2008年6月17日 星期二

'Everyday Drinking,' by Kingsley Amis: Properly Soused

這篇承小讀者幫忙找到
原在陳巨擘先生的從紐約時報看天下:"大家好:我們好久沒有一起品酒了,這個星期我們來讀一篇有關品酒的文章過過癮。這篇登在第一版最底下:Mischievous Odes to the Joys of Drinking by Dwight Garner.

這 篇文章基本上是已故英國小說家 Kingsley Amis最近有人幫他出版的一本書(由已絕版的三本書結合而成)"Everyday Drinking" 的書評。這本書告訴讀者如何喝酒喝得很有品味,同時也告訴讀者如何解決宿醉(hangover)的問題。有趣的是,Amis把宿醉分成 physical hangover(身體的宿醉)和 metaphysical hangover(形而上的宿醉)。其中以解決形而上的宿醉最有趣。Amis建議去讀米爾頓的《失樂園》、索忍尼辛的小說等等。什麼是形而上的宿醉?大家 可以從文章裡找到答案。大家要注意的是,metaphysical 這個形容詞雖然是 meta + physical,它的名詞是 metaphysics。但 physical 這個字可以表示身體的,也可以表示自然法則,所以自然科學或物理科學是 physical science。所以,metaphysical hangover大家就可以從這兩方面去聯想,英文常有這種雙關的含意,很難用中文去傳達,體會就好,不必去追究確切的意思。

另外標題上的 michievous有頑皮和惡意兩種意思,這兩種行為好像只有一線之隔,很有意思。大家可以看看作者的用意是前者還是後者?還是兩者都有?"


HC 幫忙查字典

Definition

imbibe Show phonetics
verb
1 [I or T] FORMAL OR HUMOROUS to drink, especially alcohol:
Have you been imbibing again?

2 [T] to receive and accept information, etc.

souse Show phonetics
verb [T]
to put something into a liquid, or to make something completely wet

soused Show phonetics
adjective
1 (of fish) preserved in salty water or vinegar:
soused herring/mackerel

2 OLD-FASHIONED INFORMAL drunk


Books of The Times

Toasting the Joys of Imbibing Properly


Published: June 4, 2008

Got a hangover? Search Google, and you’ll find a thousand home remedies, from mild palliatives (buttermilk, honey, bananas) to shock therapy (pickle juice, kudzu extract, raw cabbage). If you can drag yourself into Walgreens or Rite Aid, there’s usually a potion or two that promises relief.

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Christopher Cormack/Corbis

Kingsley Amis in 1989.

EVERYDAY DRINKING

The Distilled Kingsley Amis

By Kingsley Amis

302 pages. Bloomsbury. $19.99.

Fernando Ariza/The New York Times

The problem with these cures, the British novelist Kingsley Amis (1922-95) wrote in his now-classic 1972 book “On Drink,” is that they deal only with the physical manifestations of a hangover. What also urgently needs to be treated, he observed, is the metaphysical hangover — “that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future” that looms on the grizzled morning after.

Amis’s ideas for curing a physical hangover were fairly routine, though a few of the crazier ones will make you laugh. (“Go up for half an hour in an open aeroplane, needless to say with a non-hungover person at the controls.”)

His notions about fixing a metaphysical hangover are where things got interesting. Amis recommended, among other things, a course of “hangover reading,” one that “rests on the principle that you must feel worse emotionally before you start to feel better. A good cry is the initial aim.”

Thus he suggested beginning with Milton — “My own choice would tend to include the final scene of ‘Paradise Lost,’ ” he wrote, “with what is probably the most poignant moment in all our literature coming at lines 624-6” — before running through Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Eric Ambler and, finally, a poulticelike application of light comedies by P. G. Wodehouse and Peter De Vries.

It was a witty, bravura performance, this essay on the hangover, and rereading it now is a reminder of how good all of Amis’s writing was about being what he called a “drink-man”: smart, no-nonsense and, above all else, charming.

Before he was knighted in 1990, Amis published three books about the judicious but enthusiastic consumption of alcohol: “On Drink,” “Everyday Drinking” in 1983 and “How’s Your Glass?” in 1984. Long out of print, these volumes have finally been gathered together and reissued under a single cover, topped off with a fizzy introduction by Christopher Hitchens. These books are so delicious they impart a kind of contact high; they make you feel as if you’ve just had the first sip of the planet’s coldest, driest martini.

