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June 8, 2018

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Percentage of people who bought French wine when French music was played in a British supermarket. When German music was played, the majority of the wines sold (73%) were German. The finding was reported in the new book Gastrophysics by Oxford professor Charles Spence who studies how our senses and perceptions influence what we eat and drink.

What was the most-planted white grape in the Napa Valley before Prohibition began in 1920?

A. Chenin Blanc

B. Sauvignon Blanc

C. Pinot Blanc

D. Riesling

D.

Before Prohibition, many of the most important vintners in the Napa Valley were German. Immigrants such as Jacob Schram, Frederick Beringer, and Charles Krug forged the first wine industry in the Napa Valley using the grape they knew best: riesling. Even by the 1940s when Stony Hill Winery famously planted the largely unknown chardonnay grape in the Napa Valley, riesling plantings were four times greater than that variety. Vineyard acreage devoted to riesling declined precipitously throughout California in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, but a new surge of excitement for the varietal means that plantings are once again on the upswing. Still, today, riesling plantings comprise just over 4000 acres in California; chardonnay, 95,000 acres.

“One day her mother said to her, ‘Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good.’ “

—“Rotkäpchen” (Little Red Riding Hood or Little Red-Cap)
Printed in Kinder-und Hausmärchen, a collection of German fairy tales first published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm

In 1989 and 1990, two California school districts in Culver City and Empire, respectively, banned this version of the tale over concerns about the mention of alcohol in the story.

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