Monday, September 29, 2008

How about a little wine with your spiders?







This morning I was in charge of rinsing the bins of Arneis after they had been dumped into the crusher. So I spent a good amount of time watching the grapes go through the crusher - and I could not help but notice the amount of spiders that were in the mix as well. They are almost like whitish-greenish daddy long legs. Anyways, they only show up on the Arneis grapes - I have yet to see one on the red grapes.


So I got to thinking. How many bugs/spiders/insects can you typically find in a bottle of wine? From what I saw, there has to go be a 1:2 ratio of bugs to clusters of grapes. I tried to save a few at first, but they are not very cooperative so I've decided to just let nature take its course. Well not nature, but the process of wine making. They must know what they're doing at this point, right?


NOT SO!

I googled "average amount of bugs in a bottle of wine" thinking SOMEONE had to have done some sort of study on the amount of bugs that are crushed along with the grapes. Close but no cigar my friends. I DID find a blog featuring a woman who had had a not-so-fab experience with a bottle of wine:


"Hi, everyone. I am new to the site. My name is Melissa. My husband and I were drinking a bottle of our favorite Chardonnay from a local winery here in Temecula (I won't name it!) and after pouring myself the last glass I noticed a few minutes later that there was something in the bottom of my glass. I looked in the light and saw that it was some unknown sediment as well as a small worm and a very, very small almost translucent spider! Has anyone heard of such a thing? I was horrified. I've drank a good amount of wine in my life and I've never had this experience before. Is this something that happens from time to time?"


ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! A WORM AND A SPIDER IN YOUR WINE?

What are the odds of that happening??


I think I'm going to lay off this investigation for the time being.


3 comments:

Andrea Phelps said...

Alice, ever heard of MESCAL ????

A. Phelps said...

No! What is that???

Andrea Phelps said...

It is tequilla with the worm inside that you are supposed to eat!