Amis was an unorthodox guide to the drinking arts. “Not much of a wine man,” he nonetheless drank it and wrote about it often and well. He preferred spirits and beer, and complained about wine snobs and the “pro-wine pressure on everybody.” Among his essays is one titled “The Wine-Resenter’s Short Handy Guide.”

Amis mostly wrote about preparing cocktails at home, for one’s self and for guests. He stressed, again and again, the importance of making a genuine effort. “Serving good drinks,” he wrote, “like producing anything worth while, from a poem to a motor-car, is troublesome and expensive.”

While he looked for ways to trim costs, Amis loathed all forms of social stinginess. (“With alcoholic ritual,” Mr. Hitchens writes in his introduction, “the whole point is generosity.”) One essay collected here — it deserves to be rediscovered and widely anthologized — is “Mean Sod’s Guide,” a tongue-in-cheek tutorial about how to “stint your guests on quality and quantity” while seeming to have done them very well. Among his tips for a host determined not to pour too many drinks: “Sit in a specially deep easy-chair, and practice getting out of it with a mild effort and, later in the evening, a just-audible groan.”

Throughout his life Amis was absurdly quotable on almost every topic, but on imbibing especially. On diets: “The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.” On why serious drinkers should own a separate refrigerator for their implements: “Wives and such are constantly filling up any refrigerator they have a claim on, even its ice-compartment, with irrelevant rubbish like food.” On the benefits of sangria: “You can drink a lot of it without falling down.”

As anyone who has read Zachary Leader’s 2007 biography of Amis knows, alcohol did unspool his mind a bit at the end. But you finish this book, and Mr. Leader’s, believing that it added more to his life than it took away.

Amis wrote with feeling about alcohol’s place in society. “The human race,” he noted, “has not devised any way of dissolving barriers, getting to know the other chap fast, breaking the ice, that is one-tenth as handy and efficient as letting you and the other chap, or chaps, cease to be totally sober at about the same rate in agreeable surroundings.” And he could not help observing the way that “hilarity and drink are connected in a profoundly human, peculiarly intimate way.”

Did I mention that “Everyday Drinking” has recipes? Amis described the effects of his tequila-based version of a Bloody Mary (you’ll want to try it) this way: “a splendid pick-me-up, and throw-me-down, and jump-on-me. Strongly disrecommended for mornings after.”

2008年6月13日 星期五

“贝克”吃“百威”

经济纵横 | 2008.06.12

“贝克”吃“百威”筑造世界啤酒最大帝国

拥有德国最大啤酒品牌贝克的比利时英博啤酒集团要以约460亿美元的代价收购美国最大的啤酒集团之一、拥有啤酒品牌百威的安豪泽布施。这笔生意一旦成交,世界上将诞生最大的啤酒帝国。德国之声据路透社报导如下。

说到啤酒,似乎哪里都有德国的影子。安豪泽布施(Anheuser-Busch)座落在美国圣路易,就是由德国移民阿多尔普斯.布施 (Adolphus Busch)创建的,在过去的150年里,主要由布施家的人领导。这个公司的最著名品牌是在中国也无所不在的百威。安豪泽布施集团拥有美国啤酒市场的 48.5%。除了百威外,安豪泽布施公司生产的啤酒品牌还有Michelob。公司还拥有墨西哥的Modelo和中国青岛啤酒的股份。

英博集团(InBev)是2004年比利时的英特布鲁(Interbrew)和巴西的安博夫(AmBev)两大集团合并后成立的。除了贝克啤酒外, 这个集团拥有的品牌还包括德国的弗朗齐坎(Franziskaner)、卢云堡(Loewenbraeu)、杜塞尔多夫的老啤迪伯斯(Diebels)和 比利时的Stella Artois。

目前,英博是世界第二大啤酒集团,安豪泽布施是第四大,两家合并后,将把现在的第一大SABMiller挤到第二位。其实,比利时和美国这两大啤酒 集团早已展开了合作:安豪泽布施在美国推销,英博的啤酒如Hoegaarden和Leffe,而英博在加拿大把安豪泽布施的品牌推上货架。

周四,比利时人向布施公司保证说,他们的兼并不作任何改变,保持百威的纯正。安豪泽布施公司要求这笔交易以现金来做。

这条消息刚宣布,安豪泽布施的股值在周三股市关闭后一下子激增了7%,达每股62.73美元。买家英博的股值周四也激增了4%。专家们还认为,这笔 交易宣布的巨大数字也在世界外汇市场上给美元带来了生气。这笔生意若做成,这将是今年最大的企业收购生意,同时是有史以来美国企业被外国企业收购的第三大 生意。

