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Wireless Networking Hardware Science

Wireless Wine Monitoring 124

Posted by michael from the other-kind-of-wine dept.
Wynken de Word writes "An article in Canada's Globe and Mail says 'vineyard owner Don King is coaxing 30,000 plants to grow grapes of exactly the right colour, size and sweetness to produce great ice wine and other fine vintages...with the help of judicious watering, a knowledge of the age-old art of viniculture -- and electronic sensing devices linked together in a wireless network.' Using an Intel-based TinyOS and TinyDB, multiple sensing devices monitor grape micro climates and help determine irrigation and frost patterns."
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Wireless Wine Monitoring More

Wireless Wine Monitoring

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  • oh YES!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by purduephotog ( 218304 ) <hirsch@inorbitSLACKWARE.com minus distro> on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:19AM (#6014261) Homepage Journal
    As an avid wine consumer (not the french word;P) you can have no idea how happy this makes me. My cellar is currently stocked with ~130 bottles, mostly from SE Australia (Cabs) and quite a few from upstate NY where I live. Managing the microclimate to produce consistent wines is far more important than trying to hit a home run. I shy away from buying multiple cases of wine until I sample several different bottles of the same year, just on the chance that I got lucky.

    Now if I only owned a larger back yard.....

    • Re:oh YES!! (Score:2, Informative)

      by snatchitup ( 466222 )
      Sorry, the SE Australian Cabs are run of the mill at best.

      All this, Oooh Ahhh it's a Cab from Chile, or, it's a local wine from Upstate Wherever. Or, "Oh no, this is a Shiraz"...

      Don't kid yourself.

      They still can't touch a medium priced CAb from Sonomoa or Napa. I mean, Napa or Sonoma Grapes, not, "made in Napa" which means the grapes could've been shipped in from the mid-coast.

      The Californian product is even better than most French Bordeaux. You have to go to a First Growth to get something really, r
      • It's hard to beat a 5$ bottle from Australia that tastes as good as a 15$ bottle from Sonoma. Which is entirely my point- there are several good wines that are inexpensive, although there are considerably more that are bad.

        Don't be such a California snobb ;-)

        Seriously tho, every area has (zone 1/2) some outstanding wines, but I tend to like more pepper than tannin, and I've found that (for the price!) I get a better deal buying down under than across the plains.

      • Re:oh YES!! (Score:2, Informative)

        by Achoi77 ( 669484 )
        It's completely unfair to compare California Cabs to French Bordeaux. First of all Boredeaux wines are always going to be blends of Merlot and Cab Sauv. While it is true that some Cali Cab makers also use Merlot to blend into their Cab labels, the amount of Merlot may be anywhere from between 10-2%. Bordeaux wines can have as much as 30% Merlot, depending on the year, the maker, etc.

        The Californian product is even better than most French Bordeaux.

        True, there are millions of gallons of French Bordeaux w

      • > They still can't touch a medium priced CAb from
        > Sonomoa or Napa.

        In price, you're certainly right. Napa cabs are second only to French Bordeaux in the "ridiculously overpriced" category. It's not to say these wines aren't good, or great at their best, but you can find wines that are just as good for a third of the price. I'm not sure I agree with you about Sonoma cabs, either, it's not the right area to grow a top-notch cab. It's better suited for whites, Zins, Pinots, etc.

        Unless you're a milliona
      • There are a number of great producers in western australia that are starting to get some notice (Howard Park is really good). Ask your wine guy to introduce you to some the next time you go shopping.

        But, as the original poster mentions in a follow-up, it's hard to beat a $5 bottle that tastes like it should cost $35.

  • Don't know (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cackmobile ( 182667 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:19AM (#6014263) Journal
    This starts wine down the mass production route where they all taste the same. The grape variety is what gives wine is distinctiveness. If you had a whole vienyard the same you couldn't have nice blends. What about for sweet wines where they have the fungus growing, botrytus (i think thats how its spelt), they would go all wrong.

