Your Dentist Knows

Wine: Kills Oral Bacteria on Contact

Posted by Dr. Todd Welch on Oct 2, 2010 

According to a new study, a cocktail of compounds found in both red and white wine fights germs that can cause dental plaque as well as sore throats.Drinking wine can maintain heart health, prevent cancer and even settle a mean case of diarrhea. Research now shows it’s also good for your teeth and throat.

“Exposure to wine had a persistent antibacterial effect,” the authors wrote in their study, detailed in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Prior to their research, the authors said the effects of wine against germs found in the mouth hadn’t been studied.

Red wines have stronger bacteria-fighting effects than white wine, although not by much. Curiously, the acidity and alcohol isn’t responsible for wine’s germ-fighting properties—instead, it’s a collection of organic (carbon-containing) compounds found in the drink.

After isolating the compounds from wine, which included lactic, malic, succinic and tartaric acids, the researchers neutralized their acidity. They then showed that the isolated antibacterial compounds were more successful than wine alone at killing 99.9 percent of the dental and sore throat bacteria, even when used in far lower concentrations than found in wine.

Because the mixture worked better outside of the wine, the researchers think that something in the beverage dampens its powerful germ-fighting abilities—comparable to antiseptic mouthwashes found in stores.

But don’t run out and gargle wine before brushing just yet, as the acids in wine can actually soften the hard but thin coat of protective tooth enamel.

“Sipping or holding acidic drinks in the mouth before swallowing increases the risk of erosion on dental enamel,” said Dr. David Bartlett of the Academy of General Dentistry. To cut down on this risk, Bartlett recommends waiting at least 20 minutes before brushing after eating any acidic foods.

If you enjoyed this article, there is a good chance you will like these articles from my blog as well:

• “White Wine Can Stain Your Teeth Red“
• “The History of Teeth Whitening“
• “Whiten Your Teeth With Strawberries“
• “Sensitive Teeth: Causes and Treatment“

A good practice

Decanter magazine to list alcohol level as standard

• Wednesday 27 April 2011 
• by Adam Lechmere

Decanter will state alcohol levels on all recommended wines listed in the magazine from the current (May) issue onwards.

The decision has been taken largely in response to requests from readers, editor Guy Woodward said.

‘Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a growing stream of readers asking us to list the alcohol levels of the wines that we recommend.’

The issue has been controversial and is by no means confined to Decanter or to a British readership.

The San Francisco Chronicle has taken the decision to add alcohol levels from this week.

‘Occasionally we've noted alcohol levels where germane,’ the paper’s wine editor Jon Bonné noted, ‘But we resisted printing them regularly because the act of bringing alcohol into the discussion of a wine is inherently political.’

Woodward felt the same, saying that to state the alcohol would risk painting a simplistic picture of the wine in question.

‘Many wines at 15% taste very balanced, and the alcohol is unobtrusive. And while we’re concerned about rising levels, unlike some retailers and sommeliers who’ve said they won’t consider wines over 15%, we’re not going to be blinkered about it.

‘However, we now feel that it’s become such a major issue for consumers that readers should be given the information and be able to make up their own minds how important it is.’

There are other issues that need to be taken into account, Woodward said – particularly around health.

‘It’s not just a question of the alcohol’s impact on the taste of the wine. There are also health issues at stake, drink-driving limits to consider, and the simple issue of intoxication.

‘If you want to enjoy more than one wine with dinner, for instance, the difference between a 12% wine and 15% can be quite significant.’

Value of Social Media and Online Sales

Mashable | The Social Media Guide

Social Media Has

 Little Impact on Online Retail Purchases [STUDY]

28 April 2011

by Todd Wasserman

All those marketers who are rushing to increase their social media spend take note: A new study says social media has almost no influence on online purchasing behavior.

The report, a collaboration between Forrester Research and GSI Commerce, analyzed data captured from online retailers between November 12 and December 20, 2010. The research shows that social media rarely leads directly to purchases online — data indicates that less than 2% of orders were the result of shoppers coming from a social network. The report found email and search advertising were much more effective vehicles for turning browsers into buyers.

“The best analogy is in the South, a lot of people go to church on Sunday,” says Fiona Dias, executive vice president of strategy and marketing for GSI Commerce. “If you go with the theory that you should market where the people are, then you should be running off to market during church services. Facebook has the same analogy. Buying things from retailers is maybe 10th on the list of things they want to do on Facebook.”

Dias says social media outreach is somewhat effective for distributing news about short-term deals. In that case, 5% to 7% of purchases are influenced by social media activity.

What does seem to work is more traditional online marketing, including email and search advertising. Most consumers in the study were exposed to some form of marketing by the retailers before they made their purchase. Seventy seven percent of transactions in hard goods categories (like lawnmowers) and 82% in soft goods categories (i.e. clothing) occurred after the consumers had engaged in some interactive marketing tactic before their purchase. Forty percent of hard goods transactions and 60% of soft goods transactions came to retail websites directly from email and search.

