Journalists can’t resist boozy stories and the New York Times crawls around Oxford’s pubs (Cambridge’s are just as sordid) while Book Forum stumbles through Kingsley Amis’s “daily haze of whisky and sweat alcohol”.

“A good pub is a ready-made party, a home away from home, a club anyone can join,” says the NYT. “A pub is a great leveler — not a workingman’s club, but an everyman’s club. The best are filled not only with the scent of yeast and hops, but also with banter and wit. Back in 1954, when the Rose & Crown on North Parade Avenue in Oxford was threatened with closure (inadequate toilet facilities), the defense that won the day called it a “home of cultured, witty and flippant conversation.”

There is no doubt Amis would certainly be cultured and his bon mots compelling but apparently he had no taste when it came to booze:

“Having thus elevated the role of drink to the highest status in human civilization, Amis proceeds with a series of disconnected essays on different types of alcohol, some dreadful-sounding cocktail recipes (see above), a good piece on the types of glasses and tools for making and drinking different beverages, some not very sage reflections on wine, and some even worse ideas about what should and should not be drunk with what food. All enjoyable to read, of course, but what is best in this book are the author’s perorations not on the taste of alcohol, but on its effects. No one who has read his novels could deny that he is the grand master when it comes to describing different levels of inebriation—feeling sober, that first drink, the sensations of getting drunk, blind drunkenness, and, of course, the hangover.”

Meanwhile, The Telegraph in the UK is running a series on great British pubs.

“… is blogging good for wine? The blogosphere seems to be at a crossroads, with an investigation by W&S revealing it is coming under increasing commercial pressures that threaten its very raison d’être as an informal, immediate and independent way of chatting about wine.

As well as major retailers and suppliers trying to get in on the act with their own blogs, the bloggers are being offered cash in return for favourable product reviews on their sites. And a US supplier that regularly posts favourable reviews of its own products on bloggers’ sites is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s becoming increasingly hard to distinguish which content is independent and which is commercially motivated.”

Via Spittoon

“Rangel and his colleagues had 20 volunteers taste five wine samples which, they were told, were identified by their different retail prices: $5, $10, $35, $45, and $90 per bottle. While the subjects tasted and evaluated the wines, their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI.

The subjects consistently reported that they liked the taste of the $90 bottle better than the $5 one, and the $45 bottle better than the $35 one. Scans of their brains supported their subjective reports; a region of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, or mOFC, showed higher activity when the subjects drank the wines they said were more pleasurable.

There was a catch to the experiment, however. Although the subjects had been told that they would taste five different, variously priced wines, they actually had sampled only three. Wines 1 and 2 were used twice, but labeled with two different prices. For example, wine 2 was presented as the $90 wine (its actual retail price) and also as the $10 wine. When the subjects were told the wine cost $90 a bottle, they loved it; at $10 a bottle, not so much. In a follow-up experiment, the subjects again tasted all five wine samples, but without any price information; this time, they rated the cheapest wine as their most preferred.”

As the Boston Globe reported the experiment was conducted inside a scanner:

“…the drinks were sipped via a network of plastic tubes – that allowed the scientists to see how the subjects’ brains responded to each wine. When subjects were told they were getting a more expensive wine, they observed more activity in a part of the brain known to be involved in our experience of pleasure.”

Via 1001 Dinners, 1001 Nights

Assimov in the New York Times:

“In a good year, the wines offer savory berry flavors, with herbal, earth and mineral tones that add a welcome complexity. Good acidity makes them lively and refreshing, and they can age and improve for 10 to 20 years.
In a great year, these wines are absolutely delicious, with spicy raspberry and cherry flavors. They show intensity and elegance while remaining fresh and vivacious.
And make no mistake: 2005 was a great year, as the wine panel confirmed in a recent tasting of 25 bottles of 2005 Chinon.”