    • Re:Don't know (Score:5, Interesting)

      by HowlinMad ( 220943 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:30AM (#6014304) Homepage Journal
      While I understand your concern, I do not think this will be such a problem. There are plenty of other factors, such as soil composition (nutrients et al.), pollution, and even the amount of sunshine it gets. There may be more, or less sunny days. I think this will help in getting more quality grapes out of a crop than it will for making a grape that tastes exactly the same year to year.

      Of course, I just might be full of it.
      • There are plenty of other variables that are essentially at the discretion of the vintner (I believe that's the correct word?), all of whom have different tastes/beliefs.

        Plus there's quite a bit of influence on the wine's taste in the genetics of the grapes themselves. Many wines are named based on the variety of grape that they use, and there are MANY.

        Even with precise control over the variables the vintner can control, there are simply too many other variables he/she cannot.

        Overall, I think this is go
        • Exactly what I was thinking with my original post. This is a good way to grow a quality consistent grape. This does not mean however, that the grape will taste exactly the same.
    • as long as the grapes are cultivated outdoors, there will be variances in the taste from year to year. the only way I can think of to produce the same-tasting wine would be to cultivate your grapes in a hydroponic environment.

    • Re:Don't know (Score:4, Insightful)

      by squaretorus ( 459130 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:54AM (#6014388) Homepage Journal
      INSIGHTFUL!!!!!

      The biggest driver of mass produced wine is exactly the opposite of whats happening here. Grow bad / inconsistent grapes due to bad watering / pruning and you get unreliable wine.

      What happens to unreliable wine? It gets blended with all the other unreliable wine from the region and sold as 'Californian Red' or 'Chilean Merlot'.

      This is aiming to produce a saleable quantity of consistently good wine - not mass production. This is ambitious wine making - in that he aims to produce GOOD wine - not just wine.

      I assume you dont drink a lot of the stuff!

    • Re:Don't know (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Fun Guy ( 21791 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @09:02AM (#6014419) Homepage Journal
      Actually, this day is a lot closer than you might think. Do a Google on "wine reverse osmosis", and you'll see what I mean. Reverese osmosis allows the vintner to selectively remove water and sugar so as to adjust the brix, acidity, and concentration of volatiles, tannins, etc. Nobody produces crappy years anymore, because even good vintages are run through a reverse osmosis machine to make them better and more consistent... more "mass produced". Every year is a good year, although some are still outstanding.

      The grape varieties are being modified with modern agronomic breeding tools, including genetic modifications, to make them better able to produce decent juice from poorer soils/sites. As with beer, the yeast strains used in wine making are being controlled with sophisticated molecular biology tools to get the mixes of micromolar end products of fermentation that make for an interesting wine. Precision agriculture has been used in high-value crops like wine grapes for many years, it's just that now it's starting to be wirelessly networked and automated.

      Only small-volume boutique wines are made by Francois/Guisseppe relying solely on the wisdom his father handed down to him from his father before him.
    • "Would you like a McWine with that big mac?"

    • Re:Don't know (Score:2, Insightful)

      by inoffensif ( 604265 )

      I have to agree and I am a little suspicious about the long term effects this will have on the wine industry, although the trend has been in this direction for the last few years. The homogenization of wine crops over an area and over time goes against everything that makes wine appreciation worthwile.

      You could draw an analogy between wine and theater.

      The theater differs from the movies in the way that the audience knows that they are assisting a unique event where there are subtle differences in the pl

    • Re:Don't know (Score:2, Insightful)

      by the clean ( 671672 )
      I think you are somewhat mistaken. While it is true the grape variety adds to the distinctiveness of a wine, it is the specific blend of different varieties of grapes that lead to these wine varities. I am not aware of any comercial wines (although I see no reason why there shouldn't be any) that are solely comprised of one variety of grape. Infact, in most countries the exact blends and precentages are strictly regulated by the national governments. Again, while it is true the different grapes add dist

      • Re:Don't know (Score:3, Informative)

        by jpc ( 33615 )
        I dont know where you come from or what what wine you drink, but large numbers of wines are only made from one grape variety. SOme wine varieties are almost never blended (eg Sauvignon blanc, Riesling, often Pinot noir). But this in no way means they taste the same. A lot of the taste depends on how you grow the grape and produce the wine.

