|
Diamond Mountain District AVA
The Diamond Mountain District AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in California's Mayacamas Mountains in the northwest portion of the Napa Valley AVA. The appellation sits at a higher elevation than most of Napa Valley's wine region, resulting in less cool fog coming in from San Pablo Bay, and more direct exposure to sunlight. The soil of this AVA is volcanic and very porous which allows it to cool down quickly despite the increased sunlight. Geography and climate The entire AVA is over above sea level, which helps to cool it compared to the nearby valley floor appellations. The soil of the Diamond Mountain District is volcanic, including the small bits of volcanic glass that give the area its name. The AVA is defined by the Napa- Sonoma county line on the west, Petrified Forest Road on the north, the 400 foot line of altitude running parallel to Route 29 on the east, and the Spring Mountain District to the south. This puts the southern part of the city of Calis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Viticultural Area
An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated wine grape-growing region in the United States, providing an official appellation for the mutual benefit of winery, wineries and consumers. Winemakers frequently want their consumers to know about the geographic pedigree of their wines, as wines from a particular area can possess distinctive characteristics. Consumers often seek out wines from specific AVAs, and certain wines of particular pedigrees can claim premium prices and loyal customers. If a wine is labeled with an AVA, at least 85% of the grapes that make up the wine must have been grown in the AVA, and the wine must be fully finished within the U.S. state, state where the AVA is located. Regulations The boundaries of AVAs are defined by the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), a component of the United States Department of the Treasury. The TTB defines AVAs at the request of wineries and other petitioners. Prior to the TTB's creation in 2003, the Treasury’s Bureau of Alcohol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malbec
Malbec () is a purple grape variety used in making red wine. The grapes tend to have an inky dark color and robust tannins, and are known as one of the six grapes allowed in the blend of red Bordeaux wine. In France, plantations of Malbec are now found primarily in Cahors in South West France, though the grape is grown worldwide. It is increasingly celebrated as an Argentine varietal. The grape became less popular in Bordeaux after 1956 when frost killed off 75% of the crop. Despite Cahors being hit by the same frost, which devastated the vineyards, Malbec was replanted and continued to be popular in that area. Winemakers in the region frequently mixed Malbec with Merlot and Tannat to make dark, full-bodied wines, but have ventured into 100% Malbec varietal wines more recently.J. Robinson ''Vines, Grapes & Wines'' pg 198 & 204 Mitchell Beazley 1986 A popular but unconfirmed theory claims that Malbec is named after a Hungarian peasant who first spread the grape variety throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanic Glass
Volcanic glass is the amorphous (uncrystallized) product of rapidly cooling magma. Like all types of glass, it is a state of matter intermediate between the closely packed, highly ordered array of a crystal and the highly disordered array of liquid. Volcanic glass may refer to the interstitial material, or matrix, in an aphanitic (fine-grained) volcanic rock, or to any of several types of vitreous igneous rocks. Origin Volcanic glass is formed when magma is rapidly cooled. Magma rapidly cooled to below its normal crystallization temperature becomes a supercooled liquid, and, with further rapid cooling, this becomes an amorphous solid. The change from supercooled liquid to glass occurs at a temperature called the glass transition temperature, which depends on both cooling rate and the amount of water dissolved in the magma. Magma rich in silica and poor in dissolved water is most easily cooled rapidly enough to form volcanic glass. As a result, rhyolite magmas, which are high in s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diamond Mountain Cab
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, but diamond is metastable and converts to it at a negligible rate under those conditions. Diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, properties that are used in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. They are also the reason that diamond anvil cells can subject materials to pressures found deep in the Earth. Because the arrangement of atoms in diamond is extremely rigid, few types of impurity can contaminate it (two exceptions are boron and nitrogen). Small numbers of defects or impurities (about one per million of lattice atoms) color diamond blue (boron), yellow (nitrogen), brown (defects), green (radiation exposure), purple, pink, orange, or red. Diamond also has a very ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porous
Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e. "empty") spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure the "accessible void", the total amount of void space accessible from the surface (cf. closed-cell foam). There are many ways to test porosity in a substance or part, such as industrial CT scanning. The term porosity is used in multiple fields including pharmaceutics, ceramics, metallurgy, materials, manufacturing, petrophysics, hydrology, earth sciences, soil mechanics, and engineering. Void fraction in two-phase flow In gas-liquid two-phase flow, the void fraction is defined as the fraction of the flow-channel volume that is occupied by the gas phase or, alternatively, as the fraction of the cross-sectional area of the channel that is occupied by the gas phase. Void fraction usually varies from location to location in the flow ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanic Soil
