French Wine Harvest Lowest Since 1945

It appears this year's French wine harvest,

as predicted, 

is the worst in over 70 years. 

Spring frosts decimated vineyards, 

(twice this past April)

causing the harvest to be 18% lower than 2016

which was the lowest in decades. 

And not just in France.

Austria, Germany, Hungary and Switzerland 

were also hit hard. 

The losses have varied anywhere from 25 to 90 percent

despite some vineyards employing old-fashioned 'smudge pot' techniques

using fires in oil drums and fans to hinder the damaging cold on the vines. 

Climate change is also a challenge to this business. 

One article suggests that global warming will cause

grapes to ripen earlier causing low quality wines and higher alcohol content

(which the French I know do not care for.)

But the article also stated 

that while this year's grape harvest quantity will be down,

 the effect of the warm, dry summer weather

means the quality will be high.

So at least there's that!

May want to stock up on your favorite French wines

in case of price hikes.  

While I'm a fan of American (specifically California) reds,

I'm not partial to the French reds.

And just the opposite with whites. 

I love French whites but not so much American whites. 

It will be interesting to see how the French, 

in all their brainstorming on how to deal with their challenges,

will end up handling climate change

and how the business, and the wines, will change. 

à Votre Santé.

(Photos copyright: Kirsten Steen

Info via articles in The Guardian and The Daily Meal.)

Pompeii Exhibit (OMSI)

We had a chance to visit Portland's OMSI this summer

and its Pompeii Exhibition. 

I can't say enough good things about it. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post HERE,

(with photos of the real Pompeii)

getting to visit this site in Italy was like a 

life-long dream come true for me. 

And in this exhibit,

I love the way so many aspects of it

make you feel as if you are there. 

And not just there,

but as if you are there back then,

in early Roman times. 

79 A.D. to be exact. 

In fact, 

many of the captured images below are from a film

which makes you feel as if you are walking through a Roman house

of the period. 

Much of the exhibit 

is about showing you things as they would have looked then. 

But not all.

From a photo of the ruins,

the picture below shows a sidewalk,

large stones put in place

for the times when water ran through the streets. 

And while this is a recreation,

at the real site of Pompeii,

some of the baking houses

still had ovens semi-intact.

And these wine jugs above remind me

that in my earlier post on Pompeii,

I found a family wine maker who is working to recreate

nearly the exact wines the Pompeians drank at the time

through resin lifted and tested from underground wine storage terracotta jars. 

By using the same vineyard locations, same climate, same soil

(well as same as one can get 2,000 years later),

and knowing what to strive for with the tested resin,

they are striving to get as close as possible. 

And someday I hope to taste this new/old Pompeian wine. 

But for now, the price is about 10 times what I prefer to pay for a bottle. 

In the last room, 

the OMSI exhibit even includes some of the casts 

of the Pompeians who were captured in time.

Frozen in their last agonizing moments. 

While much of the exhibit, 

like at the actual site,

is exciting and astonishing and awe-inspiring,

this is the saddest room and aspect. 

If you're in the Portland area,

the OMSI Exhibition goes through Oct. 22nd, 2017. 

And if you wish to visit my post with more info and photos 

of the actual site including the family recreating Pompeian wine, 

please Click Here.

OMSI

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

1945 SE Water Avenue

Portland, OR

omsi.edu

Museum + Pompeii Exhibit- $26 Adult

Museum + Pompeii- $22 Senior (63+)

Museum + Pompeii- $17 Youth (3-13)

(Photos copyright: Kirsten Steen

Please do not reproduce.)