1. Château Lafite Rothschild: Having been involved in the Bordeaux wine industry for hundreds of years, the Rothschild family’s flagship Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux blend has been a consistent part of the typical wine investing portfolio for decades.
2. Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Romanée-Conti Grand Cru: Produced in Burgundy, this renowned estate consistently produces some of the world's most sought-after Pinot Noir wines. Its limited production and exceptional quality make it a prime investment-grade choice.
3. Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon: Hailing from Napa Valley, this cult wine is arguably the most sought after in America, and has gained a reputation for its exceptional quality and scarcity. Limited production and consistently high ratings have made it a highly sought-after investment-grade wine.

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What we’re seeing in this shift from an extreme drought to now extreme flooding is emblematic of climate change.

– Heather Cooley, Pacific Institute

With many of the state’s reservoirs nearing full capacity — and others likely to continue to fill up as the mountains’ snow melts and flows downstream — state and federal water authorities are for the first time in nearly two decades allocating full amounts of requested water supplies for cities and farming communities.

The storms this winter have helped restore reservoirs, but the state should continue building long-term water resilience, said Jeanine Jones, the interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources, the agency in charge of water allotments.

“While this precipitation has helped surface water supplies and eased impacts from the state’s record-breaking drought, California’s groundwater basins are still depleted due to prolonged dry conditions and will require more than a single wet year to recover,” she wrote in an emailed statement.

State and local water officials have for months focused on recharging groundwater basins through new investment and efforts such as diverting and collecting stormwater. Additionally, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a March executive order eased some regulations so communities could more easily capture and store floodwater in the ground — sometimes by flooding fields and letting that water seep.

Some of that groundwater recharging will occur around wetlands and floodplains, which could be a boon for migratory birds and other wildlife whose habitats have suffered in recent years.

But the increase in water also can bring its own challenges. With so much snowmelt, flooding is already taking a toll in some areas of the state. The once dormant Tulare Lake in the San Joaquin Valley has flooded the surrounding Central California community and farmland.

Much of Southern California’s water supply from the Colorado River also remains in flux.
Last month, the Biden administration released three proposals for the future of water-sharing among the seven states that use water from the Colorado River, whose basin is still in a 23-year drought. Most of Southern California’s cities and farmland get their water from the river.

In order to prevent going to court, Western states will have to agree on one of those proposals, which primarily weigh California’s historic water rights against what other states argue is an updated, more equitable approach.

Through the recent Inflation Reduction Act and other laws, the feds also are providing millions of dollars to incentivize farmers and ranchers in the Colorado River’s upper basin states to forgo some water use and allow greater flows downstream. Money is going toward Salton Sea restoration in Southern California, as well.

There’s a common refrain among conservationists: Plan for the wet times when it’s dry, and plan for the dry times when it’s wet.

A conservation mentality among California residents hasn’t fully sunk in yet, said Heather Cooley, the director of research at the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based nonprofit that studies water policy.

Communities must continue building resiliency to a hotter and drier climate, she said, by replacing old, wasteful appliances and fixtures with more modern, efficient models; replacing water-intensive grass with plants that are more suited for the Western climate; and building new infrastructure to capture and recycle stormwater.

“What we’re seeing in this shift from an extreme drought to now extreme flooding is emblematic of climate change,” she said. “It’s a future of more extremes. Now is the time to be making our communities resilient.”
 

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Here are some scientific findings worthy of a toast: Researchers from Brown University and the University of Toulouse in France have explained why bubbles in champagne fizz up in a straight line while bubbles in other carbonated drinks, like beer or soda, don't.

The findings, described in a new study published in Physical Review Fluids , are based on a series of numerical and physical experiments, including, of course, pouring out glasses of champagne, beer, sparkling water and sparkling wine. The results not only explain what gives champagne its line of bubbles but may hold important implications for understanding bubbly flows in the field of fluid mechanics.

"This is the type of research that I've been working out for years," said Brown engineering professor Roberto Zenit, who was one of the paper's authors. "Most people have never seen an ocean seep or an aeration tank but most of them have had a soda, a beer or a glass of champagne. By talking about champagne and beer, our master plan is to make people understand that fluid mechanics is important in their daily lives."

