Wine experts agree that each type of wine require different glasses to give a deep impression of the aroma. For example using a sleek glass to drink Burgundy, will not provide enough space for the liquid beverage is to create a vortex and issued a special aroma.

Cup-shaped forms also need to become slender from top to bottom so it allows the aroma wafted before gulped. In general, the glass must be sufficiently long handle to grip and does not touch the bowl so that could affect the temperature of drinks and aroma.

Lets start it from left to right with the image above.
a. Water: glasses with a short handle. Hold the glass in the handle to maintain the drinks stay cold.
b. Brandy: olfactory scent of brandy. Bring the glass in two hands to warm the cup which will issue a brandy aroma.
c. White wines: the shape of the bowl rather slim and wide to catch the scent. Hold the glass by the stem so that the drinks kept cold.
d. Burgundy Reds and Pinot Noirs: very slightly widened and more taller than the glass for white wine.
e. Champagne: a narrow glass, which can reduce the surface area of wine and drinks avoid the foam from flying.
f. Red wine: a glass of wine the most. Hold the glass at the meeting between the handle cup and bowl.

Remember the Paris wine tasting of 1976 which was an unexpected shock for the French wine establishment ? For those who forgot the story, let’s remind the facts : In a blind wine tasting held in Paris that year, the California wines which were tasted unknowingly among top Burgundy and Bordeaux scored better than their French counterparts. The event was a great day for the Americans whose wines were at last taken seriously by the French themselves.
Now, another incredible similar blind tasting took place many years before, generating an equally-shocking bewilderment : This was at the Paris World Exhibition of 1900 (the Eiffel Tower was only 11 years old). A Russian “Champagne” made by a Russian aristocrat born in 1845 and named Lev Sergeievitch Golitsyn went out first in a Champagne blind tasting, beating all the French Champagne wines taking part. Golitsyn’s Novy Sviet, named from his estate and winery in Crimea (Novy Sviet means New World, can you imagine ? that’s a foresight !) brought a sudden fame to the burgeoning Russian Champagne know-how. Getting a Grand Prix in Paris, the City of Light and of Champagne from the hands of the French tasters themselves was for Golitsyn a welcome reward for his tireless effort and research.
Along the years and in spite of the difficult times that the region went through, the Novy Sviet estate managed to keep its edge : Recently, a Champagne blind tasting was organized in Moscow by expat Champagne-lovers and a few Russians. With the supervision of Russian sommelier Nikolaï Lesenkov, 5 of the best Russian (actually one of them was from Artyomovsk, Ukraine) sparklings and 5 top French Champagne were tasted blind and guess which came out first ? the Novy Sviet bubbly, Golitsyn must be celebrating with a bubbly in heaven… The good news for us French is that the real Champagne (Salon, Bollinger, Billecart-Salmon and Louis Roederer) got the 4 following scores. See this Moscow website page (in English) for the detail of the tasting.

Soviet Champagne poster (estimated date 1940s’)

The outstanding success of Prince Golitsyn’s sparkling in Paris makes us think about the heights that Russia could have reached in the wine industry and in the production of quality sparklings, had the bolsheviks not brought havoc on Russia’s intelligence and talent reservoir. Because if the Soviets produced their version of Champagne in huge numbers, they would have been unable to repeat the same success in a blind tasting in France.
This medalled sparkling was actually Prince Lev Golitsyn’s first large-scale production of méthode traditionnelle : After years of research and trials, he had become an experienced enologist and in 1899 he made 60 000 bottles of something that could compete with the best Champagne wines.

The Paris World Exhibition came at the best imaginable time for him to show what Russia could make in this field…
Now, this is just part One of the story and Golitsyn died in 1915 and didn’t see the ruin that would soon follow : Part Two belongs to another aristocrat who worked for Prince Golitsyn : Anton Frolov-Bagreyev. This man of noble extraction was born in Omsk in 1877 and graduated in 1902 in St Petersbourg in the field of Physics and Mathematics. He spends time there after abroad including in Bordeaux, Porto and Madeira. As soon back, he works in the Imperial winery of the Tsar, Abrau-Dyurso (nera Novorossyisk) which is managed by Prince Golitsyn since 1891. Facing problems for taking part to the 1905 soft revolution, he was sent to Siberia but soon released and back to work, first as enologist at Nikistk (near Yalta, Crimea). In 1915 he spent time at the head of the viticulture & winemaking school of Bessarabia where he was still working when the bolsheviks takeover happened. In 1919 he was working again at the Abrau-Dyurso (his taking part to the 1905 revolution made the bolsheviks put on the side the fact that he was an aristocrat) winery when an armed mob of “revolutionaries” came in and asked for the requisition of all the stock of wine lying in the cellars (good idea, I’d myself have joined the militias in that instance !…). Frolov-Bagreyev vehemently refused (many people were killed on the spot for less) and was to be shot by the vociferous crowd but happily, the winery workers succeeded to hide him among the casks and brought at the same time a complaint to the burgeoning Soviet authorities about the violent threat and misconduct of the proletarian militia. The militia had to back down and Anton Frolov-Bagreyev could keep on working. He was to be the man who would help a few years later the Soviet Union put in place on an industrial scale the production of “Champagne for the masses” as envisionned by its lunatic ruler Stalin.