英博总裁卡洛斯.布里托(Carlos Brito)在该集团的网站上发表的视频里说:"我们要维护(布施)的品牌和与圣路易的联系。他说,这对生意、对顾客、对英博来说都是很重要的。百威将成 为合并后的集团的招牌之一。所有安豪泽布施公司的美国啤酒厂都将保持,重要的管理人员,集团里的一些重要领导位置也要交给布施公司的人。

安豪泽布施宣布,他们要对每股65美元的现金价进行认真的审核,首先将考虑到安豪泽布施的长期战略。决定将在"适当的时候"宣布。在此之前,分析家 们认为,布施家族将永远拒绝任何出售的可能性。然而,家族成员之一、集团当今总裁的叔叔对此表示开放态度。安豪泽布施公司的第二大持股人是美国著名亿万富 豪巴菲特的伯尔希克.哈萨维公司,占有5%的股权。

专家们估计,这个收购价格在谈判中还可能会往上推。现在的报价是在5月22日布施公司股价上加了24%,即兼并消息传出的前一天。专家们认为,布施公司也可能会提出自己的报价。

英博说,收购的资金来源包括400亿的贷款。贷款发放者包括德意志银行。

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2008年6月6日 星期五

Burgundy Learns to Bottle Consistency

The Pour

Burgundy Learns to Bottle Consistency

Owen Franken for The New York Times

TO THE VINEYARDS Signs show the way in Chassagne-Montrachet, in the Côte de Beaune part of Burgundy.


Published: June 4, 2008

POMMARD, France

Skip to next paragraph
Owen Franken for The New York Times

Arnaud Ente, a winemaker in Meursault, trellises vines.

Owen Franken for The New York Times

NEW OLD-FASHIONED WAYS Jean-Marie Fourrier in his vineyards overlooking Gevrey-Chambertin.

Owen Franken for The New York Times

On the wine route.

THE black clouds gathered last week over the Côte d’Or, the slender 30-mile-long swath that comprises the great vineyards of Burgundy. And for at least the fifth day in a row they burst forth, drenching the vineyards shortly before the critical period of flowering, when the grape bunches begin to form on the spindly vines.

Rain is the farmer’s blessing, when it comes at the right time and in the right amount. But when the ground is saturated and the air is warm, the resulting moisture and humidity is a curse that can threaten the grapes with mildew and rot.

In past decades such weather might have spelled doom for the year’s vintage. But nowadays it means something else entirely. “It means more work for us,” said Benjamin Leroux, 33, the manager of Comte Armand, one of the best producers in Pommard in the Côte de Beaune, the southern half of the Côte d’Or. “All the things we’re doing in the vineyard right now, we’re insuring the vintage.”

Twenty years ago nobody could have predicted that Burgundy could be trusted to produce reliably good wines in tricky vintages. As captivating as the great wines of Burgundy could be at their heights, too often they revealed their depths — diluted, overly acidic wines that seemed to vary not just vintage to vintage but almost bottle to bottle. The only thing consistent about the region was its inconsistency.

Just last month Robert M. Parker Jr., the wine critic, repeated the old saw when he wrote in his column in Business Week, “Red Burgundy is the ultimate minefield of the wine world — notoriously unreliable, often disappointing, and rarely living up to its illustrious reputation.”

In fact, the quality of Burgundy — red Burgundy in particular — has risen strikingly over the last two decades. From the smallest growers to the biggest houses, the standards of grape-growing and winemaking have surpassed anybody’s expectations. These days, Burgundy has very few bad vintages, and among good producers, surprisingly few bad wines.

The best producers, like Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Armand Rousseau, always managed to achieve a high standard, but nowadays the bar has been raised for everybody. And it’s not just the Côte d’Or, the heart of Burgundy, that has shown such improvement. Surrounding areas like the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais, still part of Burgundy, are producing better wine than ever, at not unreasonable prices. Sure, you can still find bad Burgundy. But really, it’s not hard to find bad wines from any fine wine region.

“It’s not so much an improvement as a blooming,” said Becky Wasserman, an American wine broker who has lived in Burgundy since 1968. “It’s a realization of potential.”

I spent five days in Burgundy last week to get a first-hand look at the reasons for the surge in quality. In traveling the Côte d’Or from Marsannay in the north to Santenay in the south, visiting two dozen producers, tasting hundreds of wines and drinking not quite that many, it was easy to see that this leap upward has been 25 years in the making, an eternity in the Internet world but a split second at the rhythmic agricultural pace of viticulture.

