Today, I enjoyed a cheeky little chardonnay in the glorious Somerset countryside. But according to an article yesterday in my favorite paper, “The Guardian,” it should have tasted more like cat pee. Apparently, this weekend is a time of ‘root’ where wines will taste at their worst because they are best drunk only on fruit and flower days. This is the wacky belief of “biodynamics,” where produce is thought to taste better on days according to their position in the astrological calender. Wine tastes better on fruit and flower days and I presume vodka (made from potatoes) tastes better on root days.
According to the proponents of this crazy idea, wine is a living organism and therefore like other living organisms, it is subject to the effects of the lunar cycle. Oh dear… naïve biology, belief in astrology and sympathetic magical reasoning again (and a basic misunderstanding of what wine is!). Still, the wine buyers for both Tesco’s and Marks & Spencer’s apparently believe it, as they only invite critics to taste their wines on fruit and flower days. What’s more is that the Guardian tested the theory for their article and found that five out of seven bottles showed a marked improvement!
Now this is the newspaper that features Ben Goldacre, the skilled critic and scourge of bad science. Ben… you need to have a word with your fellow journalist and tell him about how to design a proper scientific study.
brucemhood.wordpress.com 
The funny thing is that on fruit and flower days cat pee tastes like chardonnay.
LOL Hilarious Konrad!!!
Also I wondered as the chardonnay was from New Zealand whether coming from the other hemisphere made any difference to astrological charts.
It’s not like you’re going to have any empirical evidence against my claim, right? As for NZ chardonnay, I can say from fairly extensive personal experience that it never tastes like pee. Not even during lambing season.
Well thank the stars that I drank that whole bottle of Shiraz at 8 a.m. today or it would have tasted like cat piss for sure.
I don’t know if I hold to this whole fruit and nut day thingy, but I do know that when I had a glass of Chardonnay the other night, it was awful. I replaced it with a glass of Shiraz, which was equally awful. I ended up drinking jasmine green tea.
But come to think of it, we had company that night, and that might have accounted for it . . .
I’m currently halfway through a bottle of Sicilian Merlot, and it tastes wonderful.
The fact that the cat recommeneded it is neither here nor there.
Bruce, as you appear to be an authority on such things, could you please offer advice that will be of use when I choose a sandwich at work tomorrow.
I’d hate to waste hard-earned brass on an egg mayonnaise concoction, only to find that according to some bizarre alignment of a Mars bar and uranus, that it’s a pig and mustard day.
Nobbly… I have to go get something to wipe up … I just laughed too much and snorted excessively….you are truly a sick but inventive mind!
Konrad and Nobbly – HAR! I dare not venture into the wit pool with such sharp beings!
How does this flora and fauna thing work when applied to Weed – since the best weed almost always smells like skunk?
” truly a sick but inventive mind!”
Why thank you, kind sir. Praise indeed!
Nobbly,
I’m seriously jealous. Bruce has never even referred to me as demented. “Sick but inventive,” is high praise indeed.
I think that I’ll go drown my sorrows in a tasteful box of wine that I got on sale for $1.50. All of the delightfully flavored swill you can drink until your liver decides to change places with your pancreas.
$1.50, eh?
Sounds fantastic.
Even if you can’t drink it, you could always lay it down for a few months and then use it to de-ice the car next winter.
I’ve been away from this blog for like 3 days, and I’ve been missing out on some of the best stuff. I was about to ask if there could be any other form of alignment of a Mars bar and uranus that wasn’t bizarre, but fear what some folks might reveal about personal pasttimes.
Anyway, reliable sources confirm supernatural method of improving brain power:
