Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

I think we'll open a split tonight, in honor of the owner, who has passed on.

http://www.decanter.com/wine/wine-regio ... 22-380022/

Very sad.
Does the consumption of alcohol extend or subtract from average lifespans?
david Cassidy also died yesterday at the same age.
I say alcohol shortens the lifespan. thoughts?

I'll defer to the doctors here on the ethanol & lifespan thoughts...

The 2003 is drinking well today, after a decant and a light chill. Still some tannin, last glass was the best.

Some bitter coffee initially, then it rounds out with air.

I'm still debating what to pour with the turkey.

We're having 18 people over tomorrow.

Maybe champers, zinfandel, and maybe something else crisp/light.

It is a great achievement that Mr. Maroteaux did with Chateau Branaire. Sad that he left so young.

For alcohol vs lifespan, I guess that what they say here is probably fair : moderate consumption of a 5 to 8 onces glass few times a week would be good. Less than that or more than that is negative.

Nic

JimHow wrote:Very sad.
Does the consumption of alcohol extend or subtract from average lifespans?
david Cassidy also died yesterday at the same age.
I say alcohol shortens the lifespan. thoughts?

The medical literature is replete with data on alcohol and morbidity and mortality risks. If the question is simply risk of death, there is a U-shaped curve. Moderate consumption, variably defined but about 1 drink per day for women and 1-2 drinks per day for men, is associated with a lower risk of mortality compared to non-drinkers. Above that level of consumption, the risk of mortality increases to higher than that of non-drinkers.

The decrease in mortality is generally attributed to a decrease in cardiovascular deaths at low to moderate levels of consumption.

But alcohol also increases the risk of developing and dying from several types of cancers. With increasing consumption, the increased risk of cancer death outweighs the protective cardiovascular effects. Plus there are higher risks of accident-related mortality at higher levels of consumption.

But these are large population-based studies and the results for the "average" person in the study may not apply to the individual. If you have a strong family history of cancer, alcohol may be more likely to shorten your lifespan. If everyone in your family has coronary artery disease, alcohol might be more protective for you than suggested by the studies, but that doesn’t mean higher doses offer greater benefit. For most people, the mix of cancer vs cardiovascular risks is too complex to really know.

And it’s not just cancer and cardiovascular disease. There are many other less common disorders that can be exacerbated by alcohol. Individual susceptibility is highly variable, probably due to genetic reasons.

So enjoy in moderation. If you feel drunk you’re drinking too much.

Is large consumption (say, one bottle) one night per week worse than moderate consumption (say, one or two glasses) every night of the week?

JimHow wrote:Is large consumption (say, one bottle) one night per week worse than moderate consumption (say, one or two glasses) every night of the week?

I would say yes... I am no doctor, but I stayed at a holiday inn...

Consuming an entire bottle in one day is likely riskier than one to two glasses (4-8 oz) a day.

I saw Robert Parker in a youtube interview say that he drank two bottles of wine per night every night of the week because his liver results were normal.
How is he still alive?

There is another effect - the societal effects: drunk driving, bar fights, divorce etc.

However all the societies which have tried banning alcohol end up with their own separate pathologies.

Humans seem hard wired to crave ethanol and its relaxing effects.

Excepting the POTUS, who is a teetotaler, which makes him suspect to the drinking class.

I guess it's like anything else... moderation.
I'm weird, of course, because I can go whole months without touching a drop.
But after a long week in court I can drink a whole bottle on a Friday night.
And then of course there are the BWE weekends, when we can drink 2+ bottles per night.
Interestingly I hardly drink when I'm in NYC because my significant other doesn't really drink.

Will open 2000 vintage tonight.

Last night Brunello, Barolo, Hermitage, Graves, Zin, & Syrah. Today it will be Champagne & Oregon PN. My favorite from yesterday was 2011 Elio Grasso Gavarini Chiniera Barolo. Second was 1997 Tardieu-Laurent Hermitage. The clunker was 2010 Poggio dell'Otto Riserva Brunello, which had a strange chemical element

JimHow wrote:I saw Robert Parker in a youtube interview say that he drank two bottles of wine per night every night of the week because his liver results were normal.
How is he still alive?

Not sure if that is embellished, but there is a huge variability in human response to drugs, alcohol included. There aren’t many people on the tail ends of the curve, but Parker might be one of them.

There are a few people who are unusually susceptible as well. Problem is you never know where you are on the curve unless you develop a problem. Some are reversible, others less so.

