Scientists have discovered that a good night’s sleep, increasing heart rate through exercise, and 25ml of wine per day can help stimulate the brain’s cleaning system. Previous studies have shown that Alzheimer’s disease is associated with the toxic build-up of proteins in the brain, which causes the neuron cells to die. Studies are now focusing on the link between the brain’s self-cleaning, known as the glymphatic system, and the formation of proteins that lead to the cell death linked to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Ian Harrison, from University College London, told the Cheltenham Science Festival that research was now focusing on finding ways of preventing the glymphatic system from failing.
He said studies on the cerebrospinal fluid of mice had shown that a combination of sleep, exercise, and alcohol stimulated the brain’s self-cleaning.
  “A paper came out a couple of years ago where the researchers studied the brains of mice when they are asleep and mice when they are awake,” he said.

“What the researchers did was inject a dye into the cerebrospinal fluid and see where it goes.
“In the mice that were awake, that cerebrospinal fluid starts to go into the brain but only resides on the surface and doesn’t go deep into the brain tissue.

“In the same animal when it fell asleep, that cerebrospinal fluid goes far deeper into the brain.

“When they quantified this in the animals that were asleep, this glymphatic system was far more active – 60% more active than in the animals that were awake. “This is good evidence that the glymphatic system is active during sleep. If that is anything to go by we should all be sleeping a lot more than we are. “That kind of makes sense because, if you think about it, when your brain is active during the day these brain cells are going to be actively producing all these waste products, so it is only at night when our brain switches off that it has the chance to switch on our glymphatic system and get rid of all these waste products.”

Dr. Harrison said there were comparable results with exercise.

“In the sedentary animals, the cerebrospinal fluid penetrates the brain but when the animals have voluntary access to exercise there is a massive increase in the amount of lymphatic function,” he said.

“The research has postulated that it is the increase in heart rate that drives this cerebrospinal fluid into the brain.”

They also treated mice with low-level, intermediate, and high-level doses of alcohol for 30 days and looked at the impact on the glymphatic function.

He said that with low-level doses of alcohol – the equivalent of a third of a unit a day – there was a 30% to 40% increase in the brain’s self-cleaning but a corresponding reduction following exposure to both intermediate and high levels of alcohol.“So 25ml of wine could increase your glymphatic system, according to this mouse study,” Dr Harrison said.“But the intermediate dose of one unit of alcohol – a small dose of wine – suggests that if the mouse data can be extrapolated the lymphatic system can be lowered.

“So, sleep more, exercise and, as the data suggests, you can have a drink, but only a third of a unit of wine per day.”  

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Unlike “malolactic fermentation” and other mysteries of winemaking, microclimates are quite tangible. One day, I left San Francisco en route to Napa and it was 60 degrees and foggy. I drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and drive through Sausalito and the sun tries to peak out. Before long, I am driving into Marin and the temperature gauge goes from 60 to 70. As I go East and enter Carneros the temperature has gone to 74. As I drive from Carneros along Highway 29, every mile the temperature seems to going up. I work my way to the Silverado Trail and by the time I reach Yountville it reads 78 – as you can see the “micro-climates” at work. That day I wind up in Calistoga (30 miles north) and it was a balmy 90 by 11:30 AM!
  Simply put, microclimates are the smallest measure of climate, conveniently situated under macro- and meso climates. Macroclimates describe large areas defined by certain weather patterns or landforms like mountains, such as Napa Valley or the Cascades in Washington. Mesoclimates refer to smaller, medium-sized areas, like large estates or subregions of an AVA, like St. Helena, Santa Lucia Highlands, or even a Single Vineyard like Bien Nacido in Santa Barbara. Microclimates define small areas, like an individual row of vines or a section of a vineyard. While the term can refer specifically to that environment directly over a vine and its individual canopy, the word typically refers to groups of vines. Usually, these areas are defined by soil or elevation changes, proximity to water, or weather patterns like intense winds or cold pockets, for example. FYI, The Bien Nacido is hundreds of acres of vines and has over 15 distinct micro-climates.

Beyond dictating whether shorts or hats are appropriate attire in midsummer, microclimates heavily impact grapes and their resulting wines. These tiny spaces have a different balance of warmth or cold, humidity or dryness than their surrounding areas. Though minute, these factors have a huge impact on how grapes ripen.

