be in contact with another mammal let alone another horse and, it is unromantic image.

Maybe, things should be left alone and the horse should be looked after and guided by human beings. Horses and humans have been working in harmony for thousands of years and their wines will continue to be all the better for it for years to come.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/28/draught-wines-french-vineyards-rediscover-the-power-of-horses

Drinking while pregnant

Once again there is a controversy about having a drink. This time it's about drinking a glass of wine or having a beer when you are pregnant. Luckily, I don't need to worry about this. For balance , I thought I would link to  two different points of view.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/style/drinking-while-pregnant.html

https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/drinking-pregnancy-safe-harmful/

My own point of view is that it is up to a woman to decide whether she want's a glass of wine during pregnancy. However, she might want to consider all of the facts or simply hold the view that a couple of small glasses of wine a week won't damage her or her baby's health even though there is no absolute proof that drinking any quantity of wine, beer or whiskey is safe.

We are faced with risks all our lives and there is only one certainty and that is death. Women are bombarded with advice about what and what not to do when they are pregnant. Let each woman decide what is best for her own health and that of the unborn child. 

One thing is certain, there is a point where alcohol consumption will damage the health of the unborn child, but there is very little research to show where this point is, either for the individual or for the population in general. It is probably best for women who are pregnant to err on the side of caution about the amount of alcohol that they consume, and this advice is salient for us all. This does not mean that we have to be the abstinent killjoys that some medical doctors profess, even if we are pregnant.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30008-6/fulltext

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/pregnancy-drinking-units-allowed-health-baby-harm-a7941316.html

Stellenbosch Zalze Shiraz/Mourvèdre/ Viognier 2019 red

 It bought this red wine from the local supermarket with a sense of excitement as it had been award prizes in South Africa.. However, I did not know what to make of it. It had all the hallmarks of a good quality wine even though it had a strong flavour of malo-lactic conversion which made the wine smell a bit buttery. Malo-lactic conversion is used to convert the malic acid in the wine to lactic acid which is softer on the palate.

The wine was young and lively with fruit and spice taste and seemed to be well integrated. We drank half a bottle with roast duck and the wine went well with it, however at the end of our meal I still had half a glass left over. Usually, when this happens I sip the glass before tea or coffee to finish it. This time I couldn't finish the glass the wine did not taste right and I could n't put my finger on what was wrong. Maybe, we were drinking it too soon and it should have left the bottle to mature for another year or so, but these days wines such as this are designed to be drunk young. Maybe it was to blend of grapes or the strong smell of malo-lactic conversion or maybe it had not been stored correctly. perhaps the style wasn't to our liking.

 We saved the remaining half of the bottle until the next day to drink with our roast pork. I thought that a little bit of oxidation, overnight, would improve matters but it didn't:  we were a little bit disappointed but finished the half bottle all the same as it went down quite well with the food. To finish things off I opened a bottle of Burgundy red from our favourite producer; a couple of glasses of that alleviated our disappointment.

Others, may find that this wine is perfectly satisfactory and that they enjoy it very well , so I am not going to mark it down in anyway. In the future, I might buy another bottle and we will then really enjoy it - who knows?  But, then again we could have been spoilt by drinking too much Burgundy red.

https://www.waitrosecellar.com/zalze-shiraz-mourvedre-viognier

Late Frost Bad News for the Wine Harvest

 This year's late frosts have done severe damage to the vines in France. The damage is so severe that government assistance will be required. One severe weather event cannot be attributed to climate change and global warming, but climate scientists have been warning us for years that global warming not only affects rainfall with increasing temperatures, but it also causes unexpected fluctuations to the weather. It is quite possible that winters could become colder and wetter and summers could become warmer and drier. All sorts of unexpected variations are possible within the range of average global temperatures going up. What happens now, if this year the wine growers of France and other European areas experience severe heat and drought in summer? They could have a disaster on their hands, and a run of 4 or 5 bad growing seasons could ruin the wine industry. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/09/french-winemakers-frost-government-freezing-temperatures-crops-vines

It is not just France that has been affected, as many UK vineyards have been badly damaged too. Can UK growers expect generous government subsidies too? I shall leave you to answer that one.

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/05/uk-vineyards-grapple-with-late-frost/

The Northern vineyards of Italy have also had their frost problems.

https://www.winespectator.com/articles/frost-strikes-vineyards-in-leading-italian-wine-region

Climat change needs to be tackled urgently, wine lovers do not want to taste wine that stems from grapes being grown under cloches or irrigated or artificially heated. Vines need nature; we can nurture the grapes but in the final analysis the vines need an equitable climate. Poorly grown grapes will produce poor wines.

It is ironic that research is being done to see how wines mature in space. What next, will research be done to see how grapes will grow without gravity and without weight to stretch the roots and the vine canes. Are some wine growers foreseeing a future where man leaves the planet Earth to inhabit Mars complete with his agriculture? This is a  pie in the sky future. It might be best to look after our own planet first  and reverse the damage of man made climate change. Let healthy vines produce healthy grapes and healthy wine.