Most striking of all was the number of young producers making superb wines, whether they have taken charge of their family domains or started out new. In Marsannay, perhaps the least-esteemed commune in the Côtes de Nuits, the northern half of the Côte d’Or, Sylvain Pataille, 33, is turning out excellent reds, whites and rosés. In the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, once a backwater in the hills, David Duband, 37, is producing light, fresh regional wines from his ancestral vineyards, along with a series of more ambitious, elegant reds from grand cru vineyards like Échezeaux and Charmes-Chambertin. Louis-Michel Liger-Belair, 35, in Vosnes-Romanée has reclaimed some of the greatest vineyard property in the north, which his family had leased out for years, and is making wines of purity and depth.

Meanwhile, in Meursault in the south, Arnaud Ente, who took over his father-in-law’s vineyards in the 1990s, is turning out small amounts of whites of focus and clarity that show tremendous minerality. Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey, 36, left his father’s domain, Marc Colin et Fils, and set up shop in Chassagne-Montrachet, where he is making light yet intense, mouthwatering whites.

“Half the superstar domains today didn’t exist 20 years ago,” Clive Coates, author of “The Wines of Burgundy” (University of California Press, 2008), told me in a recent interview. Few could have envisioned such a level of quality back in the early 1980s, a time when Claude Bourguignon, a French soil scientist who, with his wife, Lydia, works with numerous wine estates, famously said that the soil of the Sahara had more life in it than the soil of Burgundy.

“It was a shocking wake-up call,” Ms. Wasserman said, and it was heard by the first wave in the vanguard of the new Burgundy, young vignerons like Dominique Lafon in Meursault, Christophe Roumier in Chambolle-Musigny and Étienne Grivot in Vosne-Romanée.

Their first order of business was to wean the soil off two decades worth of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. The postwar dependency on science and industry had dealt a severe blow to Burgundy, which more than most wine regions prided itself on its soil. The nuances of terroir, the semi-mystical French term that encompasses earth, atmosphere, climate and humanity, were said to be transmitted to the wines by the qualities of the differing soils throughout the Côte d’Or.

Over the next 20 years a great many producers turned to organic farming, and others adopted biodynamic viticulture, a particularly demanding system that takes a sort of homeopathic approach to farming. These days it’s the rare farmer who still uses chemical herbicides in the vineyard.

“The soils are alive again,” Mr. Bourguignon said by telephone last week. “They’ve really changed, and it’s one of the reasons the wine has changed.”

Burgundy vignerons take pains, however, to make clear that they are not doing anything new. As Mr. Leroux pointed out, organic viticulture is simply a return to the pre-World War II methods.

“We can now understand what our grandparents were doing,” said Jean-Marie Fourrier of Domaine Fourrier in Gevrey-Chambertin. “We’re rediscovering the logic of the past.”

Domaine Fourrier was moribund, with no market for its wine, when Mr. Fourrier took over from his father, Jean-Claude. Fourteen years later he exports wine to 27 countries and has just finished construction on a new fermentation room. His wines are pure and light-bodied, embodying the grace and finesse for which Burgundy’s best wines were always known.

Prosperity is evident all over Burgundy, and every domain seems to be adding on, building a new cellar or a new winery, buying a tractor, or hiring workers. It’s a far cry from 20 years ago when domains were going out of business and sales of Burgundy in the United States were plummeting.

Now, despite the plunge of the dollar, American thirst for Burgundy has never been higher, and the opening in the last few years of new markets like eastern Europe and Asia, along with demand for the widely acclaimed 2005 vintage, has sent prices for Burgundy soaring higher than ever. Much of the profit seems to be going back into the wine.

“It’s a virtuous cycle,” said Jeremy Seysses, who has joined his father, Jacques Seysses, at the helm of Domaine Dujac in Morey-St.-Denis, one of the best producers in the Côte de Nuits. “Our wines have never sold so well or for so much money, which is bad for the consumer, I guess, but we can now afford to invest in the extra worker, the new equipment, in taking the time necessary to make great wine.”

A decade ago you might still find cellars in Burgundy without the equipment to control the temperature in vats of fermenting wine, by then standard in the rest of the winemaking world. Nowadays that’s unthinkable. With increased knowledge has come a premium on hygiene in the cellar and precision in the vineyard. Where once farmers who sold their grapes to négociants were paid by quantity, winemakers who bottle their own production today know that they are judged and paid on quality.

“Everybody is aware that Burgundy has a lot of competition and people don’t buy it because it says on the label, ‘Bourgogne,’ ” said Véronique Drouhin, who, with her three brothers, has taken over from their father leadership of Joseph Drouhin, one of the biggest and best producers in Burgundy.