The production plan signed on july 29 1936 by Mikoyan
Source : Jukka Gronow

The History of Soviet Champagne epitomizes the weird moves and odd U-turns of the Soviet regime in its pursuit of economic development and better living standards for its citizens. As Stalin and his militias apparatus had just starved to death millions of peasants (particularly in Ukraine) and while next-to-come new deportation rounds were in the travails in the depths of the paranoid system, the father of all people suddenly decided in 1936 (july 28 1936) that the workers’ paradise [the Soviet Union] had to make Champagne [as well as locally-made Cognac and table wine] available and affordable for the ordinary people.
The cause of this decision which would later translate into millions of Rubles of investments and massive human effort is unclear. Did the iron-fist ruler see a movie in his private quarters where Champagne played a role or did he enjoy the bubbles so much in the diplomatic cocktails that he felt some shame not to be able to offer the same at home ? Hard to tell. Anyway, the plan was to build sparkling units across the country, to which already-vinified still wine would be transported in order to be transformed into bubbly. There had been some sparkling wines made again in the Soviet Union as early as 1928, but the production was too small for the size of the country.
The document above was signed the day following the meeting with Stalin and Molotov, and it quantifies the production goals (upper page) and distribution goals (lower page) in the differrent plants in Abrau-Dyurso, Georgia and Rostov/Don. The total plan (including the production of future sparkling plants) is summed on the right column.

Soviet poster featuring Sovetskoe Champanskoe

The urgency for the rulers in 1936 was to improve the highly-defficient production & supply of goods to the Soviet people. Two Soviet ministers were on hot seats in that matter : Molotov, who was then minister of the light industry, and Mikoyan who was at the head of the food ministry. At about that time, professor Anton Frolov-Bagreyev had tested at a wine plant in Rostov on the Don an innovative way to make Champagne-type sparklings in bulk, meaning that instead of having to go through the time-consuming secondary fermentation in bottles and all the riddling and disgorging process, the wine had its secondary fermentation in large steel tanks strong enough to stand the pressure. In the matter of only 26 days, a sparkling wine similar to Champagne could be produced, this was Stakhanovism applied to sparkling wine production. He explained his new method to Mikoyan and also through articles in specialized papers. Frolov-Bagreyev added that in spite of the bad reputation that the bulk method had in the bourgeois countries and in France, it could, thanks to improvements of the method and the backing of the industrial capabilities of the socialist state, turn into a big success for the Soviet Union. Units of large high-pressure steel tanks named afratofors were soon built in several cities, beginning with Gorki (Nizhny Novgorod) and culminating with the setting up of 22 such plants throughout the country (other sources tell of different cities as being the first to be equipped with the new machinery).

WW2 didn’t stopped the Soviet Champagne push and it only slowed it. Some units were hastilly dismantled and rebuilt out of reach of the Germans, the machinery that couldn’t be moved being destroyed. At Abrau-Dyurso, the wine and the tools were dumped into the lake Abrau. In spite of a terrible war, this wine issue was still considered and Anton Frolov-Bagreyev was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1942 for fathering this fermentation in tanks system. In 1943, a book by Anton Frolov-Bagreyev titled “Soviet Champagne” was published and believe it or not, a sparkling plant was built in Moscow this very year… After the war, German and Rumanian POW were assigned to the reconstruction of the Abrau-Dyurso winery which lasted until 1953.