For instance, fog blankets grapevines in the Russian River Valley in a cool morning mist, slowing their ripening compared with sun-drenched neighboring vineyards. For delicate Pinot Noir grapes, this slow and gentle ripening is ideal, but other grapes, like Grenache, demand more sunlight to yield delicious vino, making sunny, dry slopes ideal for their cultivation.  Similarly, various soil types provide different levels of water retention to grapevines, making the vines struggle more or less to produce fruit. As a result, vines may yield more fruit or have smaller, more concentrated clusters. These factors combined give winemakers a different base product at harvest, forming the baseline for singular, delicious wines.

Along with one-of-a-kind virtues, microclimates provide vintners with similarly unique challenges. For example, the same moisture that brings cool temperatures to Sonoma mornings creates perfect conditions for rot, requiring growers to protect their fruit. Sometimes, the conditions even present botrytis, a rare form of rot that makes Sauternes and other dessert wines so amazing, but destroys grapes destined for dry wines.

Together, the balance between these factors forms the basis of terroir, and you can taste it. Cool or cold areas produce wines with lower alcohol than more balmy neighbors. Small clusters from struggling vines contribute more tannins than plump, juicy berries. Likewise, soils with a low pH create grapes and wines with more bright acidity.

They say good wine is made in the vineyard, but more specifically, it’s made by the microclimate. For once, it’s part of winemaking that’s easy to see, feel, and understand. And in wine regions, always remember to pack a sweater!
 

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Their findings, which are published in the journal Antiquity, included that Roman wine likely tasted slightly spicy and had aromas similar toasted bread and walnuts.

"The results of our study force us to question several long-held assumptions about Roman winemaking," Van Limbergen told Newsweek. "[Firstly], by using the techniques we describe in our paper, the Romans were able to make much better, more tasty, and much more stable wines than is commonly assumed.

 "The widespread nature of wine cellars with earthenware containers (dolia) in the Roman world between the 3rd or 2nd century AD and the 3rd or 4th century AD suggests the development of a wine industry on a scale never attained before, and with a level of expertise and a sensory profile long obscured," Van Limbergen said.

"Modern wine classification ideas are unhelpful to capture the nature of Roman wine. Wine colors, for example, were not standardly subdivided between white and red (as is done today), but for the Romans, they belonged to a wide spectrum of colors ranging from white and yellow to goldish, amber, brown, and then red and black, all based on grapes macerated on the skin."
According to the study, this is the first time the role of the vessels in Roman winemaking has been "scrutinized" meaning these are the first insights to ever come from such research.

Nowadays, most wine is made in large metal containers, which allows more wine to be mass-produced.

But the dolia are comparable to qvevri, which are pots used to create wine in Georgia. The process used in this wine-making process is very similar to how the Romans would have made their wine in Dolia.

According to the study, the narrow base of the fermentation vessel means solids from the grape are separated from the wine. Unlike a lot of the typical wines we consume, this fermentation process gave the liquid an orange color.

A dolia, a vessel that Romans made their wine in. Researchers found that the wine would have made the mouth dry due to the clay vessel.

 


ANTIQUITY JOURNAL

The spicy flavor was created by burying the dolia into the ground, the study said. This meant that pH and temperature were well controlled while the wine aged. Yeasts had more of an opportunity to force, producing a compound known as sotolon.

"Winemaking in qvevri and dolia is both extremely straightforward and an ingenious way of producing wine," Van Limbergen said. "Big wine cellars filled with dolia were investments of a kind that could only occur under economically favorable circumstances, and their presence attests to economic prosperity in the Roman world in Late Republican and Early Imperial times.

"At the same time, many households could afford one dolium, and winemaking was probably part of daily life in many families, making wine a product consumed across a broad social scale (many households today in Georgia make their own wine and keep it next to the kitchen or in a cellar inside a qvevri, this must have been quite similar in the Roman world)."

The texture of this wine would also have been different from the wine we consume today. The clay of the vessel gave the wine a "drying sensation" when in the mouth. According to the researchers, this was popular with Roman palates.

Not only does this research teach us how the wine tasted and smelled, but it also gives archeologists new details about how Romans lived. From the fermentation process, it is clear that the Romans knew many different techniques for creating wine and could vary how it tasted and smelled. They varied the tastes and smells by altering the shape of the dolia, and how they were stored.
 