That’s not to say that online advertising plays no role in purchasing decisions. The report found that consumers are exposed to such ads early in the purchase funnel — display ads are the first touchpoint for 13% of soft goods buyers, for instance.

Dias says she isn’t surprised by the survey’s results because she’s been telling retail clients for some time that social media outreach is a waste of time and money. Says Dias: “It’s been a mystery to me why the media is excited about social media. From a retail and commerce perspective, it seems to have no effect.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, MorePixels, timsa

Know what critics say

Lesson

s from the Complaint Department

  

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 6:19:40 PM
by Joe Czerwinski

Recently, I received a voice mail from an irate importer, in which he said he was “fairly disappointed” with the reviews his wines had received from me. It seems the same wines have been well reviewed in their home market, and my ratings were “out of whack with what [Critic X] has given them.” Furthermore, he demanded that we not publish the reviews. Oh, and I should call him back immediately.
So I did some homework–I looked up what I had rated the wines, and checked out what another major U.S. wine publication had written–and called him back.

To hear him tell it, because I don’t agree with the judges and Critic X back home, I can’t taste my way out of a paper bag. I shouldn’t publish the reviews because it would be detrimental to his business. And when I explained to him that our policy is not to withhold reviews, the rhetoric buzzsaw jumped to a higher speed.
He’ll arrange to collect any of the wines we haven’t yet tasted. He’ll take this to “the next level,” wherever that is. Again, we’re ruining his business. Again, don’t publish the reviews.
Dude, that’s not the way it works–you send in your wines and we publish our reviews of them. The wines were tasted blind, in flights with like wines, and they were all Good to Very Good (rating 83-89 on the Wine Enthusiast 100-point scale). I have nothing bad to say about them: they’re well made and they show some regional and varietal characters. I’m sorry my scores didn’t live up to your hopes and expectations, but there’s always another critic, another wine, another vintage. And maybe this episode can help make certain things clear for our readers, in the wine trade and public alike.
We don’t withhold publication of reviews at the request of submitters. If we taste a wine and find it Acceptable (80-82 points) or better, we reserve the right to publish that review. Reviews of wines that are deemed Unacceptable (less than 80 points) are never published. Occasionally, we will retaste wines upon the request of a submitter, but that happens only rarely.
Keep in mind that almost all of our reviews are the work of individual tasters whose palates vary; there is no “Wine Enthusiast palate,” nor should readers expect our tasters to always agree with other critics. Readers who take the time to read the reviews of our critics should be able to gain a broad understanding of the types of wines that generally score well with each individual, but even then there are exceptions.
If you have built your business plan based on expectations of critical acclaim, you’re in for tough sledding. Better to have a business plan based on market needs, distributor relationships and consumer pull through. Relying on reviews to sell wine amounts to nothing more than an unhedged–and very probably unsustainable–gamble.

Alcohol: what kind of buzz?

The alcohol level debate: Is it about “buzz” or buzz?

Posted by steve on Apr 27, 2011 in Wine Critic, Wine Industry, Wine Writing 

First, kudos to Jon Bonné for a good primer on alcohol levels in wine in last Sunday’s Chronicle. I’m keeping it because it contains handy information, such as the official government regs on printed ABV numbers, which I can never remember even though I’ve looked them up dozens of times.

It was also really cool that Jon persuaded the [WARNING! Dated metaphorical reference alert!] green eyeshade types at the Chron to pay to have 19 wines analyzed for alcohol. What’s surprising was not how far off so many of the wines were in reality from what the label said (I assume as much every time I taste), as the fact that some of the readings were actually close. (Only one was dead-on accurate.) I’d love to send everything I review to a lab but that’s not financially feasible.

Now, about the title of this post: “buzz” or buzz? The “buzz” in quotes refers to getting high from high alcohol wines. This is the big gripe of those who don’t like anything over 14.0% or 14.5% or whatever their cutoff level is. They want to be able to drink 2 or 3 or (gasp!) even 4 glasses of wine without the room starting to spin. Personally, that doesn’t happen to me, but then, I’m a professional.

The second meaning of buzz is in the marketing sense. From Wikipedia: “Buzz: a term used in word-of-mouth marketing…which serves to amplify the original marketing message…a vague but positive association, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service.”

We all experience buzz all the time. It’s built into the release of movies, DVDs, cars. Every new product from Apple has buzz. A new Michael Mina restaurant has buzz. And guess what? Articles about alcohol levels in wine have buzz.