    • Re:Don't know (Score:4, Informative)

      by zakath ( 180357 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @09:51AM (#6014687)
      This 'all tastes the same' has already been identified as a problem by many wine purists. The Bordeaux flavour paradigm being copied by everyone from Oz to Chile to the US and on and on has brought on a homogenous affect to wine making. Not to mention the 'Parker effect' whereby taster/critic Robert Parker scores a wine well by his (impressive) palate and the wine immediately goes through the roof in terms of price. This has made wine makers all over the world scurrying to produce wines they hope will appeal to his taste thus enabling them to command great prices. Wine is already being mass produced everywhere - its not the quantity of grape that is so much the problem you appear to be referring to but the wine maker and the flavour he's targetting that are more of a problem for those who crave variety and maybe mor of the 'way things used to be'.

    • Use your power for Good, not Evil (Score:4, Interesting)

      by HalfFlat ( 121672 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @10:19AM (#6014875)
      The chief advantage of this sort of thing, as far as I can tell (IANAWM), is that it allows the wine maker to practice their craft with more consistent and better quality raw materials.

      Like all good tools, it's how it is used that counts. Certainly it could allow greater homogenisation. On the other hand, it can allow the wine maker to create better and more interesting wines, when they do not have to cater to the vagaries of the environment to such a degree. If anything, I think such technology will have more of a positive effect than a negative, because the "consistently good but not great, dull but predictable and affordable" market seems to be sewn up already by the large wine manufacturers.

  • Don King.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Blaster Jaack ( 536777 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:21AM (#6014268)
    owner Don King is coaxing 30,000 plants to grow grapes of exactly the right colour, size and sweetness

    because of legal issues they had to replace the word boxers with plants

  • Wireless wine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by oniony ( 228405 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:21AM (#6014270) Homepage
    I can't say I've ever known a wine with wires.

    Seriously though, as more product based (manufacturing and farming) companies turn to wireless technology the potential for disaster grows. Someone spoofing these plants' state could seriously write-off the crop. I'm counting the days until I see the first wireless industrial sabotage.
    • I'm sure that the vintner will also trust his own instincts and use the new datacollection system as an auxiliary tool and not rely on it 100%.
      • At first, probably.

        But if he's changing his behavior based on the availability of the new data, he's vulnerable either way. Best-case scenario is everything is cryptographically secure so it's hard to just add hostile nodes, and evil Pierre will have to actually spoof the motes (might as well be destroying the crops). Easier would be to jam the data transmission. WCS would be ... too easy.
    • Someone spoofing these plants' state could seriously write-off the crop.

      Well...growing anything--grapes included--will always require the grower to go outside and look at the plants periodically. If a grower gets messages from his plants saying they need water, and this happens while it's raining, he would probably be suspicious.

      There's lots of feedback in this system--the grower can use the wireless network to monitor very closely the conditions in the vineyard, but he has to go out and physically exa

    • This is where TinySec [berkeley.edu] comes in handy ;-) (making sure that at least one Berkeley reference shows up in this thread ;-))

  • other-kind-of-wine dept.?? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lu Xun ( 615093 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:22AM (#6014278)
    And here I thought it was something to keep those pesky Windows APIs from getting all uppity.
    • I have had a wireless whine monitor for years and it does a great job of monitoring whines and cries. They called it a "baby/child monitor" at the store though ;-) Oh, slightly different spelling, I guess.

  • Probably redundant (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cackmobile ( 182667 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:23AM (#6014281) Journal
    I forgot to mention that this would eliminate yearly changes. Every year would be the same. you wouldn't get the great vintages. Also how would you know that you have the best vintage possible if its always the same.
    • Just because things can be monitored, it doesn't stop you changing things.

      Anything can be abused in some way - it's the decision of the producer whether or not they still make changes to their procedures to produce different types of wine. The monitoring just assists them to make sure that the changes can be reproduced if it *does* turn out to make an excellent wine.