Profits and the willingness to put them back into the business have helped to save vintages like 2007, which was marked by rain and hail. Twenty years ago, said Mr. Leroux of Comte Armand, the domain would have played it safe in a vintage like 2007. It would have picked the grapes quickly over the course of a week even though ripening was uneven, both to protect itself against further bad weather and so that the part-time pickers would not have to be paid for so long. “This year it took us 21 days,” Mr. Leroux said. “We stopped for seven days and I had to pay the pickers to do nothing, but the payoff in quality was great.”

Back in the ’80s, a year like 2007 could have been a disaster along the lines of the notoriously poor 1984 and 1975 vintages. Instead, tasted from the barrel, where the ’07s are currently aging, the Comte Armand reds were fresh and minerally, the various crus in Pommard and Auxey-Duresses differing markedly in density and nuance according to where the grapes were grown, yet all lithe and agile. When they are released next year, the ’07s may not be judged among Burgundy’s best, but they certainly will be enjoyable, at least.

Mr. Leroux is typical of younger vignerons in Burgundy today. Unlike previous generations, who often began working in the fields as teenagers and never got far from their homes, they were trained in viticulture and enology. They’ve traveled the world, working in places like California, New Zealand, South Africa and even Bordeaux. Perhaps most importantly, they are not afraid to share knowledge.

“They all know how to taste,” said Dominique Lafon, the Meursault superstar whose domain, Comtes Lafon, is one of Burgundy’s leading estates. “The older generation was only tasting their own wines and were not sharing as much as now.”

As consistently good as red Burgundy has become, white Burgundy still has a thorny issue to solve. The wines, when young, can be delicious and show every indication of being capable of ripe old age. But beginning with the 1996 vintage, some of the best white Burgundies began oxidizing in the bottle after seven or nine years.

Responding first with denial, then consternation, all of Burgundy now concedes the problem, which seems to have waned since the 1999 vintage. Its source has been elusive, although most people seem to blame corks treated with peroxide. Some vignerons are taking the time to hand-wax the tops of their bottles to keep oxygen out.

Regardless of the stability that Burgundy is able to achieve, absolute consistency will never be possible. It’s antithetical to the nature of the pinot noir grape, which is proverbially fickle and troublesome to grow, and to the nature of artisanal winemaking, which takes as a matter of romantic faith that greatness only comes with risks.

artisan, antithesis, Pinot noir

“Burgundy is and will always remain the anti-product,” Ms. Wasserman said. “Burgundies react differently according to their age, according to the weather, according to the ambiance. It’s nice to have natural things that react.”

2008年6月5日 星期四

電視的葡萄

彰化的健蜂葡萄 甜度2.1 採用奇怪的牛奶等等....純"吃"的 一顆約5元

cnn有Eye on France 專集
談 "香檳區"的擴增 中俄需求增
南部的危機 勢必轉精 有institute of origin and quality

Red Wine May Slow Aging

這種神話式研究總是
一直吹噓
"may" 是關鍵字

New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging


Published: June 4, 2008

Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.

The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. Some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form, but others believe it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness.

The report is part of a new wave of interest in drugs that may enhance longevity. On Monday, Sirtris, a startup founded in 2004 to develop drugs with the same effects as resveratrol, completed its sale to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.

Sirtris is seeking to develop drugs that activate protein agents known in people as sirtuins.

“The upside is so huge that if we are right, the company that dominates the sirtuin space could dominate the pharmaceutical industry and change medicine,” Dr. David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School, a co-founder of the company, said Tuesday.

Serious scientists have long derided the idea of life-extending elixirs, but the door has now been opened to drugs that exploit an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging.

The reflex can be prompted by a faminelike diet, known as caloric restriction, which extends the life of laboratory rodents by up to 30 percent but is far too hard for most people to keep to and in any case has not been proven to work in humans.

Research started nearly 20 years ago by Dr. Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed recently that the famine-induced switch to tissue preservation might be triggered by activating the body’s sirtuins. Dr. Sinclair, a former student of Dr. Guarente, then found in 2003 that sirtuins could be activated by some natural compounds, including resveratrol, previously known as just an ingredient of certain red wines.

Dr. Sinclair’s finding led in several directions. He and others have tested resveratrol’s effects in mice, mostly at doses far higher than the minuscule amounts in red wine. One of the more spectacular results was obtained last year by Dr. John Auwerx of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. He showed that resveratrol could turn plain vanilla, couch-potato mice into champion athletes, making them run twice as far on a treadmill before collapsing.

