• Corkmasters.com
http://www.wineloverspage.com/cork
• Which way do you swirl your wine?
• A message from Corkmasters.com
• Administrivia
We're a few days late for April Fool's Day, which would have been the perfect time for this. But even belatedly, a delightfully silly subject that came up yesterday in our interactive Wine Lovers' Discussion Group seemed too good to pass by.
Let's set the scene: As we learn in school, the Coriolis Force is the tendency for a moving body on or above the earth's surface to drift sideways from its course because of the earth's rotational direction and speed. In addition to posing computational issues for navigation, Coriolis also allegedly causes water to twirl clockwise when it goes down the drain north of the Equator, while spinning counterclockwise Down Under. (A theoretical effect that can't always be observed in nature, by the way, as irregularities in the sink surface and other variables may be more powerful in any given case than Coriolis.)
But I digress: Since most wine lovers routinely swirl wine in their glass as a way to enhance the "nose" of the wine (coating the inside of the glass with a thin layer of wine that evaporates quickly, releasing volatile aromas), the question becomes obvious: Do wine enthusiasts South of the Equator tend to swirl their wine in the opposite direction than those of us in the North?
A few quick anecdotal reports were inconclusive, seemingly unrelated to place of residence or whether the taster is right- or left-handed.
For the record, I live near the 38th parallel north latitude, am right-handed, and invariably swirl clockwise. How about you? To sort out this issue once and for all, we've set up a special edition of our Wine Lovers' Voting Booth to collect your input. I hope you'll take a moment to click to this ballot,
http://www.wineloverspage.com/votebooth/vbswirl.shtml,
and tell us which hemisphere you live in and ... which way you swirl.
And if you would like to join in the Wine Lovers' Discussion Group conversation on this topic, here's the link:
http://www.wineloverspage.com/cgi-bin/sb/index.cgi?fn=1&tid=28608.
Over two-thirds of wine drinkers believe Real Cork is the sign of a quality wine.
To see the latest independent international survey of wine drinkers, visit Corkmasters.com, by clicking through
http://www.wineloverspage.com/cork.
Real Cork. Irreplaceable.
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Thursday, April 4, 2002
Copyright 2002 by Robin Garr. All rights reserved.