Overall, I agree with your conclusion that moderation is best. Odds are most of us are near the center of the bell curve and will suffer no harm, may even live a little longer, by drinking in moderation.

David has given a very good summary however nothing is clear cut and we are dealing with a patient population who have differing individual genetic make-ups that make one more or less susceptible to alcohol consumption. Lots of theory out there about the benefits polyphenol/resveratrol benefits in protecting the heart/vessels from laying down plaque/preventing clotting but personally I think its probably a lot of bunk. The downside risk to drinking alcohol is far greater than the benefits but its a great way for drinkers to justify their habits and for the wine/alcohol industry to justify the promotion of drinking in MODERATION. Who drinks in moderation??? How many people will truly have that 5 oz drink of 12% wine if you are over 65 (Stefan et al) as per recomended advisable consumption or two glasses if you are under 65. Problem is a bottle is 750ml or 5 lasses worth and how many people here won't see the end of the bottle. If you are like me I open a bottle and share it fairly equally with my wife and we rarely if ever leave anything in the bottle especially if the wine is any good. Problem is women have half the recomended dose that males have or one 5 oz glass per day and that's 12% alcohol. There's another catch that you are now down to 3-4 oz glasses with the 14+% wines that are being produced today!!!

If you look at the medical description of what is an alcoholic or politically correct term Alcohol Use Disorder then I'd hazard a guess that many participating on this site fall under the definition.

FYI https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-healt ... e-drinking

Why do some get cirrhosis and some don't. It's striking to see patients who drink less than I do come in with liver failure and others AKA Robert Parker 2 bottles/day plus have normal liver tests are a clear point as to the dangers of drinking not being a simple answer for the individual. We all know people that drink 1-2 plus bottles daily and they are functional alcoholics by definition and will live a long life. Others will suffer with heart failure/high blood pressure/diabetes/obesityand yes liver disease amongst a host of other medical and social disorders and it's not all about the volume that one drinks.

There are too many unknowns to state as to what is safe. What I can recomend is that the liver has a great capacity to regenerate and as long as you give your liver a holiday from time to time you can protect yourself. One of our hepatologists said if drinkers would lay of 2 days a week and they don't need to be consecutive then your liver should be fine.

For a quick review from the Mayo Clinic on Resveratrol and cardiac benefits: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-con ... t-20048281

Fun thoughts but bottom line I drink too much for my own good. I have high blood pressure,am a little over weight, on daily aspirin which are all relative contraindications to even social drinking. I don't regard myself as having a drinking problem and like Jim I can take it or leave it going relatively long stretches without drinking and I don't really miss it unlike my wife!!!!! My biggest problem with me drinking is the negative impact it has on me sleeping making me wake up in the middle of the night to pea and the chronic fatigue associated with it discourages me further from this dreaded pleasure that many of us have come to enjoy.

Very interesting thread.

We all know that our passion for wine is playing with fire.

Although I wouldn't go so far as to agree with Mussolini ("Better to live one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep"), I am willing to take certain risks in life, and drinking wine is one of them.

I had an interpreting assignment at a château this morning (Russian-owned Ch. Grâce Dieu des Prieurs, interview for a Bloomberg report) and then enjoyed half a bottle of 1999 Ch. Cadet Bon with lunch, all on my own, at this restaurant in Saint-Emilion:
https://www.tripadvisor.fr/Restaurant_R ... taine.html

This evening, I opened a 2012 Les Cresisses, a Vin de Pays d'Oc whose consulting winemaker is the same one as for the above-mentioned St. Emilion château: Louis Mitjavile (his family owns Tertre Rôteboeuf).
I finished between a third and a half of the bottle all on my own (my wife abstained).

That means I have consumed the equivalent of a full bottle of wine today. That's definitely over recommended standards.
Am I worried? Should I have laid off? Hell no! Pleasure plays too important a role in my life.
I also enjoyed a small cigar with coffee (two other no-nos...) at a café in the central square in Saint-Emilion.
Blissful, especially as the temperature was 19°C with bright sunshine.

Am I shortening my life span?
Perhaps. However, maybe it's due to my Slavic roots, but I'm a fatalistic sort of guy.
Que sera sera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc

Papa Doc's passing does not make me want to be more careful. On the contrary, Carpe diem, godammit, carpe diem!!!

Amen brothers,
Alex R.

My main worry about drinking too much wine is cancer. I beat esophageal cancer 16 years ago, but now I have Barrett's syndrome and so might get it again. My mother, father, brother, aunt, uncle all had cancer (2 esophageal, 2 lung, 1 bladder), some of which were possibly alcohol related, so it is risky for me to drink. OTOH, being 72, I am more concerned about Alzheimer's than cancer.