The company Sirtris, meanwhile, has been testing resveratrol and other drugs that activate sirtuin. These drugs are small molecules, more stable than resveratrol, and can be given in smaller doses. In April, Sirtris reported that its formulation of resveratrol, called SRT501, reduced glucose levels in diabetic patients.

The company plans to start clinical trials of its resveratrol mimic soon. Sirtris’s value to GlaxoSmithKline is presumably that its sirtuin-activating drugs could be used to treat a spectrum of degenerative diseases, like cancer and Alzheimer’s, if the underlying theory is correct.

Separately from Sirtris’s investigations, a research team led by Tomas A. Prolla and Richard Weindruch, of the University of Wisconsin, reports in the journal PLoS One on Wednesday that resveratrol may be effective in mice and people in much lower doses than previously thought necessary. In earlier studies, like Dr. Auwerx’s of mice on treadmills, the animals were fed such large amounts of resveratrol that to gain equivalent dosages people would have to drink more than 100 bottles of red wine a day.

The Wisconsin scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. But red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial. Taking these into account, as well as mice’s higher metabolic rate, a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine “starts getting close” to the amount of resveratrol they found effective, Dr. Weindruch said.

Resveratrol can also be obtained in the form of capsules marketed by several companies. Those made by one company, Longevinex, include extracts of red wine and of a Chinese plant called giant knotweed. The Wisconsin researchers conclude that resveratrol can mimic many of the effects of a caloric-restricted diet “at doses that can readily be achieved in humans.”

The effectiveness of the low doses was not tested directly, however, but with a DNA chip that measures changes in the activity of genes. The Wisconsin team first defined the pattern of gene activity established in mice on caloric restriction, and then showed that very low doses of resveratrol produced just the same pattern.

Dr. Auwerx, who used doses almost 100 times greater in his treadmill experiments, expressed reservations about the new result. “I would be really cautious, as we never saw significant effects with such low amounts,” he said Tuesday in an e-mail message.

Another researcher in the sirtuin field, Dr. Matthew Kaeberlein of the University of Washington in Seattle, said, “There’s no way of knowing from this data, or from the prior work, if something similar would happen in humans at either low or high doses.”

A critical link in establishing whether or not caloric restriction works the same wonders in people as it does in mice rests on the outcome of two monkey trials. Since rhesus monkeys live for up to 40 years, the trials have taken a long time to show results. Experts said that one of the two trials, being conducted by Dr. Weindruch, was at last showing clear evidence that calorically restricted monkeys were outliving the control animals.

But no such effect is apparent in the other trial, being conducted at the National Institutes of Health.

The Wisconsin report underlined another unresolved link in the theory, that of whether resveratrol actually works by activating sirtuins. The issue is clouded because resveratrol is a powerful drug that has many different effects in the cell. The Wisconsin researchers report that they saw no change in the mouse equivalent of sirtuin during caloric restriction, a finding that if true could undercut Sirtris’s strategy of looking for drugs that activate sirtuin.

Dr. Guarente, a scientific adviser to Sirtris, said the Wisconsin team only measured the amount of sirtuin present in mouse tissues, and not the more important factor of whether it had been activated.

Dr. Sinclair said the definitive answer would emerge from experiments, now under way, with mice whose sirtuin genes had been knocked out. “The question of how resveratrol is working is an ongoing debate and it will take more studies to get the answer,” he said.

Dr. Robert E. Hughes of the Buck Institute for Age Research said there could be no guarantee of success given that most new drug projects fail. But, he said, testing the therapeutic uses of drugs that mimic caloric restriction is a good idea, based on substantial evidence.

Choya Umeshu チョーヤ梅酒

"CHOYA梅酒"Choya Umeshu 竟然成為中文字眼


チョーヤ梅酒 「ウメッシュ」(2004年9月-2007年1月)

2008年6月2日 星期一

Can Hong Kong Uncork Trading Of Wine In China?

Can Hong Kong Uncork Trading Of Wine In China?

2008年05月30日09:25
As the global wine industry converges here this week to crack open the mainland Chinese market, this city is touting its prospects as a regional nexus for trade in wine.

On Wednesday, Hong Kong officially zeroed out its taxes on wine, and on Saturday morning the city will host a US$6.5 million auction of vintages, billed as the largest ever in Asia. Local importers, meanwhile, are scrambling to secure warehouse space for more bottles or, in some cases, build their own cellars.