The soil composition of vineyards is one of the most important viticultural considerations when planting grape vines. The soil supports the root structure of the vine and influences the drainage levels and amount of minerals and nutrients that the vine is exposed to. The ideal soil condition for a vine is a layer of thin topsoil and subsoil that sufficiently retains water but also has good drainage so that the roots do not become overly saturated. The ability of the soil to retain heat and/or reflect it back up to the vine is also an important consideration that affects the ripening of the grapes.T. Stevenson ''"The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia"'' pg 16 Dorling Kindersley 2005 There are several minerals that are vital to the health of vines that all good vineyard soils have. These include calcium which helps to neutralize the Soil pH levels, iron which is essential for photosynthesis, magnesium which is an important component of chlorophyll, nitrogen which is assimilated in the form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sunlight
Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon. When direct solar radiation is not blocked by clouds, it is experienced as sunshine, a combination of bright light and radiant heat. When blocked by clouds or reflected off other objects, sunlight is diffused. Sources estimate a global average of between 164 watts to 340 watts per square meter over a 24-hour day; this figure is estimated by NASA to be about a quarter of Earth's average total solar irradiance. The ultraviolet radiation in sunlight has both positive and negative health effects, as it is both a requisite for vitamin D3 synthesis and a mutagen. Sunlight takes about 8.3 minutes to reach Earth from the surface of the Sun. A photon starting at the center of the Sun and changing direction eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Pablo Bay
San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water channel approximately in the middle of the bay, which allows access to major ports in Sacramento, Stockton, Benicia, and Martinez; and other smaller ports on the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. Geography San Pablo Bay was named after Rancho San Pablo, a Spanish land grant given to colonial Alta California settlers in 1815, on the bay at the site of the present-day city of San Pablo. The bay is approximately across and has an area of approximately . The bay receives the waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, via Suisun Bay and the Carquinez Strait on its northeast end, and it connects to the Pacific Ocean via the San Francisco Bay on its southern end. The bay is heavily silted from the contributions of the two rivers, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Napa Valley
Napa Valley is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in Napa County in California's Wine Country. It was established by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) on January 27, 1981. Napa Valley is considered one of the premier wine regions in the world. Records of commercial wine production in the region date back to the nineteenth century, but premium wine production dates back only to the 1960s. The combination of Mediterranean climate, geography and geology of the region are conducive to growing quality wine grapes. John Patchett established the Napa Valley's first commercial vineyard in 1858. In 1861 Charles Krug established another of Napa Valley's first commercial wineries in St. Helena. Viticulture in Napa suffered several setbacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including an outbreak of the vine disease phylloxera, the institution of Prohibition, and the Great Depression. The wine industry in Napa Valley recovered, and helped by the results ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appellation
An appellation is a legally defined and protected geographical indication primarily used to identify where the grapes for a wine were grown, although other types of food often have appellations as well. Restrictions other than geographical boundaries, such as what grapes may be grown, maximum grape yields, alcohol level, and other quality factors may also apply before an appellation name may legally appear on a wine bottle label. The rules that govern appellations are dependent on the country in which the wine was produced. History The tradition of wine appellation is very old. The oldest references are to be found in the Bible, where ''wine of Samaria'', ''wine of Carmel'', ''wine of Jezreel'', or ''wine of Helbon'' are mentioned. This tradition of appellation continued throughout the Antiquity and the Middle Ages, though without any officially sanctioned rules. Historically, the world's first exclusive (protected) vineyard zone was introduced in Chianti, Italy in 1716 and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mayacamas Mountains
The Mayacamas Mountains are located in northwestern California in the United States. The mountain range is part of the Northern Inner Coast Ranges, of the California Coast Ranges System. Geography The Mayacamas Mountains are located south of the Mendocino Range, west of Clear Lake, and east of Ukiah in Mendocino and Lake Counties, and extend south into Napa and Sonoma Counties. The range stretches for in a northwest-southeasterly direction. Mountains in the range include: The range's highest point is Cobb Mountain, at in elevation, located in the central section. There are several other peaks over , including Mount Saint Helena and Hood Mountain. These peaks are sufficiently high to retain some snow cover in winter. Several streams rise in the Mayacamas Mountains including Mark West Creek, Sonoma Creek, Calabazas Creek, Arroyo Seco Creek, Putah Creek, and Santa Rosa Creek. ;Natural history Around ten million years ago, during pre-historic times (Miocene), the mountai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> American Viticultural Area")