The team's goal was to investigate the stability of bubble chains in carbonated drinks. Part of the signature experience of enjoying these beverages is the tiny or large bubbles that form when the drink is poured, creating a visible chain of bubbles and fizz. Depending on the drink and its ingredients, the fluid mechanics involved are all different.

When it comes to champagne and sparkling wine, for instance, the gas bubbles that continuously appear rise rapidly to the top in a single-file line and keep doing so for some time. This is known as a stable bubble chain. With other carbonated drinks, like beer, many bubbles veer off to the side, making it look like multiple bubbles are coming up at once. This means the bubble chain isn't stable.

The researchers set out to explore the mechanics of what makes bubble chains stable and if they could recreate them, making unstable chains as stable as they are in champagne or prosecco.

The results of their experiments indicate that the stable bubble chains in champagne and other sparkling wines occur due to ingredients that act as soap-like compounds called surfactants. These surfactant-like molecules help reduce the tensions between the liquid and the gas bubbles, making for a smooth rise to the top.

"The theory is that in champagne these contaminants that act as surfactants are the good stuff," said Zenit, senior author on the paper. "These protein molecules that give flavor and uniqueness to the liquid are what makes the bubbles chains they produce stable."

The experiments also showed the stability of bubbles is impacted by the size of the bubbles themselves. They found that the chains with large bubbles have a wake similar to that of bubbles with contaminants, leading to a smooth rise and stable chains.

In beverages, however, bubbles are always small. It makes surfactants the key ingredient to producing straight and stable chains. Beer, for example, also contains surfactant-like molecules but, depending on the type of beer, the bubbles can rise in straight chains or not. In contrast, bubbles in carbonated water are always unstable since there are no contaminants helping the bubbles move smoothly through the wake flows left behind by the other bubbles in the chain.

"This wake, this velocity disturbance, causes the bubbles to be knocked out," Zenit said. "Instead of having one line, the bubbles end up going up in more of a cone."

The results in the new study go well beyond understanding the science that goes into celebratory toasts, the researchers said. The findings provide a general framework in fluid mechanics for understanding the formation of clusters in bubbly flows, which have economic and societal value.

Technologies that use bubble-induced mixing, like aeration tanks at water treatment facilities, for instance, would benefit greatly from researchers having a clearer understanding of how bubbles cluster, their origins and how to predict their appearance. In nature, understanding these flows may help better explain ocean seeps in which methane and carbon dioxide emerges from the bottom of the ocean.

The experiments the research team ran were relatively straightforward—and some could even be run in any local pub. To observe the bubble chains, the researchers poured glasses of carbonated beverages including Pellegrino sparkling water, Tecate beer, Charles de Cazanove champagne and a Spanish-style brut.

To study the bubble chains and what goes into making them stable, they filled a small rectangular plexiglass container with liquid and inserted a needle at the bottom so they could pump in gas to create different kinds of bubble chains.

The researchers then gradually added surfactants or increased bubble size. They found that when they made the bubbles larger, they could make unstable bubble chains become stable, even without surfactants. When they kept a fixed bubble size and only added surfactants, they found they could also go from unstable chains to stable ones.

The two experiments indicate that there are two distinct possibilities to stabilize a bubble chain: adding surfactants and making bubbles bigger, the researchers explain in the paper.

The researchers performed numerical simulations on a computer to explain some of the questions they couldn't explain through the physical experiments, such as calculating how much of the surfactants go into the gas bubbles, the weight of the bubbles and their precise velocity.

They plan to keep looking into the mechanics of stable bubble chains in an effort to apply them to different aspects of fluid mechanics, especially in bubbly flows.

"We're interested in how these bubbles move and their relationship to industrial applications and in nature," Zenit said.
 

Visit us at https://GGWC.com!
As always, don't hesitate to call us at 415-337-4083 or email frank@ggwc.com for selection advice or assistance!

Visit us at https://GGWC.com!
As always, don't hesitate to call us at 415-337-4083 or email frank@ggwc.com for selection advice or assistance!

Visit us at https://GGWC.com!
As always, don't hesitate to call us at 415-337-4083 or email frank@ggwc.com for selection advice or assistance!