    • Re:Probably redundant (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RealErmine ( 621439 ) <commerce@nOspaM.wordhole.net> on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:49AM (#6014374)
      Every year would be the same. you wouldn't get the great vintages. Also how would you know that you have the best vintage possible if its always the same.

      Couldn't a vineyard owner set up microclimate zones within his crops to produce a wide range of specific flavored grapes? Then it would only be a matter of picking specific flavors from the crop either for a homogenous wine made of grapes from a single zone, or a blended wine which incorporates the flavor of multiple Flavor Zones(TM). The experimentation could lead to a better wine for each vintage instead of a semi-random distribution of great vintages.

      I can also see how this would allow smaller vineyard owners the opportunity to produce more than one or two types of wine since the management of microclimates would ensure better crop yields in smaller areas.

      It's up to the vineyard owner how (s)he wants to experiment with the microclimates in order to produce grapes/wine. The imaginitive ones will probably make good use of the technology to make excellent wines of all types.

      • Couldn't a vineyard owner set up microclimate zones within his crops to produce a wide range of specific flavored grapes? Then it would only be a matter of picking specific flavors from the crop either for a homogenous wine made of grapes from a single zone, or a blended wine which incorporates the flavor of multiple Flavor Zones(TM). The experimentation could lead to a better wine for each vintage instead of a semi-random distribution of great vintages.

        That presumes that we know how all the factors com

    • There are too many other factors.

      It will probably reduce a lot of the variation, but there will still be quite a bit.

      Good news is that the thing this is most likely to eliminate are the "really bad" years, like last year in upstate NY - Almost every wine from that region last year sucked due to rain patterns, even my personal favorites which were pretty consistent with mild variation from year to year in the past.

      Mild variations OK - Total suck, BAD.
    • Exactly. Yearly changes are what make wine such an enjoyable experience. If you don't want yearly changes do what Cognac producers do, mix several years together.
    • The vintners know in excruciating detail the exact temperatures and numbers of days in a certain weather that led to one vintage or another - and you'll hear wine buffs recite these and swoon over the details of a specific year and things like which hill certain grapes came from... and they can opt to time things the best - right down to things like opting for night harvest, etc... this gives them a finer mesh on their data, both in space and time. I can just about listen to all the details without just le

  • Ice wine art ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:29AM (#6014298)
    produce great ice wine and other fine vintages...with the help of judicious watering, a knowledge of the age-old art of viniculture

    We in France never mix great, fine wintage and age-old art with ice wine and watering in our phrases.
    (Then again, since all our phrases are in french, I suppose it explains ...)

    • Re:Ice wine art ? (Score:4, Informative)

      by lovebyte ( 81275 ) <lovebyte2000@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:34AM (#6014314) Homepage
      In fact it is illegal for many regions of France to water vineyards.

      • Re:Ice wine art ? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Idarubicin ( 579475 )
        In fact it is illegal for many regions of France to water vineyards.

        Makes sense. With too much water, you get large, juicy grapes--which in turn produce dilute, watery wines. The chief cause of disappointing vintage years (in France) is excessive rain.

        Which is not to say that watering the grapes leads to poor wines. In some wine regions (parts of California, for example) the weather is just too dry, and irrigation is necessary. Excellent wines can be produced through judicious watering--and year ove

    • I thought they renamed your country to "Freedom."
    • 'Icewine' or 'Eiswine' is a German thing, using Reisling grapes left on the vine past their prime (spatlesen or late picked) and through the first frost, then picked frozen. The ice is pressed from the frozen grapes, leaving behind a very high-solids, high-sugar must.

      Executive summary: this stuff is going to be super super sweet . Consistency (and sugar content) of maple syrup. Not to be served with meat or fish. Most likely served in a small apertif glass after a meal.

      Personally, I hate wines of this t
      • Yes, this stuff is rather thick (for wine) and super, super sweet. It's intended to be that way too - it's considered a desert wine.

