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| Innovative Wine Maker Turns Tomatoes into Wine Posted: 09 Aug 2012 08:04 AM PDT
Who says you need good grapes to make a fine wine? Pascal Miche, a wine maker from Quebec, Canada, uses tomatoes to create an unusual yet increasingly popular vintage. His secret lies in a four-generations-old Belgian family recipe . A former pork butcher, Pascal Miche moved from Belgium to Canada’s Quebec province, seven years ago and decided to go through with his idea of commercializing his grandfather’s precious wine, made according to an old recipe. He finally kickstarted his business in 2009, planted his “vinyard” and began making tomato wine. If you search online, you’ll find quite a few enthusiasts who have experimented with making wine from tomatoes, but Mich hopes his will be the first successfully commercialized. Considering sales of his “Omerto“wine have reached 34,000 bottles annually, I’d say his plan is right on track. Just like regular wine-makers do with their grapes, Pascal Miche chooses only the best tomatoes for his vintage. For his Omerto wine, named after his grandfather, Omer, he uses subarctic, yellow and black cherry tomatoes, chosen for their bountiful yield and gustative properties. He tested 16 different varieties to see which one was better adapted to Quebec’s altitude and cool climate. The tomato wine-making process consists of the same paces used to make the drink from grapes (crushing, soaking, fermenting and pressing) and takes about nine months to complete, from field to bottle. Pascal Miche has no problem calling his creation “wine” in North America, but he’ll have to find another name for it if he decides to go through with his plans of commercializing Omerto in France, for example. There, only alcoholic beverages made from fermented grape juice may be called wine. But the tomato wine-maker will cross that bridge when he gets to it. Right now, he’s happy sales are ramping up and that more and more people are willing to try his unique vintage. According to sommeliers, Omerto tomato wine has a ”hint of fruit, zesty aspects, familiar in cakes… a bit honey-sweet, which could be very good with deserts and spicy foods,” and is often compared to a sweet Pineau des Charentes.
Source: AFP Innovative Wine Maker Turns Tomatoes into Wine was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Chinese IKEA Customers Make Themselves a Little Too Much at Home Posted: 09 Aug 2012 06:59 AM PDT
If you’ve ever walked through an IKEA store thinking about how cool it would be if you could just lay down on one of them soft beds, cover yourself with a fluffy blankets and nap, then you need to move to China, because that’s what IKEA visitors do over there. The Chinese simply love IKEA! Millions visit the company’s mainland stores every year, but only a few of them actually end up buying something, as many just come to enjoy the air-conditioning on a hot summer day and take a nap on the comfy furniture on display. ”Some of them even come in once the store opens in the morning, and won’t leave until the store closes in the evening,” a security staff from the IKEA store in Shanghai told Morning Star, but although this sometimes bothers employees, the company hasn’t taken any measures against people making themselves a little too much at home, because it sees it as a future investment. They believe when these people have more consumption power they’ll come back and buy something, but until then they’re free to loiter around. I see people laying in beds and sitting on sofas at my local IKEA all the time, but I have yet to see someone actually sleeping there. According to several reports, and photos, many Chinese people plan out day at IKEA. They drive to a store from miles away, eat, drink and nap in public, enjoying the cool air on a hot summer day. This kind of freeloading has been a part of IKEA’s business ever since the first store opened there over 10 years ago, but it has recently grabbed the media’s attention after photos recently taken by a blogger at a store in Nanjing recently went viral. "From age 0 to 80, each of them has fallen into a rapturous sleep! Even on those beds that are not occupied, sheets are in a mess after a havoc has been created," the poster commented on China’s microblogging service, Sina Weibo. Another 5,000 commentators added their thoughts on the matter, with some saying “"At least those sleepers in your photos are decently dressed. Last Friday evening when I went to the Beijing IKEA store, a lot of male shoppers I saw were topless while sleeping.", or “"A sweater-knitting auntie and a granny that likes doing embroidery are frequent visitors. Some even sit inside leisurely peeling edamame beans after their grocery shopping. Scenes inside Shanghai's IKEA store make people speechless!"
Photo: 365 China Photo Sources: The Atlantic, Ministry of Tofu Chinese IKEA Customers Make Themselves a Little Too Much at Home was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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