NYT: Asimov on Burgundy

There's also an interesting food chemistry article by Harold McGee. The most interesting part to me is not that they isolated rotundone as the likely cause of pepperiness in Syrah, but that 20% of people are totally insensitive to it. Another piece of evidence that we don't all taste the same things (totally separate from the idea of good or bad palates).

Also, the recipes from Ma Cuisine looked great, especially the hens. I dropped paper off for Betsy already (hope we can still find garlic scapes)

Thanks for the link. I listened to the link and watched the photo slideshow also. Asimov refers to the increased use of horses and biodynamic and organic farming yet during my visit I saw only one horse which was in the vineyards in Vosnee Romanee. Hmmmm.

I hadn't closely looked at timing on the hens. 20 + 7 at 400°F can't be right. We had a couple of birds that were a little over 1.5 lbs, I'd think that 20, baste, 15-20, baste, 7 minutes with sauce would be closer. But it was good (Betsy used regular garlic, we can only get scapes in town on Sat at farmers market).

We only saw a couple horses, but we didn't see any tractors in fields, either. Mostly hand work.

The horse is owned by a confrerie of growers and carted around and displayed, as needed, when the journalists from Decanter et al are due to arrive. It has a number of whigs to help it appear to be several horses; normally, it runs a small wine bar in Beaune (groups are catered for).

HTH

Nils

Thanks for pointing out that McGee article, Dale. What a simple molecule (no real surprise) and it is interesting that 20% of the populace can't detect it at any concentration.

Mark Lipton

There were plenty of light tractors designed just for vineyard use.