5 Things We Learned in October 2024
Animals that can hold their drink, Burgundy as a decorating style, and the relationship between nitrogen and organic matter.
There was plenty of news to intrigue wine lovers in October 2024, from animal studies to the relationship between IQ and drinking.
Many animals enjoy a drink. Or two.
At a time when more and more humans are questioning whether they should be drinking alcohol or not, members of the animal kingdom are taking every opportunity to binge drink.
In late October, New Scientist reported on an Israeli study of oriental hornets, who were fed nothing but sugary drinks full of alcohol for a week. The drinks were highly intoxicating, being up to 80% ethanol — more than four times the level of alcohol found anywhere in nature.
The hornets carried on as usual, completely unaffected by the alcohol. Curiously, they carry Saccharomyces cerevisiae — the yeast found on grapes — in their guts, possibly dropping it on fruits as they travel.
Alcohol is often found in the wild, because sugary fruits, sap and nectar can all ferment. Many species, like chimpanzees, have learned to consume this alcohol when it’s available.
Not all of them can hold their liquor, however. According to The Guardian, Cedar waxwings will fly into fences and other barriers when they’ve had too much to drink.
Decorators are embracing Burgundy
If you’re looking to refresh your decor this season, buy everything in Burgundy. Not the region, but the colour.
According to Rhiannon Masters, Head of Brand and Interior Designer at Piglet in Bed, searches for ‘Burgundy’ have exploded on Pinterest, “and rightly so, as it’s a vibrant and luxurious choice that adds warmth and depth to any space. Burgundy is the go-to colour of autumn to energise a space whilst also creating an intimate yet welcoming atmosphere.”
Vins de Bourgogne, the body that represents the region, is working hard to convince English speakers to embrace the French name ‘Bourgogne’ rather than the historic English name ‘Burgundy’, and the confusion between the region and the colour could be part of the reason why.
Nearly half of British drinkers plan to cut down
New research from insurance and wealth management firm Aviva suggests that up to 48% of Britons intend to cut down on alcohol in the coming year. About 9% say they intend to stop drinking altogether.
Those who are most likely to cut down are young, with 61% of 18-24 year olds planning to reduce or completely stop. This number increases to 68% for those aged between 25-34.
As to why they’re planning to cut down, 34% said they wanted to save money, while an equal number said they wanted to cut down for their health.
It seems that the ongoing messaging about alcohol being unhealthy is getting through to people.
Like what you are reading? Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to access new articles.
We rely on soil, but don’t understand it
CEO Pauline Vicard took part in Moët Hennessy’s World Living Soils Forum in Arles, France in early October, where she heard top researchers discuss what we know and don’t know about the world under our feet.
“There are still so many things we don’t understand about soils and their interaction with plants, such as how minerals in the soil are assimilated by plants,” said Célien Durney, who is doing a PhD in plant biology at INRAE in Dijon. “For us researchers, the aim is therefore to increase the number of analyses in order to understand what is happening on a large scale, but also to understand whether there are differences depending on changes in practices, and to establish the cost-benefit ratio of one practice or another, depending on the objectives of an estate or a region.”
One interesting topic that came up was the subject of the relationship between organic matter and nitrogen.
According to Thibaut Déplanche, the general manager for Celesta Lab, “nitrogen works very differently than other minerals, such as potassium or magnesium. Nitrogen is unique in the way that it is produced through an annual cycle, by the degradation of organic products.”
He discussed the soil diagnostics he conducted with Mathilde Boisseau, Wine and Vineyard Director at the Cognac power-house Hennessy, which is supplied by 34,000 hectares of vineyards.
One thing he discovered is that soils that are lacking in nitrogen may also have a lack of a very specific type of organic matter — young, coarse organic matter that degrades rapidly.
“This transitional organic matter, made of leaves or vine shoots, is highly energetic, and fundamental to our viticulture objectives,” he went on.
These insights are critical for understanding what types of materials can best be used to build organic matter in the soil; not only does organic matter enrich the soil, but it increases its water-holding capacity. The ideal would be to use locally-produced plant material like grape pomace, as it would help to create a circular economy.
To learn more about the World Living Soils Forum, read Pauline’s report, which you can find here.
IQ and wine consumption
Were you a brainy kid? Did people describe you as a nerd? Then that may explain your current wine habits.
According to a new study from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the IQ you demonstrated in high school predicts alcohol consumption later in life. Those with higher IQ levels were significantly more likely to become moderate or heavy drinkers, according to the research, which the team published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.
“We’re not saying that your IQ in high school controls your destiny,” said senior author E. Sherwood Brown, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., Distinguished Teaching Professor of Psychiatry and in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern. “But IQ levels could lead to intervening social factors that influence drinking, and it’s an important mechanism to explore. Higher IQ seemed to predict a greater likelihood of being a moderate or heavy drinker but not a binge drinker.”
The researchers used data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which tracked the IQ and lifestyle from more than 10,000 Wisconsin high school students, beginning in 1957. The students were typically born around 1939.
In 1992 and then again in 2004, around 8,250 of them were surveyed about their drinking habits. It turned out that for every one-point increase in IQ, there was a corresponding 1.6% increase in the likelihood that respondents reported moderate or heavy alcohol use.
“The present study suggests that higher adolescent IQ may predict a higher likelihood of moderate or heavy drinking in midlife, but fewer binge-drinking episodes,” the paper concluded. “The study also suggests that this relationship is mediated by other psychosocial factors, specifically income, prompting future exploration of mediators in subsequent studies.”