        IceWine grapes (Reisling or Vidal) are optimally picked when the temperature first drops to -9C - that's when the freezing perfectly concetrates the sugars in the juice and produces the best flavour balance. IceWine is produced by most vintners in Canada, since it sells very well at rather high prices, and it's not uncommon in Canada's wine regions to have a summer exactly lik
      • German wines are typically sweet. I don't know too much about German wine laws, but I know that their wines are goverened by how much suger is in the grapes at harvest, regardless if the grape is ripe or not.

        Another thing to note is that German wines have lower alcohol amounts (~9%) than regular wines (~12.5%), which makes it a very good starter wine, if you are trying to get into wine.

        Spatlese are typically sweet, Auslese has even more sugar. Try to find a bottle with a good amount of acidity and WOW, i

  • Don King? (Score:1, Funny)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 )
    "Gather around ladies and gentleman for the most outrageous, the most stupendous, the most fabulous, the most amazing wine you have ever tasted! This wine will knock your hat off, knock your socks off, knock your block off! I say I say again, the match of the millenium, they will call this wine "the tasteah oh the greatah", "the wineah oh the fineah"!
  • before moding me down, read...

    remember keanu reeve's johnny mnemonic ? a cyberpunk data courrier carrying the cure for a brain disease caused by excessive exposure to information ?

    science fiction appart, we're more and more exposed to wireless communications and other forms of electro-magnetic interference since the radio was invented and no one knows exactly what kind of consequences this exposure has over humans (if some one knows, tell me. all I heard until now is noise. ppl from the industry says one
    • There is a certain difference: the ability to distinguish between that which is "harmful" and that which is "harmless" has improved since the time of the example of doctors recommending smoking for some conditions. "Cancer" used to be "an enlarged organ", perhaps "unnatural growth", or if the no autopsy was performed, just plain "died prematurely of old age".
      Let alone the issue of following all the "maybe"s will eventually stop you in your tracks - the possibilities of gauging how dangerous something is bet
      • my comment was taken from the movie because the example fitted my idea.

        i'm not paranoid with the possibility of geting cancer from radio waves but I know ppl who are so i posted to get more info on the subject.

        anyone here knows a trusted (as in neutral) source of information on the subject of radio waves x health ?
    • It's quantum mechanics that proves radio waves are safe (well, certainly from a cancer causing/mutation point of view).

      Electromagnetic radiation either has the energy to ionise an atom by knocking an electron out of its shell, or it doesn't. There isn't a middle ground; no matter how many of the weak radio signal photons you fire, you still won't cause any damage.

  • Frost Patterns Thwarted By AMD (Score:5, Funny)

    by Root Down ( 208740 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:44AM (#6014352) Homepage
    Using an Intel-based TinyOS and TinyDB, multiple sensing devices monitor grape micro climates and help determine irrigation and frost patterns.

    Now, if they had only used AMD chips, the increased heat alone would have obviated the need to check for frost patterns!

  • is it me or is that kind of weird? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @08:46AM (#6014361) Journal
    I don't know - when I read this, I got the same feeling of "bleh" I get when I think about genetic engineered corn and machine-pressed hamburger patties.

    I mean, I know this will eventually comes out to be better wine (I hope), but I somehow feel creeped out by it.

    Maybe this signals an oncoming age of specialty "wine made the same way as it always has been for the past 3000 years" niche.

    Why does human mind do that, anyways - such illogical creatures, no?
  • Getting large numbers of sensors in the field in the field is only part of the battle. Once this is done you must

    1) Make sure that you're not swapping sensors around. Reading temperature sensors in the shade versus one in the sun will back a huge difference.
    2) Calibrate the sensors so the readings are sensible. 0.1 degreees may not sound like much, until you're at the edge of frost formation.
    3) Reliably deliver that data to a server.
    4) Detect failing sensors.
    5) Grant visisibility of the data to only tho

  • And once you've got the wine (Score:4, Funny)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @09:35AM (#6014589) Homepage
    Start up your Computer controlled barbecue slow cooker [circuitcellar.com] and have a party! Yeeha!
  • I already commented in this column [weblogs.com] about this. But it was based on this Wired News article, Making Wines Finer With Wireless [wired.com].

  • Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dasmegabyte ( 267018 ) <das@OHNOWHATSTHISdasmegabyte.org> on Thursday May 22, 2003 @10:01AM (#6014747) Homepage Journal
    Wine growers somehow have the money and the desire to use the latest technology...hmmm...could it be because they are often rich ex-technologists who have retired and gone into a field where the right attitude and social networking can lead other rich people to pay $100+ for grape juice that's gone bad?

    Sorry, it's my birthday, and I'm cynical. Fact is, the best wine I've ever had was 2001's St. Ives from Bully Hill. It's $6/bottle but tastes EXACTLY like what I want wine to taste like. Last year's batch tastes completely different and has lost all the really good, excuse the bullshit term, undertones, of the old wine of which I still have a dusty bottle in my basement. Sure, I'd like to have this years' batch taste the same as it did in 2001, and an expensive digital setup would help that. But Bully Hill is a very laid back organic winery. The reason St Ives was so perfect two years ago was that the weather was perfect, and nobody fucked with it. If they had, it would have lost its wild flavor, and I would have never gotten a taste of it.

    Too much control is going to turn wine into Buddweiser. It's never skunky, it's never watery or too strong, but it's also never _GOOD_. Goodness is randomness in my book, but I'm a Wolfram-ite.

    • Too much control is going to turn wine into Buddweiser. It's never skunky, it's never watery or too strong, but it's also never _GOOD_. Goodness is randomness in my book, but I'm a Wolfram-ite.

      Sounds like you are describing the current state of Australian wine.

      Support your local wineries [westportrivers.com]. Especially the tiny crafty ones. [mainewine.com]

  • Coaxing (Score:3, Funny)

    by kingswell ( 63851 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @10:31AM (#6014932)
    When I first skimmed the blurb I seriously thought "Well if he's coaxing the vines that's not very wireless, is it" and had odd thoughts of RG-6 throughout a vineyard. Glad to hear he's not co-ax-ing.
  • I could use this to monitor how my plants are doing in jamaica, nice red hairs.
  • It's the grapetrix [slashdot.org].

    • Yes. (Score:3, Funny)

      by John Penix ( 562591 )
      I'd like to share a revelation that I've had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species I realized that you're not actually plants. Every plant on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you grapes do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every fencepost is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another fence. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern.

  • Canadians has other uses for this ... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    While growing [overgrow.com] grapes is nice [overgrow.com] there are others [overgrow.com] that might also find [overgrow.com] this technology useful. [overgrow.com]

  • No viniculture... viticulture (Score:4, Informative)

    by crgrace ( 220738 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @11:56AM (#6015592)
    age-old art of viniculture

    That's viticulture...

  • too many growers already (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 22, 2003 @12:28PM (#6015882)
    The biggest problem that wine has these days is that everyone and their brother has suddenly bought land and started growing grapes. So, the price of wine quality grapes has completely dropped through the floor.

    In turn, now there is glut of good wine on the market, and people are hard pressed (sorry for the pun) to make any profit when there are so many other wineries out there with the same products.

    In the past, there were only relative few number of producers so the price would remain high enough to keep them going.

    If you drive around the coast in California between LA and San Francisco, nearly every available hillside has been cut back and planted with thousands of grape vines. You can't go a few hundred yards in some places without crossing a vinyard.

    In a few years, I think many of these will be left to go fallow because there's just no money in undercutting the market in the long term.
    • Since when is competition a bad thing? Are you a bitter winemaker or something (not bitter wine, bitter you)?

      Also, you make it sound like the entire coast of CA is covered with grapes. That's simply not true. Sure, there are pockets of "mass-grapeage" up and down the coast, but you can go for miles and miles without seeing a single vine.
  • The cool thing about this is that the grower can tweak the grapes to yield a high quality product. And if others do it too, so what? The worst that can happen is that all the trolls who horde obscure Bordeaux wines for the prestige suddenly find their stock worth about a quarter of what it once was. Wine is meant for drinking anyway.

    I'm privileged in that I get to sample a whole lot of the finer things in life for free or reduced cost as part of my job, but I'd be happy if people were able to get a real

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