For some reason I can’t quite grasp, this ABV thingie has become the buzziest topic in the world of wine. Anytime anyone with any credentials weighs in, everyone goes all a-tizzy. (It might even happen here!) If you think about it, alcohol level in wine isn’t that big a deal. I mean, it’s not important enough for so many people to get so crazed by it; the emotional impact of alcohol level is far higher than it ought to be. If people are really in a debating mood, we might get worked up by, say, stoop labor conditions in the vineyards, or the free interstate shipping of wine (see my remarks yesterday about big government and the Tea Party), or why California wine is so widely perceived as being too expensive for the quality. We might even wonder why such ordinarily sensible people as Ursula Hermacinski, a longstanding friend of mine, say such silly things as “Would the wine industry come to a complete halt?” with Parker’s retirement from California, as Ryan Flinn reported two days ago in Bloomberg. (Memo to Ursula: No, my dear, it won’t. If anything, we’re liberated. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we’re free at last!) There are so many more important things to get worked up over than ABV.

Personally, when I blind taste a Cabernet and give it 94 points in my head and then see that ABV is 15.4%, it not only doesn’t bother me in the least, it doesn’t even surprise me. I can give a Cathy Corison Cabernet an equally high score even though it has only 13.8%. The two extremes are not mutually exclusive, and in fact most lower alcohol Cabernets in California run the risk of being green and unripe. I’m glad that there’s a cadre of winemakers in California that’s focusing on under-14% Pinots, but that doesn’t stop me from loving a Siduri “Pisoni” that’s closer to 15%. I’ve tasted Williams Selyem Allen Vineyard Chardonnays that were high in alcohol and so rich, so opulent, they were practically food groups in themselves. If the low ABV crowd doesn’t want them, fine; more for me.

Anyway, a final congrats to Jon Bonné for convincing the Chron to publish alcohol levels in their reviews. Even though the actual number may be up to 1-1/2 points different, it’s better than no information at all.

Blind Tasting on Cheap vs. Expensive Wine

jamie goode's wine blog

The Wiseman ‘Study’ – cheap versus expensive wine

Much has been written about a scientific ‘study’ by psychologist Richard Wiseman which showed that people can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine. (See, for example, this report this report in The Guardian and this report in the Telegaph.)

But, in this world of soundbyte news reporting, it’s just the headline message that is reported, with few of the important details. So I feel I need to make some comments, because the coverage has left everyone with the impression that there is no readily discernable difference between cheap and expensive wine.

This is a message many people would like to believe, but it’s not true.

Wiseman, a psychologist from the Hertfordshire University, is one of the seven-strong advisory group for the Edinburgh International Science Festival (www.sciencefestival.co.uk), and it seems that this ‘study’ was in essence a clever publicity stunt to boost the profile of the festival by generating column inches—one that worked very well. It was not designed as a proper scientific study, although this is how it has been reported.

Almost all the news articles on Wiseman’s stunt lack any comment on the methodology, beyond reporting that 578 festival-goers were given wine to taste ranging from cheap to more expensive, and that they couldn’t tell the difference.

There is a single, crucial detail that is absent from these reports. It was not a comparison between two wines, one cheap and one expensive. Instead, subjects were given just a single wine to taste, and then asked to say whether it was cheap or expensive. ‘To keep it as realistic as possible, we presented them with a single glass of wine and they had to say whether inexpensive or expensive,’ revealed Wiseman when I asked him about this.

This makes the results, which showed that people had a more-or-less random chance of getting it right, unsurprising.

Tasting wine blind is difficult. Being asked whether a wine in front of you is expensive or inexpensive is a difficult task indeed. It would still be difficult, but considerably less so, if the subjects had been offered a comparison of two wines to chose between.

There is also a confounding factor. For supermarket wines, such as those used in this study, quality and price are not always well aligned.

Wines purchased from the producer for the same cost can end up at very different prices. A supermarket may pay a grower 1 Euro per bottle and then list the wine at £4.99 (a standard mark-up, given tax and logistical costs). They may then buy another wine for 1 Euro and list it at £7.99 or even £9.99, with a view to discounting it later. This is common practice. Also, you could get a much better wine for £6.99 from a less fashionable region (e.g. the Languedoc) than from one more fashionable (e.g. Burgundy), simply because some wine regions offer much better value for money.

The relationship between price and quality is so tenuous in supermarkets that, in this sort of study, you could get pretty much whatever result you wanted if you were canny about which wines you chose. I’m not suggesting this is what went on here, but it’s certainly a confounding factor.

Then there is the more telling point about the value of expertise. There are many areas of human endeavour where I am unable to discern absolute quality because I lack expertise. Take visual art: I am not well enough versed in this area to tell you what is good and bad, but my lack of ability to discern quality doesn’t lead me to dismiss the entire enterprise.

Even if Wiseman’s study was rigorous and fair (which I don’t think it is), and came out with the same results, the lack of the ability of novice or inexperienced wine drinkers to discern quality in wine should not lead commentators to suggest that fine wine is all in the head, or is a load of nonsense.