'We already have the world-class infrastructure, logistics, financial and communication systems required and, more importantly, the discerning palate and ample appetite to become a wine trading and distribution center in Asia,' said Henry Tang, Hong Kong's chief secretary, Tuesday at the opening of Vinexpo, a wine exhibition that splits its annual gatherings between the French region of Bordeaux and cities such as New York and Hong Kong. There are 692 exhibitors from 32 countries at the Hong Kong expo this year.

Since the government announced its plan to slash duties on the import of wine from 40% to zero in its annual budget two months ago, wine imports have more than doubled by volume and more than tripled by value from a year earlier, said Mr. Tang.

Kevin Tang (no relation to Henry Tang), managing director of Hong Kong-based distributor Concord Wines, is wasting no time taking advantage of the new playing field.

He already has more than 70,000 bottles of wine stored in Hong Kong for the local market, but within six months, he says, he will build his own temperature- and humidity-controlled cellar right by Hong Kong's main port -- a move he says would cut costs and allow his company to 'shift to a regional business.' Restaurants, clubhouses and hotels in Hong Kong have been his main market, but Mr. Tang says 30% of his sales will come from neighbors like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and mainland China by the end of the year.

'Having the wine here really cuts down the shipping time,' says Mr. Tang's sales manager, Francis Luk. 'Before, if someone ordered a wine from France, it would take two months to get here. From here, we can fill an order in a few days.'

A number of importers and merchants scouring Vinexpo shrugged their shoulders at the new measures. Hong Kong, while affluent, is a small market next to juicier prizes like mainland China, where conference organizer Vinexpo Overseas expects 13% growth a year in wine consumption over the next five years. China is the 10th-largest wine-consuming nation in the world, according to a 2008 study conducted partly by Vinexpo, accounting for 62.7% of all the wine consumed -- or 658 million bottles -- in Asia in 2006.

'If I'm trying to get into the China market, why would I ship my wine to Hong Kong and pay for storage here when I could just go straight to the destination?' says Ken Chan of Phi Cargo Services, a Hong Kong shipping company that works with wine importers. The company has operations in mainland China.

'I think everyone likes to position Hong Kong as a springboard into China, but the reality is, if you want to do business in China, you have to do business in China -- there is no substitute,' says Simon Tam, a winemaker who has run popular wine-education programs in Hong Kong for nearly two decades.

And Hong Kong, while moving to slash taxes, still lacks the high-tech storage facilities that have made London and New York top-flight wine destinations. 'You can't just say, 'I'm the wine hub,' and that's it,' says Robert Beynat, chief executive of Vinexpo Overseas.

Still, in an interview this week, Mr. Beynat praised Hong Kong as 'a natural hub' for the industry in Asia. 'It's right in the middle of the map, whether you're talking about Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai or Tokyo,' he says. Among Hong Kong's other advantages, he says: an abundance of tycoons, world-class hotels, wine knowledge and now, a tax-free environment.

Tom Sherwood, marketing manager at the Hong Kong office of British wine merchants Farr Vintners, says there was a 'huge, huge spike' in orders after the government's decision to end the wine tax, keeping his staff in the office until after midnight for two weeks.

'It's the concentration of the companies, the talent, the people working in the industry,' Mr. Sherwood says. 'If they're based here, this is where the business is going to be done. Hong Kong is next to the mainland and to Macau, in a convenient central location, with a strong history as a shipping port, and now the tax situation. . . . If you want to sell, or if you want to buy, you're going to have to come to Hong Kong.'

Winemaker Mr. Tam acknowledges the obstacles but sees a key role for Hong Kong as a tastemaker and example for China and the rest of Asia.

'I can envision in three years Hong Kong being a dream place for the industry, with a lot of personalities and authorities and knowledge,' he says. 'That's a model for China to perhaps tear apart and reconfigure.'




香港志在成為亞洲紅酒貿易中心

2008年05月30日09:25
球紅酒行業本週齊聚香港﹐意在打開中國大陸市場。借助這一東風﹐香港提出了構建地區紅酒貿易樞紐的藍圖。

香港政府週三正式取消紅酒關稅。週六上午﹐當地將舉行一場價值650萬美元的紅酒拍賣會﹐規模之大堪稱亞洲之最。與此同時﹐本地進口商紛紛尋找酒倉以擴大庫存﹐或是建造自己的酒窖。

Reuters
一名男子在品嘗參展的紅酒
本 週二﹐2008國際葡萄酒及烈酒商貿展(Vinexpo)在香港開幕﹐這一年度盛會在法國波爾多地區以及紐約與香港等城市之間輪流舉行。今年有來自32個 國家的692家展商參會。香港政務司司長唐英年(Henry Tang)在致開幕辭時表示﹐香港已經擁有世界級的基礎設施、物流、所需的金融與通訊系統﹐更為重要的是﹐香港擁有成為亞洲紅酒貿易與分銷中心所必須的品 酒鑒賞力與旺盛需求。