Just popped

The Soviets kept searching in this field and further improvements both economically and for the taste of the product were made after the war. In 1953, a continuous-flow process was proposed by a vinification researcher with the grouping of 7-8 several large steel tanks (akratoforovs) connected together with tubes bringing the yeasts and additionnal CO2. The first trials were conducted at the sparkling plant of Gorki in 1950 but were not conclusive. New tests were conducted in the Moscow plant in 1954 and this time it worked. This even more sophisticated system helped bring down the cost by another 20% and is said to have brought more bubbles and less turbidity in the sparkling. The first sparkling plant to use this new continuous-flow system was the Moscow Soviet Champagne plant, folowed soon after by the one at Leningrad. The three people responsible for this innovation (named respectively Agabalyan, Merzhanian and Brusilovsky) were awarderd the Lenin Prize in 1961. The continuous flow process was registered in 1959 under patent USSR # 12467. This technique is one of the weirdest vinification manipulation that I came across and it requires the use of all sort of interventions both biotech and physical on the wine. For those who understand Russian, here is a page about the vinification techniques of Soviet Champagne.
There are still differences in the making of these same-name Sovetskoe Champanskoe, no strict set of rules having been edicted for the vinification. The varieties used for the base wine vary, they include Chardonnay, Aligoté, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Sylvaner and possibly other types. Some people (probably bad-mouthed) even say that the base wine isn’t even wine here.

Sovetskoe Champanskoe moment !

СОВЕТСКОЕ ШАМПАНСКОE ®
Can you believe that , a registered trademark for the Soviet Champagne ?? Stalin must have felt a short respite in hell : the Soviet sparkling that he pushed on the USSR was registered as a brand name under its original name of Sovietskoe Champanskoe !
it all began with the registration of the trademark of Sovetskoe Igriskoe (Советское игристое – Soviet Sparkling) in 1969, when the Soviet Union began to export its sparklings abroad. Without the Champagne word in the name (even in Russian, it could be a case of copyright infringement), the export of the sparkling didn’t meet any hurdle and brought some foreign currency. With the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism, one would have thought that the Sovetskoe Champanskoe would have soon lost its aura but maybe because of nostalgia and attachment of several generations in the former Soviet Union for this cheap (between 2 and 3 Euro a bottle) and festive drink, the Sovetskoe Champanskoe market survived. Speaking of Nostalgia, there is a trend strong enough in Russia that a special TV channel was created there with only TV dramas, movies, news and shows from the Soviet Union time (mainly from the 1970s’ and 1980s’), it’s Nostagia TV (in the place of the “s”, there is the hammer and sickle symbol). The TV channel is also aired in Ukraine (although with an unpleasant Ukrainian dubbing, Ukrainian-language compliance being the law in Ukraine as it seems). Among the dozens of channels available in Donetsk, that was one of my favorite, with the Russian news channel RBC. I’m sure that Nostalgia TV has a large audience in all the former Soviet republics.
Back to the sparkling : years after the end of the USSR and the privatization, the Russian State organism Soyuzplodimport (formerly Soyuzplodoimport) which was initially privatized in april 1997 and then re-nationalized in 2002 considered itself the depository of the name Sovetskoe Champanskoe and registered the brand name in 2004. Soyuzplodimport is a heavy weight in the alcohol-beverages production and it owns 43 brands including Stolychnaia, Moskovskaya vodka but this business brings lots of behind-the curtain manoeuvers and Soyuzplodimport was also targeted by feuds and legal actions.The brand registration move was a partly-successful attempt at raising money from now-independant “wineries” (plants is the right name here) which kept making sparklings under the Soviet Champagne label. The Champanskoe plants balked at what they considered as an unfair practice intended of making them pay protection money. Some stopped using the traditionnal Sovetskoe Champanskoe label and created a label under their own name. Others accepted to pay the royalties, which are said on specialized articles to amount to something betyween 1,5 and 5 Rubbles per bottle. Soyuzplodimport declared that the “brand” needed new advertising campaign and repositioning on the market, thus justifying certain expenses.

That’s for the History side, let’s taste it, and in France that time. Of course, that’s a semi-sweet and the sugar is well present, but the general feeling was pleasant when you’re already used to this style of wine (I know that many people will have a hard time with the sugar here) and you know what ? the magic didn’t stay at the airport this time…
This particular Sovetskoe Champanskoye was made in Kharkov (Ukraine) by Kharkivskii Zavod Champanskikh Vin (харкивський завод шампанських вин). Phone + 38 (057) 712 89 81.
Costs a bit more than 2 Euro in the shop (in Donetsk).

In fact, studies show that drinking beer — a customary way to celebrate the holiday — can help lower blood pressure and strengthen bones. What’s more, beer may be better for your health than wine.

If you’re surprised, you’re not alone. In a random survey of 1,000 adults that was conducted by the University of Maryland’s Center for Food, Nutrition and Agriculture Policy, 56% responded that wine was healthy, while only 16% thought the same thing about beer. “Frankly, I was surprised that so few people considered beer as healthful as wine,” says center director Maureen Storey, Ph.D.