Of course, knowing about a wine changes our perception of that wine. This is a really interesting and important observation. But aside from this, there are genuine differences in character and quality in wines that have their genesis in the chemical composition of the wine, itself influenced by the site characteristics of the vineyard, the growing season, and the winemaking process. It is these very real differences that make wine so fascinating. And it would be a shame if, through a publicity stunt dressed up as a piece of scientific research, people were put off exploring wine because they were led to believe that differences in wine quality are actually illusory.

Her Nose Knows Better than His

April 27, 111 Wednesday

Wine Talk: The (female) nose By ADAM MONTEFIORE27/04/2011 2 groundbreaking studies show that women  consistently outperform men in matters of  odor identification and smell, and thus make  better wine tasters.

Quite apart from historical prejudice or religion, wine has always been  seen as a men’s preserve. Work in the vineyard and winery was heavy,  physical, and took up long, unsocial hours. As a result, the vineyard  and winery became a place for men only. Furthermore the enjoyment of wine became a man thing. There were  men-only drinking clubs and tasting events where men gathered to  share Parker scores and boast about which wines they had the previous  night. In England the port was passed around the table, but only after  the women had left the room. However women came to the fore in a very important facet of wine enjoyment. They were proved to be better tasters. There were two groundbreaking studies, one in Cardiff and the other in Pennsylvania, which both showed that women consistently outperformed men in matters of odor identification and smell. Furthermore another study at Yale identified that about 25% of the population had the potential to be super tasters, with the ability to taste more sensitively than the remainder of the population.  The socalled super tasters had more taste buds  and a greater sensitivity to taste differences. The researchers found that women were the majority in this category. Furthermore, it was realized that men tend to categorize wine using the  left side of their brain. Scores, ratings and all the details surrounding  the wine are important. Women are more likely to use the right side of the brain, which is more  sensory, creative and artistic. A man is generally interested in the  minutiae of the wine. A woman is more interested in the taste. Marketeers were slow to realize that the bulk of wine purchases are  not made by men, but by women in supermarkets. So women are better tasters than men, and they buy more wine than  men, but it still took a few women pioneers and a few centuries to break  the glass ceiling in the wider wine world. However, in the last 30 years,  there has been a change. There has also been a breakthrough in Israel. The hardest nut to crack  was that of winemaker. Women could not be part of the actual winemaking  in a kosher winery, as only Orthodox men are permitted to touch the wine,  plant and machinery during the production process. However, they could  be active in the vineyards and take the same managerial role in a winery  as any winemaker in a kosher winery. The pioneer was Tali Sandovski, who became a winemaker at the  Golan Heights Winery in 1986 and then studied at UC Davis. She is  the winery’s longest serving winemaker. Other women were to follow.  Naama Mualem studied in California and Australia before taking over  as winemaker at Dalton Winery. Another female winemaker is Irit  Shenk Boxer who works at Barkan-Segal, which is managed by  her father. The first female “owner winemaker” was Orna Chillag, whose  Chillag Winery was founded in 1998. Now there is also Tzina  Avidan of Avidan Winery, and Roni Saslove partners her father  in making the wines at Saslove Winery. Women also broke into management of the larger wineries.  Ronit Badler became the first managing director of an Israeli  winery, managing Galil Mountain Winery. Anat Rushansky Levy is currently managing director of Golan  Heights Winery. Carmi Lebenstein was firstly sales manager and later marketing  manager of Carmel Mizrahi in the 1990s, and she recently looked  after marketing at Barkan. The current marketing manager at Carmel Winery is Ifat Rozenberg  Moshan. The previous marketing managers of Galil Mountain  and Binyamina Winery were respectively Carmit Ehrenreiche  and Timna Shitreet. Many of the sommeliers in Israel are women. Hadas Ezer was  Israel’s first woman sommelier of note, at the Keren Restaurant  in Jaffa. She is now an importer of fine burgundies to Israel.  Ruti Ben Israel studied in Italy to become a sommelier and  returned to Israel to become manager of Carmel’s Center for  Wine Culture at Zichron Ya’acov. Debbie Shoham is education  manager of the Golan Heights Winery. Mira Eitan was Israel’s main female wine journalist, writing in  the past for Globes and Ma’ariv. She then edited the Wine  and Gourmet magazine for 5 years. She is now the media  and communications manager for Carmel Winery and part  of their wine development department. There is a current initiative by Carmel to organize regular  tasting and cultural events for women only. Each meeting  is over-subscribed. More and more women are having the confidence to participate, taste wine and give an opinion. The development of the women consumer and the flowering of female wine  experts is the next trend already under way. So the glass ceiling is well and truly cracked here too.  Thankfully women feature strongly in Israeli wine today  and the industry is better for their presence and expertise.