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“Probably the biggest problem that growers have in their vineyards is field bindweed. It is a noxious weed, but it’s pretty much everywhere. It’s just a hard plant to control, similar to morning glories. Our best agent for field bindweed is a microscopic Aceria Malherbe. It is a galling mite. The mites overwinter in the roots. In late August or early September, they start migrating their way toward the roots. I have seen over in Grand Junction plants that are gnarled, that barely come out of the ground because of the galling that the mites can cause. They also seem to work better in drier conditions. When the field bindweed has a lot of water, it seems to grow and kind of slough off any of the galls. It might take some effort to see if they work in a vineyard.”

Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

Photo: Simona – stock.adobe.com

 
Canada Thistle Rust Fungus (Puccinia punctiformis)

Photo: kazakovmaksim – stock.adobe.com

“Canada thistle is probably one of the worst weeds around the world. We have a rust fungus that we started working with around 10 years ago. It’s a very effective agent. It was the first plant pathogen suggested as a biocontrol agent way back in 1893. We’ve figured out how to work with it within the state. Unfortunately, there are some discussions going on between the EPA and USDA at the federal level, and basically USDA would like to get back the regulatory control of this rust fungus. So we’re kind of in a holding pattern. Eventually we will get to use it again. It’s a very effective agent at controlling Canada thistle.”

Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense)

Photo: 3dillustrations – stock.adobe.com

Gall Wasp (Aulacidea acroptilonica), Gall Midge (Jaapiella ivannikovi)

Photo: Sandra Standbridge – stock.adobe.com

“Russian knapweed is one of our growing problems in the state as a noxious weed. It can survive in a variety of soils. It outcompetes other things and is a very difficult plant to control with herbicides. We do have a couple of agents that are now available for this. Gall wasps were introduced in the last 10 years in Colorado. They’re pretty small wasps. Gall midges lay their eggs in the terminal growing end of the Russian knapweed. A gall basically is a physiological response of a plant. The larvae of an insect is growing, and the plant forms this massive tissue around it that is called a gall. Within a gall could be 20 of the midge larvae in there, maybe more.”

Russian Knapweed (Rhaponticum repens)

Photo: Elena Volgina – stock.adobe.com

Seed Weevil (Microlarinus lareynii), Stem Weevil (Microlarinus lypriformis)

Photo: USDA ARS – European Biological Control Laboratory, Bugwood.org

“These were originally released in the 1960s and were not found north of Amarillo, TX. It was thought that they were not cold hardy, but then some CDA employees found it down in Baca County in 1978. Since about 2010, we’ve actually been able to collect most of our puncturevine weevils from the Denver metro area. Either we have a cold-hardy strain or climate change has changed things. I would say we definitely don’t have the deep freeze we used to have. We used to have a couple weeks at a time where we wouldn’t get above zero (degrees), and that would really do a good number on some pests and would also kill off something like these agents. Puncture vine doesn’t compete with other plants too well, so cover crops are something to keep in mind.”

Puncture Vine (Tribulus terrestris)

Photo: Albin, stock.adobe.com

Lesser Knapweed Weevil (Larinus minutus), knapweed root weevil (Cyphocleonus Achates)

Photo: silukstockimages, stock.adobe.com

“The lesser knapweed weevil lays its eggs in the seed head, and larvae carve out the seed head. It prefers diffuse knapweed over spotted but will feed on both. The larvae of knapweed root weevil feed on the roots, reducing flowering and the ability of the plant to grow. It can kill plants eventually and is pretty effective, although we don’t get very many of those to redistribute. It’s my favorite insect. It’s pretty big; about the size of a pinto bean. August is their month to be out and about. It’s kind of camouflaged when it lays on the ground.”

Diffuse Knapweed (Centaurea diffusa), Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea maculosa)

Photo: emilio100, stock.adobe.com

Rosette Weevil (Trichosirocalus horridus)

Eric Coombs, Oregon Department of Agriculture, Bugwood.org

“Also a root weevil, it feeds right in the root crown of the thistle and can kill musk thistle. We actually have been having trouble collecting this one. Most of these agents we’re talking about, what we do is rear them in what we call nursery sites. We go out to field areas and release them and go back in subsequent years and hope that the population has built up enough to collect them and redistribute them in those areas. But with musk thistle, a lot of our areas where we’ve tried to use them at nursery sites, they’re so effective that they wipe out the musk thistle, and we have had limited T. horridus numbers the last couple of years.”

Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans)

Photo: Mark Lotterhand, stock.adobe.com

 

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