Indeed, the medical journals have documented the brew’s disease-fighting dynamics. So in the spirit of St. Patty’s Day — and other hoist-worthy holidays — here are some other reasons (as if you need them) to cheer your beer:

Stronger bones. Beer is a rich source of dietary silicon, a mineral that improves bone density. “Wine, unfortunately, is not,” notes biochemist Charles W. Bamforth, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis, and author of Beer: Health and Nutrition (Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2004), an academic book on the healthful properties of brew. “Thus far, the studies indicate a very real reduction in osteoporosis risk if you consume beer … more so than from drinking wine or spirits.”

Less hypertension. In one Harvard University study involving 70,000 female nurses, regular beer drinkers had lower rates of high blood pressure than those who drank similar amounts of either wine or spirits.

A bounty of nutrients. Although wine is glorified for its reported antioxidant properties — and yes, grape skins have their share — the hops in beer have their own major-league nutrients. One is xanthohumol, a tongue-twisting phytochemical believed to provide more estrogenic punch than soy. (Take note, postmenopausal women.) In test tube experiments, xanthohumol has inhibited the growth of cancer cells. Meanwhile, one European drug company is reportedly testing a hops-powered hormone-replacement-therapy drug.

Fiber, folic acid and more. “Beer also contains a significant amount of folic acid and other B vitamins, as well as soluble fiber — all associated with better heart health,” Bamforth adds. “The myth that beer is [just] empty calories is simply not true.”

But what about the calories?
The main source of calories in beer is the alcohol — but ounce per ounce, most beer is lower in calories than wine or hard liquor. While beer contains carbohydrates, they are slow-release carbs — “the good kind,” Bramforth says.

One 12-ounce serving of beer averages 150 calories. One 5-ounce serving of wine averages between 90 calories and 120 calories, depending on the type of wine. Bottom line: Blame the beer belly on the nachos, not the suds, experts say.
St. Pauli Girl vs. Budweiser
Is one beer better than another? There is no evidence to suggest that one brand of beer offers more health benefits than another. The same holds true for dark beers vs. light-colored ones.

The truth is that all beer is made from the same ingredients: barley, hops and water. Most of the health benefits come from the alcohol. What’s more, microbrews don’t deserve a higher-quality or better-for-you reputation than mass-produced beers. Taste aside, the mass-produced ones are equally healthful and use equally high-quality ingredients, Bamforth says.
Heart-smart drinking
The cardiovascular benefits of beer come from the alcohol, which “raises ‘good’ HDL cholesterol, at least as much as regular aerobic exercise,” says Arthur Klatsky, M.D. His landmark 1974 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine provided the first epidemiological evidence that moderate alcohol consumption was associated with lower rates of heart disease.

“You get the same reduction in heart attack risk from a comparable amount of beer as you do from wine,” adds Klatsky, senior cardiology consultant at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif.
“Alcohol also enhances the body’s natural clot-dissolving mechanism to break down clots before they can trigger a heart attack or stroke,” he says. “And recent research shows that moderate drinking seems to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.”

Of course, Klatsky and other experts don’t encourage anyone to start drinking for better health. But if you already imbibe, it’s worth noting that it’s the pattern that provides the protection. “Since these cardio-protective effects are short-lived, it’s best to have 1 to 2 drinks per day — ideally, every day,” Klatsky says.

More specifically, that means having 1 to 2 12-ounce servings of beer, 5-ounce glasses of wine or 1 to 1.5-ounce shots of liquor per day — as opposed to 5 or 6 drinks in one sitting on a Friday night. Excessive intake increases your risk for many health problems. At the other extreme, drinking small amounts of alcohol every so often is not advantageous either and will actually negate some of the health benefits previously mentioned.
“In our data, we’re finding that while moderate alcohol consumption of any type is better than not drinking” at all, the consumption of liquor is less beneficial than wine or beer, Klatsky says. “For women, protection seems to be best with wine. But for men, it’s from beer.”

News
· The world offers us so many drinks and spirits. Sometimes it is difficult to decide what cognac is the best and what the favourite one is. But when you taste the cognac it will probably turn into your favourite one and if not the favourite then into one of the favourite.
· Cognac is aroma spirits of the golden and yellow colours or of the bright brown colour that is made of the cognac alcohol got in the result of double sublimation of white grapes wines with the further ripening in oak woods.
· If you ask what is the difference between brandy and cognac it is easy to answer it. The difference is the territory where the drink is produced. The spirits produced in Cognac region in France is called cognac. And the rest of the world companies that use the same manufacturing technique make brandy and not cognac.
· There are a lot of traditions connected with cognac drinking. But it is not necessary to turn the cognac drinking into the problem. First of all it is necessary to like the taste of cognac and to enjoy it. After all it is the main purpose of cognac.
· The healing effect of cognac was proven on practice. Doctors say that cognac is good for health and its taking won’t be harmful for the person’s health.