The World According To Kate » wine

Whole Foods To Begin Wine Cork Recycling Program

Kate Czlapinski — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:05:30 +0000

Whole Foods recently announced that they will begin a program to collect customers’ wine corks. They have partnered with Cork ReHarvest to find various ways to recycle the used corks, which will be sent to several different manufacturers who will turn them into interesting household items.

I think this is a pretty neat idea, because if you’re like me you drink a lot of wine… and you’re left with a lot of random corks lying around the house in various drawers and baskets. Sometimes they find their way onto the floor and the cats manage to get a hold of them and turn them into toys to be batted around the house. It would be nice to be able to actually do something useful with them (though I’m sure the cats will be disappointed).

I actually have a trivet made of wine corks that my parents brought me back from a trip to New Hampshire.

I think this is a pretty cool idea and I like that it gives me chance to finally empty out my junk drawers. Now if I could only find something to do with all the bottle caps…

Sarah Palin’s Keynote Speech at Wine Wholesalers Expo

Kate Czlapinski — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 13:47:53 +0000

So apparently, earlier this week Sarah Palin gave the keynote speech for the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America’s 67th Annual Convention… and, big shock, it didn’t go so well. Number one, why would one invite Sarah Palin to give the keynote speech for a wine convention (besides the obvious assumption that most of us need to drink heavily while listening to her speak)? And Number two, they paid between $75,000 and $100,000 to experience that? I think I need a drink.

If you can stomach it, you can actually listen to the speech and all the horrible wine puns that come with it. For the record, I only lasted a couple of minutes…

Training Your Wine Palate With Gary Vaynerchuk

Kate Czlapinski — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:33:27 +0000

The other day when I was checking out Wine Library TV, which is basically my main source for when I want to try out some new wines, I came across this video that’s a couple of years old in which the super knowledgeable, super entertaining Gary Vaynerchuk tastes a number of different random things that are flavors frequently found in wine and I felt the need to share it. This is apparently how he learned to train his palate at the age of 17, when he was too young to really be training his palate by trying the actual wine. As I was watching this, I couldn’t help but think that I should try this out as a tasting exercise – perhaps with a few friends (any takers?) with the wines that are supposed to contain these sorts of flavor profiles. OK, so probably not all like 30 some odd things he tasted here – probably not socks, or dirt, or a rock (unless you’re up for that), but we could try out a few… As someone who enjoys wine, but has trouble really picking out the various flavors present in it, I think this could be a really neat exercise.

By the way, if you haven’t checked out Wine Library TV and you have any interest in learning more about wine, you definitely should check it out. Gary Vaynerchuk is pretty awesome to watch (definitely high energy and something of an insane genius) and probably the reason I’ve taken such a great interest in wine. I usually hit up the site on Saturday mornings before I do my wine shopping – just to get some ideas of what I might want to purchase and what I should be looking out for.

So anyway, check out the video – it’s a half hour long, but fairly entertaining (I think)- even if you’re not really into wine.

Good News For Me!

Kate Czlapinski — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:38:17 +0000

Just another study showing the benefits of regular wine consumption…

It seems we’re always hearing conflicting arguments on this one, but I’m going to be drinking and enjoying my wine regularly regardless of the results of these type of studies. It’s just always nice to hear that something I enjoy anyway may actually be quite good for me!

Half a glass of wine a day may boost life expectancy by five years

The researchers found that light long term alcohol consumption of all types—up to 20 g a day— extended life by around two extra years compared with no alcohol at all. Extended life expectancy was slightly less for those who drank more than 20 g.

And men who drank only wine, and less than half a glass of it a day, lived around 2.5 years longer than those who drank beer and spirits, and almost five years longer than those who drank no alcohol at all.

Drinking wine was strongly associated with a lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and death from all causes.

Now if they could only change that from half a glass to half a bottle…