"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

[snip]

It has been such a poor summer that it isn't too surprising they are
struggling a bit. I'd guess they are still not yet ripe even if the
strings are dry. Mine usually come ripe around the end of September.

I doubt it very much. A ripe mealie pip is too hard to break between
the teeth. It has to be hit with a hammer to achieve that.

[snip]

Franz

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Nick Maclaren wrote:

As I said, corn will not
reach that stage in the UK, as we don't get enough sun. Germany
gets slightly more, as may be seen by the superiority of German
wines to English ones.

You do bang on about the inferiority of English wines. That's the second
time in as many months that I've seen you put English wines down. Since
you don't usually say things about which you have no experience I assume
that you must have tasted English wines recently. Therefore I would put
your opinion down to personal taste rather than quality per se.

Of course there can be bad English wines just as there can be bad wines
from anywhere else. But as far as the good wines are concerned it would
be better not to make a qualitative judgement. Wines from different
areas taste different and English wines are different to German or
French wines. They are not worse or better, they are different.

Are you going to say that a Müller-Thurgau from the Rhine area is
inferior to a Müller-Thurgau from the Burgenland area of Austria or
Hungary? It is true that they are very different from each other but a
qualitative judgement is purely subjective. They are simply different.
Now it is true that a Müller-Thurgau grown in England *is* probably
inferior because it ripens too late for the English climate, but most
English vineyards don't grow that any more because it does make an
inferior wine over here. But they now grow varieties that *do* ripen
well in England and, as a result, the quality of English wine has
improved by leaps and bounds over the last ten years or so.

I am not arguing with your contention that Germany gets more sun than we
do, just with your opinion that English wines are inferior because of
that.

David

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In article ,
Franz Heymann wrote:

Normalised to equal cultivated areas, English wines win far more first
prizes at blind tastings than German wines do.

.. I don't know why, but I suspect that it is because they are judging
on a different set of qualities to those even wine buffs use for
judging drinking quality. This is a common effect, in fashion, the
arts, and so on.

I gave up even trying English wines some years ago, after I had sought
out and tried some of the 'best of the breed', and found them thin at
best, and tasteless and/or acid in general. I would be prepared to
try again, but am disinclined to waste a lot of money and time trying
highly recommended gnat's **** and then being told "You must have been
unlucky - try another bottle/year/vinyard/whatever."

To David Rance: yes, quite a lot is my tastes. I don't like thin
wines, unless they are weak and for quaffing by the tankard (e.g.
many Austrian ones). And I don't like having to choose between
tastelessness and acidity. Also, I prefer red to white, and like
my reds heavy.

In that, I am neither being unreasonable nor am I unusual. I very
much like German and Austrian wines, especially the quaffing ones,
when they are appropriately balanced.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Martin wrote:

I am not arguing with your contention that Germany gets more sun than we
do, just with your opinion that English wines are inferior because of
that.

The Germans help their wine by adding sugar in a wet year.

All wine makers do. In France it is called chaptalisation.

David
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In article ,
Martin wrote:
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 05:55:08 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

What did you do with the ripe mealies? Do you realise that it is only
eaten in the form of samp (English). stampmielies (Afrikaans), or
maize meal porridge? Where in the UK are there mealie meal mills?

It's used to make cattle feed.

For which it is used at various stages from green and lush up to full
but unripe cobs.

Franz and I know the difference between ripe maize and the dried out
half-ripe maize that is the state it normally reaches in this country.
I don't know how they ripen it enough to collect seed, when breeding
it in the Netherlands, but I expect that the answer is "with care,
and not very successfully in bad years".

As with many of the borderline crops grown in this country, I would
expect the commercial production of the seed to be done in southern
countries for use in northern ones. The southern half of France, or
most places in Spain or Italy, for example.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Nick Maclaren wrote:

To David Rance: yes, quite a lot is my tastes. I don't like thin
wines, unless they are weak and for quaffing by the tankard (e.g.
many Austrian ones).

If you're thinking of heuriger wine then they add up to half the volume
with fizzy water (like Römerquelle). I've watched them mixing the
wine/water in Heiligenstadt! But I wouldn't call Welschriesling or
Grüner Veldliner thin.

And I don't like having to choose between
tastelessness and acidity. Also, I prefer red to white, and like
my reds heavy.

Ah, that explains a lot. It isn't possible to grow a good red wine in
England, just as it isn't possible in the Rhine area. My family doesn't
drink a great deal of red because, apart from me, they are allergic. As
for me I'm not as fond of red as I am of white anyway.

But there are good-flavoured English white wines now. The winemaker's
art has improved enormously.

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On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Martin wrote:

The Germans help their wine by adding sugar in a wet year.

All wine makers do. In France it is called chaptalisation.

