Less Headaches with French Wine?

If any, those wines WOULD give you a headache. Mouton Cadet is made in a giant factory in the Bordeaux area...

Jay, you were probably just lucky. Both wines are made under industrial conditions. It just so happened that the Oak Leaf had some chemical or process that your head didn't like.

Unfortunately it is hard to find decent wine at the price point you cite now a days...

-E

Having said that, IF I had to buy such wines, somehow Mouton Cadet would inspire more confidence in a lesser known cheap wine. CF the scandal currently raging in Italy, with the discovery that millions of litres of cheap wine in supermarkets was made in mafia-related circumstances with

20% wine (for flavour), water, sulphuric and hydrochloric acid for industrial use, sugar and other nasty additives.

No, I don't think so. Seems like a large production, we see it here in France in one of the large supermarket chains (Leclerc). I tried it some years ago but don't remember much (so I guess it didn't make much of an impression on me...)

Gotta be 3X the price of the Oak Leaf, though?

-E

No, it's a small property in the Cotes de Castillon and it costs about double what Oak Leaf does. FYI, Oak Leaf is only distributed by Wal- Mart much like Charles Shaw ( Two Buck Chuck) is only distributed by Trader Joes.

Emery wrote on Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:49:18 +0200:

ED> jay wrote: ??>>> Jay, you were probably just lucky. Both wines are made ??>>> under industrial conditions. It just so happened that ??>>> the Oak Leaf had some chemical or process that your head ??>>> didn't like. ??>>

??>> 2001 Bordeaux, Chateau Brisson, Cotes de Castillon didn't ??>> seem to bother me. Is it an industrial production wine ??>> also? Thx.

ED> No, I don't think so. Seems like a large production, we ED> see it here in France in one of the large supermarket ED> chains (Leclerc). I tried it some years ago but don't ED> remember much (so I guess it didn't make much of an ED> impression on me...)

ED> Gotta be 3X the price of the Oak Leaf, though?

I don't think there is much real evidence that the wine from different countries is more or less likely to produce hangovers. I'm pretty sure that if I drink too much I'm more likely to suffer from red wine than white. Sparkling wines seem safest to me. At the New Year we had about one bottle each of Korbel Champagne with smoked salmon on rye bread and got up late the next morning. After a longish hot shower, I did not detect any ill effects and had my normal breakfast.

James Silverton Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

Generally wine at Oak Leaf's price point is made at places that look more like chemical plants than wine making facilities. The "wine" usually goes from grapes to consumer in a couple of weeks. Lots of chemicals are added to speed up the process and to "enhance" the flavors which probably accounts for your headache. I would shudder to think of what exactly goes into these wines and perhaps someday the makers will be compelled to list the ingredients on the label until then drink them at your own risk.

Generally wine at Oak Leaf's price point is made at places that look more like chemical plants than wine making facilities. The "wine" usually goes from grapes to consumer in a couple of weeks. Lots of chemicals are added to speed up the process and to "enhance" the flavors which probably accounts for your headache. I would shudder to think of what exactly goes into these wines and perhaps someday the makers will be compelled to list the ingredients on the label until then drink them at your own risk.

Which, in a sense, takes us back to the discussion about US varietal labeling vs French labeling: The French labeling rules at least define a minimum standard and the ingredients are limited by the Appellation rules.

pk

I think everyone's missing the point. Here in Australia, where vineyards variously date from any time between the latter part of the 19th century to the present day we have three types of vineyards

1. Old.(30 years plus) No headaches.
2. Young. (previously virgin ground or cow pasture) No headaches.
3. Young. (Previously fruit orchards) HEADACHES! Old and virgin ground vineyards have no DDT in them. I always ask the winemaker what the ground was previously used for. If I can't ask him, the first few sips usually let me know. If they don't, the following morning does. Its much easier to remember the wines you don't like than the ones you like.

Almost all French wine is either old plantings, or planted on previous vineyard sites. No artificial insecticides have ever been permitted on vines in France.

Ergo.................IRMC

Headaches do not come from DDT. I don't like the idea of DDT residues either, but not because of headaches... also DDT has not been used in the developed world for decades.

I don't think you can draw a direct causal line from DDT to headaches. It is more likely that the winemaker is using excessive SO2. That will give you a headache.

That is simply false.

The great majority of French vineyards, as the great majority of vineyards anywhere, are treated regularly with pesticides and other nasty things.

Hehe. I haven't seen this but indeed, anyone who's lived here for a while in the country would see through it in an instant. It's right up there with the Union's contention that "farmers are protecting the beauty of the countryside." A quick tour of a big pig farm will clear that one up for you! :)

I've never heard of any relation between DDT and headaches either, but you can certainly be sure that it was widely used here before being outlawed.

-E

"Potblak" wrote ..............

Ummm - Potblak - let me put this in a vernacular that (being Australian) you may understand.

HORSESHIT !!!!!

In my childhood, on the family farm, we broadcast spread, with bare hands, DDT mixed with powdered lime, as a pasture insecticide to control grass grub and porina..

DDT and other organochlorides (dieldrin was extensively used on sheep farms to kill blowfly - and many old farmers still say it was the very best!) were banned, not because they were toxic to humans, but because they were regarded as a persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

And contrary to what you are expounding, the main reason for their being banned was the effect they had on wildlife (particularly raptors and fishlife).

DDT does not accumulate in soil - it is fat soluble and readily passed through the food chain, so if a rat ate a DDT dusted cricket, the chemical accumulated in the fat of the rat, and if a falcon, hawk or eagle ate the rat, the chemical accumulated in the fatty tissue of the bird.

The effect on raptors like the American Bald Eagle and peregrine falcons was devastating - however, once the use of DDT was banned, hundreds of trials (mostly initiated to trace dioxin residues in humans) have shown decreased detection in humans and wildlife.

To completely counter your assertion, a paper was published in the Journal of American Medicine (Oct 1956) where humans voluntarily ingested 35 mg of DDT daily for about two years, and were then tracked for several years afterward.

Although there was "suggestive evidence of adverse liver effects", no other adverse effects were observed.

I am not advocating the use of such products - only the continued broadcasting of emotional and uninformed clap-trap by those who do not accept that it is impossible for a plant to uptake DDT from soil.

Off soap box - now where did I put that glass - memory is going - (no doubt, Potblak would blame exposure to DDT!)

For anyone intersted in pesticides in wine, there is a mine of information here:

Entirely correct. DDT, Dieldrin and Aldrin did more to prevent the spread of malaria, dengue and other mosquito-borne illnesses than anything before or since.

That was, in fact, the only reason (a good one though).

It depends on the soil type. Soils rich in organic matter do accumulate organochlorine insectides (and related things like PCBs) for same reason that they accumulate in fat. One other point: they weren't toxic to fish. That's why they were so deadly to birds that fed on fish.

Mark Lipton Erstwhile pesticide chemist