Australian wine. So good that there are now fakes.

The Age reported that Australian wines are now being counterfeited in China

Chinese entrepreneurs are counterfeiting Australian wine, including knock-offs of one of our best-known brands, Penfolds, and promoting the fakes as quality wines in shops and trade fairs throughout the country.

Unfortunately for Penfolds, their success has come at a cost

Perhaps the highest-profile casualty so far has been Penfolds, maker of Grange. Wines labelled "Benfolds" and claiming to be Australian were seen at a trade fair in China earlier this year.

"I've seen a 'Penfolds 888' [8 is a lucky number in China] and even 'Benfolds' with the same cursive 'P' but instead it's a 'B'," said Matt Bahen, deputy general manager of Australian-owned wine distributor, The Wine Republic, in north China.

Perhaps quality wine is still a status thing in China, like buying and drinking expensive cognac (XO not VSOP). Until more recently, people in China didn't really appreciate wine, particularly red wine as many were mixing it with lemonade. If this is the case, then most people won't even know that they are drinking an inferior product. Perhaps one of the solutions, apart from marketing, is to educate people's palate and appreciation of fine wine.

See also my earlier item on the wine substitution scandal in the United States - faux pinot noir.

faux pinot noir

There has been a wine substitution scandal of massive proportions. Apparently between 2005 and 2008, the Aude department of Languedoc (in the south of France), exported 160 million bottles of pinot noir per year when it only produced 67 million bottles per year. Most of the exports were to the United States. AFP has reported that merlot and syrah were substituted for pinot noir.

La répression des fraudes avait découvert la tromperie en mars 2008 lors d'un contrôle à la société Ducasse à Carcassonne. La fraude consistait à vendre au négociant américain Gallo du merlot et du syrah pour du pinot, presque deux fois plus cher. Des viticulteurs et des négociants du Languedoc Roussillon ont donc été épinglés, mais l'image de marque des vins de la région devrait en pâtir.

What is actually shocking is that American consumers mistook the taste of syrah and merlot for pinot noir. Only real wine connoisseurs actually drink pinot noir, so we do not need to feel sympathetic to those who purchased the mislabelled wine and did not even notice the difference.

The real stuff would have been wasted on them anyway.

World's strongest beer

The world's strongest beer (in terms of alcohol content) is called Tactical Nuclear Penguin, brewed by BrewDog brewery, a 32% double cask matured uber-imperial stout.

The beer also comes with a warning on the label

This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost.

See BBC News. With such a high alcohol content, does it have to be drunk cold?

if it costs more, is it any better?

There is a well known saying that "you get what you pay for". People expect something that costs more to be better than a cheaper version.

A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science showed that in the case of wine, this is not necessarily the case. It's just that people think the wine is better because it cost more.

Published online on January 14, 2008, 10.1073/pnas.0706929105
PNAS | January 22, 2008 | vol. 105 | no. 3 | 1050-1054

Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness

Hilke Plassmann*, John O'Doherty*, Baba Shiv, and Antonio Rangel^*,

*Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, MC 228-77, Pasadena, CA 91125; and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 518 Memorial Way, Littlefield L383, Stanford, CA94305

Edited by Leslie G. Ungerleider, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, and approved December 3, 2007 (received for review July 24, 2007)

Despite the importance and pervasiveness of marketing, almost nothing is known about the neural mechanisms through which it affects decisions made by individuals. We propose that marketing actions, such as changes in the price of a product, can affect neural representations of experienced pleasantness. We tested this hypothesis by scanning human subjects using functional MRI while they tasted wines that, contrary to reality, they believed to be different and sold at different prices. Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. The paper provides evidence for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates.

Author contributions: H.P., J.O., B.S., and A.R. designed research; H.P. performed research; H.P. analyzed data; and H.P., J.O., B.S., and A.R. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0706929105/DC1.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rangel@hss.caltech.edu

© 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

I think it shows that wine snobbery affects everyone.

See also the Caltech Press Release and reporting by The Boston Globe.

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We had office drinks after work. In fact, I collected money from staff and did the shopping.

Emily came around tonight. We watched the Food Safari episode on Mauritian cuisine. I made Hainanese chicken for dinner.

pinot grigio/gris is a dumb blonde

According to Tim Atkin writing in The Observer magazine, Pinot Grigio (also called Pinot Gris) is palate-numbing

Dumb blonde

For two years, Tim Atkin has been campaigning against Pinot Grigio. Here he reveals his alternatives to the ubiquitous white

Tim Atkin
Sunday February 17, 2008
Observer

Have you ever felt like Sisyphus, pushing a metaphorical boulder up a slope only to watch it roll back past you, narrowly missing your toes in the process? For Sisyphus and that boulder, read me and Pinot Grigio. I've been conducting a none-too-subtle, one-man campaign against this innocuous but generally palate-numbing Italian white for more than two years now. And guess what? Pinot Grigio sales have gone through the ceiling. There is even talk of a shortage...

The problem with Pinot Grigio's success is that it stops people trying other, infinitely superior varieties. Leaving aside Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, which are just as popular as Pinot Grigio and much more diverse, my by no means exhaustive list would include, in alphabetical order: Albariño, Chenin Blanc, Fiano, Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Picpoul, Riesling, Roussanne, Scheurebe, Verdejo, Vermentino and Viognier.

I totally agree. My friend Margaret used to rave about Pinot Gris but I thought it was tasteless and with no redeemable features. Amazingly, she dislikes the Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blends, which I consider a suitable match with most food. Thankfully Margaret is into Viognier now. Tim Atkins of The Observer seems to be really into the Marsanne (click on link above).

Personally, I still prefer Reisling for a white for its complexity and a good Pinot Noir for a red.

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I didn't do much today, aside from giving the floor a quick clean and clearing the backyard.

I watched last night's football game (always critically and analytically which requires concentration) and the latest Smallville.

Clark is actually inside Lex's memory, observing the meeting with Lois


Kara (cousin of Kal El) has finally been found


I definitely watch too much television. Thankfully, I'm still reading books at the same time.

And the rest of Sunday night viewing include the BBC's Robin Hood, and the American Brothers and Sisters. Both quite quirky and make me laugh.