唐英年表示﹐自從兩個月前香港政府在年度預算中宣佈計劃將紅酒進口稅從40%下調至零以來﹐紅酒進口量已經較上年同期增長一倍有餘﹐進口額更是增長兩倍以上。

面臨著出現的新機遇﹐香港酒類經銷商協和洋酒(Concord Wines)的董事總經理鄧國傑(Kevin Tang)迅疾抓住了這一商機。

鄧 國傑說﹐他已經在香港擁有超過70,000瓶紅酒的存放量﹐供應本地市場﹔但他表示﹐未來六個月內將在香港主要碼頭附近建造自己的恆溫恆濕酒窖﹐此舉有助 於削減成本﹐推動公司轉向地區性業務。鄧國傑介紹說﹐香港的餐館、俱樂部與酒店構成了公司的主要市場﹐但到今年年底時﹐公司將有30%的銷售額來自台灣、 韓國、新加坡以及中國大陸等周邊地區。

鄧國傑的銷售經理陸偉豪(Francis Luk)說﹐在本地存放紅酒的確節約了運輸時間。“以前如果有人從法國訂購紅酒﹐可能需要兩個月的時間才能到貨。但如果在本地建立庫存﹐我們可以在幾天時間內交貨。”

眾多參加展會的進口商與經銷商並不認為港府取消紅酒關稅之舉能收到多大實惠。儘管香港經濟富庶﹐但本地市場與巨大的大陸市場相比依然相形見絀。展會主辦機 構Vinexpo Overseas預計﹐未來五年大陸紅酒消費量將以每年13%的速度迅猛增長。Vinexpo今年參與進行的一項研究顯示﹐2006年中國是全球第十大紅 酒消費國﹐佔當年亞洲消費總量(約6.58億瓶)的62.7%。

Phi Cargo Services的陳國新(Ken Chan)表示﹐“我想打入大陸市場﹐那麼如果我可以直接運抵目的地的話﹐我為什麼還要將紅酒運到香港並花上一筆存儲費呢﹖”Phi Cargo是一家香港船運公司﹐與紅酒進口商有業務往來﹐在中國大陸也有業務。

釀酒商Simon Tam表示﹐他認為每個人都把香港定位成進入大陸市場的跳板﹐但現實是﹐如果你想在大陸作生意﹐那麼你就得去大陸﹔這其中並沒有替代。他在香港從事頗受歡迎的紅酒教育項目已經有將近20年時間。

Vinexpo Overseas的行政總裁羅伯特•貝納特(Robert Beynat)指出﹐儘管香港取消了紅酒關稅﹐但這裡仍然缺乏使倫敦與紐約成為頂級紅酒目的地的高科技存儲設施。他說﹐僅有雄心壯志是無法成為紅酒貿易中心的。

但本週接受採訪時﹐貝納特稱贊香港是亞洲紅酒貿易的“天然樞紐”。他表示﹐無論你說到新加坡、北京、上海還是東京﹐香港正好位於這一地區的中心。他說﹐香港還有其他方面的優勢﹕富豪雲集、頂級酒店以及品酒知識﹐現在更是擁有免稅的有利環境。

英國酒商Farr Vintners駐香港辦事處的營銷經理湯姆•舍伍德(Tom Sherwood)表示﹐政府決定取消紅酒關稅後﹐公司的紅酒訂單出現了非常巨大的增長﹐他和同事不得不連續兩週加班到深夜。

舍 伍德說﹐成為紅酒貿易中心需要聚集諸多公司、相關人才以及從業人員。他說﹐如果齊聚這三個條件﹐那麼香港就會成為行業貿易中心。香港毗鄰大陸與澳門﹐處在 便利的中心位置﹐擁有海運港口的雄厚實力與悠久歷史﹐現在又獲得了免稅的便利條件。如果你打算銷售或是購買紅酒﹐那麼你總會來香港作生意。

Simon Tam承認香港還存在差距與困難﹐但他認為﹐香港是大陸與亞洲其他地區的潮流與時尚前沿﹐擁有重要的地位。

他表示﹐可以想像三年內香港將成為紅酒行業的夢幻中心﹐擁有諸多名人、權威與知識﹔香港將成為中國大陸可能的效仿對象與發展目標。

Jonathan Cheng