I thought in some countries including Germany the use of sugar in
anything except plonk is banned?

No. The law in France, and I suspect in other countries too, is that, in
a bad year, winemakers are allowed to add just enough sugar to bring the
sugar level up to what it would normally be, so that the alcohol content
as defined in the Appellation can remain the same.

Doesn't mean, though, that the wine won't be thinner as regards flavour,
just that the alcohol content will be the same as normal.

David

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The message
from Martin Brown contains these words:

In message , Joanne
writes
I understand that sweetcorn should be harvested when the juices are milky,
and when the stringy bits on top are brown and dry. However, my
corns' bits
are stringy and dry but the cobs are still very small.

So, do I wait until the cobs are larger, or do I harvest now?

It has been such a poor summer that it isn't too surprising they are
struggling a bit. I'd guess they are still not yet ripe even if the
strings are dry. Mine usually come ripe around the end of September.

Poor pollination might also be a factor if the cobs are short of grains.

You could always pull a couple and see how well they cook. Fresh produce
just off the plant always tastes sweeter...

My cobs are also well smaller than usual but I have been eating them for
the last two weeks and they are excellent - just small. In fact I now
have one or two which are what I assume to be over-ripe (though I now
realise from the rest of the thread that ripeness is more complicated
than I was thinking) in that the grains are caving in slightly - or is
that just lack of water?
I would definitely try a cob.

Janet G

In article ,
David Rance wrote:
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Nick Maclaren wrote:

To David Rance: yes, quite a lot is my tastes. I don't like thin
wines, unless they are weak and for quaffing by the tankard (e.g.
many Austrian ones).

If you're thinking of heuriger wine then they add up to half the volume
with fizzy water (like Römerquelle). I've watched them mixing the
wine/water in Heiligenstadt! But I wouldn't call Welschriesling or
Grüner Veldliner thin.

Sometimes. I wasn't referring to that, though. Quite of a lot of
it is, or at least used to be, lightly fermented - rather like Vinho
Verde (which I also like).

And I don't like having to choose between
tastelessness and acidity. Also, I prefer red to white, and like
my reds heavy.

Ah, that explains a lot. It isn't possible to grow a good red wine in
England, just as it isn't possible in the Rhine area. My family doesn't
drink a great deal of red because, apart from me, they are allergic. As
for me I'm not as fond of red as I am of white anyway.

Yes, but that doesn't mean I don't LIKE whites. I do.

But there are good-flavoured English white wines now. The winemaker's
art has improved enormously.

Hmm. I have heard that at least half a dozen times, been suspicious,
checked up, and found no difference. I last tried half a dozen years
back, at the latest Kent vinyard to be lauded to the skies. As I
said, I am prepared to try again, but am disinclined to waste money
and effort unless I have reason to believe that there is at least a
50% chance of the wine being drinkable. I don't ask for it to be
good, or value for money - I am not THAT unrealistic!

So what English wine (preferably at an affordable price) would you
say is NOT thin and either acid or lacking in flavour?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 05:55:07 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

If you attempt to cook ripe maize as sweetcorn, it will take ages
to cook, and be completely unpalatable. As I said, corn will not
reach that stage in the UK, as we don't get enough sun. Germany
gets slightly more, as may be seen by the superiority of German
wines to English ones.

Normalised to equal cultivated areas, English wines win far more
first
prizes at blind tastings than German wines do.

In England or in Germany or elsewhere?

In international exhibition-cum-tasting events..

Franz

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Martin wrote:

The Germans help their wine by adding sugar in a wet year.

All wine makers do. In France it is called chaptalisation.

I thought in some countries including Germany the use of sugar in
anything except plonk is banned?

No. The law in France, and I suspect in other countries too, is that, in
a bad year, winemakers are allowed to add just enough sugar to bring the
sugar level up to what it would normally be, so that the alcohol content
as defined in the Appellation can remain the same.

Not with German Qualitätswein mit Prädikat wine

Mmmm, we were talking generally and now we are talking specifically!
Yes, of course there are certain types of wine where the addition of
sugar is not allowed, particularly those produced with the aid of the
pourriture noble. But if we are talking about a straightforward dry
white wine then it is permissible to add enough sugar to bring the sugar
content up to what it would be in a normal year. What that will be
varies, of course, according to the region. Therefore a Rhine white is
never going to be as alcoholic as a Burgundy white. But, as I said, if
sugar has to be added then that won't make the wine any better and the
year will go down in the annals as a poor year.

Neither was I talking about artificial ways of making a sweet wine. That
does go on even though it's not legal. Do you remember the Austrian wine
scandal of twenty years ago where a combine just outside Rust (on the
Neusiedler See) was adding antifreeze to produce a sweet wine from the
poor grapes that the producers didn't know what to do with. It took
Austrian wine off the British shelves for years and wasn't justified
because the reputable wine was produced properly - and is good.

Anyhow, I've looked at the pages that you've given the URL for. What
strikes me is that the many spelling mistakes suggest that they don't
come from an authoritative source but from an enthusiastic amateur -
like me!

But to pick up on one point that you quoted:

The lowest qualities, Landwein and Tafelwein are
normally best avoided.

I don't know about Germany but certainly in France there are some wines
that don't have an AOC simply because the grapes are grown outside the
AOC area, sometimes by only a few yards. In other cases there is
over-production and the viticulteur is allowed to make only a certain
number of litres of the AOC wine. The rest has to be sold as Vin de
Table. Thus it is worth while hunting around in France for a Vin de
Table that is made from the same ingredients as an AOC, is far, far
cheaper, and is just as good. I discovered a non-Chablis like this a few
years ago. But I can't remember what the Vin de Table name was! I wish I
could find that vineyard again!

Something else also makes me a little suspicious about the pages that
you quote. I do feel that he/she is voicing his/her own opinion a lot of
the time. For instance, Müller-Thurgau is, or was some years ago,
regarded as quite a high quality grape but yet he has written this:

Müller Thurgau Latest genetic research has shown this to be a cross of
Riesling and Gutedel, not of Riesling and Silvaner as formerly
believed.
Whatever it origins though, it remains one of the vices of the German
wine industry: early ripening, high yielding, and planted all over the
place since the 60's, it produces tanker loads of rubbish, rarely
rising to
the dizzy heights of mediocrity.

I used to grow Müller-Thurgau myself but it was never an early ripening
grape which is why I got rid of it (also it is highly susceptible to the
various mildews). I've now replaced it with Kerner which is another
Riesling cross. MT was never a high-yielding grape in my experience, but
when I was able to find a German or an Austrian MT wine it was superb. I
kept one for over ten years and it mellowed beautifully.

David

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On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Nick Maclaren wrote:

But there are good-flavoured English white wines now. The winemaker's
art has improved enormously.

Hmm. I have heard that at least half a dozen times, been suspicious,
checked up, and found no difference. I last tried half a dozen years
back, at the latest Kent vinyard to be lauded to the skies.

I do think that they talk up English wine and say unrealistic things.
One should simply take it for what it is.

As I
said, I am prepared to try again, but am disinclined to waste money
and effort unless I have reason to believe that there is at least a
50% chance of the wine being drinkable. I don't ask for it to be
good, or value for money - I am not THAT unrealistic!

Well, I do think that English wines are overpriced for what they are.
But then I never buy wine other than at a vineyard, and most of the time
I drink my own wine, so I don't know what the current price is for
foreign wines and can't compare.

So what English wine (preferably at an affordable price) would you
say is NOT thin and either acid or lacking in flavour?

Well, the most recent wines I have bought have been local ones from the
Thames Valley Vineyard at Twyford. They do a very nice dry wine called
"Regatta" (!). They also have a sweet wine which they call "Botrytis"
(you'd think they could be a bit more imaginative, wouldn't you?). It's
not bad - 10.5% alcohol and they produce it only when the conditions are
right.

David

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+-------------------------------------------------------+

"Franz Heymann" wrote
"Martin" wrote
"Franz Heymann" wrote:

If you attempt to cook ripe maize as sweetcorn, it will take ages
to cook, and be completely unpalatable. As I said, corn will not
reach that stage in the UK, as we don't get enough sun. Germany
gets slightly more, as may be seen by the superiority of German
wines to English ones.

Normalised to equal cultivated areas, English wines win far more
first
prizes at blind tastings than German wines do.

In England or in Germany or elsewhere?

In international exhibition-cum-tasting events..
Franz

Aggggggghhhhhhhh - trying to resist saying, and not succeeding "Oh, I thought
it was wine tasting......."
Jenny :~)

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:29:08 +0200, "JennyC"
wrote:


"Franz Heymann" wrote
[...]
In international exhibition-cum-tasting events..
Franz

Aggggggghhhhhhhh - trying to resist saying, and not succeeding
"Oh, I thought
it was wine tasting......."


I had to read it twice too :-)

My kind of girl, though! She only had to read it once.

Mike.

"David Rance" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Martin wrote:

I am not arguing with your contention that Germany gets more sun
than we
do, just with your opinion that English wines are inferior because
of
that.

The Germans help their wine by adding sugar in a wet year.

All wine makers do. In France it is called chaptalisation.

No. It is unnecessary in South Africa. The insolation is reliable
enough not to have to interfere with the must. I suspect the same is
true of California and Oz, which is why the wines from those regions
tend to be superior to French and German wines.

Franz