JimHow wrote:I guess it's like anything else... moderation.
I'm weird, of course, because I can go whole months without touching a drop.
But after a long week in court I can drink a whole bottle on a Friday night.
And then of course there are the BWE weekends, when we can drink 2+ bottles per night.
Interestingly I hardly drink when I'm in NYC because my significant other doesn't really drink.

This is me. Long stretches, weeks, of never drinking but then luxurious wine dinners or an entire bottle with dinner. I tell myself that the long stretches of abstinence mean that there are no health risks from the occasional binge, but who knows?

And on Branaire -- always thought that Branaire Ducru was/is one of the consistently best deals in Bordeaux (which is relative, I know, but still). Really high quality stuff at an excellent price for a classed growth with BD's record.

BD hit a home run in 2003, I have never had a bad bottle of it. Very smooth, elegant, and pleasurable, a rather hedonistic wine which is at the same time perfectly balanced and elegant.

I opened the 2005 Branaire Ducru for Thanksgiving. It was very stiff and tannic on opening, but after a while the tannins receded enough to show a rich vein of cassis fruit and good structure. Needs some years but not a sin to open now with a good decant.

I just purchased a bottle of 2009 Branaire, my first from this Chateau.
Something for a special occasion when I'm in my '70s.

Racer Chris,
Well, I'm already in my 60's so the 2009 will be fine when I'm 70!
Have a case of the 09 and 10 in the cellar along with a few older wines.

I don't drink enough Branaire, a great Saint-Julien, but relative to definition and discussion in previous post, I drink surely too much.

But I accept being harmful to myself, than harmful to others.

Nic

I hope I die before I get old.

JimHow wrote:I hope I die before I get old.

I hope I live to enjoy my old age.

Claudius2 wrote:Racer Chris,
Well, I'm already in my 60's so the 2009 will be fine when I'm 70!

I set my cellartracker drinking window to begin at 2019 but my plan is to try and hold onto it for another 10 years.

If I ever become ridden with dementia I hereby authorize BWE to form a clandestine hit team to gave me snufffed out with a forced alcohol overdose of 1989 Lynch.

What a thread! Very depressing...
Love the wine (got a case of 2003 and 2005) which is a pleasure wine. Not so many in Bordeaux unless you wait at least 15 years

Racer Chris wrote:

JimHow wrote:I hope I die before I get old.

I hope I live to enjoy my old age.

Ah, my generation. Who?

Stefan,
I must have missed this earlier.
I have had Barratt's Oesophegitis for 15 years, and luckily, it has not killed me yet, despite a few cancer scares along the way.
I also have had quite a few other internal problems which I won't go into, as well as a rather unpleasant spinal disease.

None of the issues I have seem to have anything to do with wine.
My dad and most of his rels died young from cancers - you name it, they seemed to get it.
And smoking did not help. In fact, I think smoking is a much bigger problem, with both my parents dying when I was at school.
My parents did not drink much at all.

Claudius 2,

Not sure why you say that you don`t have risk factors for Barrett`s Esopagitis because you drink alcohol which is more commonly associated with squamous cell cancer of the esophagous however is still a risk factor/cause of Barrett's which will typically predisposes to adenocarcinoma of the esophagus. Yes reflux/heartburn is by far and away the number one factor with Barrett's but also remember that alcohol not only is a risk factor on its own but additionally relaxes the lower esophageal sphincter which in turn results in relux/heartburn. A lot of drinkers are also overweight (definitely not Stefan) which again adds to the risk and I believe likely related to obese patients having increased issues with reflux. Reflux is not a benign disease and the treatment with PPIs is so effective and innocuous then those that suffer from reflux/heartburn should be on a PPI. Realize that if you say you only have intermittent heartburn then you in all likelihood are having regular silent relux between symptomatic bouts. Barrett's and reflux are not benign issues to be ignored and it's a pain to have your annual esophagoscopy to see is this the year that I've developped a cancer!!??

A brief review: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/esophagus ... ctors.html

I certainly do not ignore reflux. Every day I take esomeprozole, omeprozole, and ranitidine. I also pop a lot of calcium carbonate. To minimize the loss of calcium I take calcium citrate and vitamin D.

Strangely enough, I did not have Barrett's when I developed esophageal cancer. But of course before then I had an esophageal sphincter.

Stefan,

You likely had a squamous cell cancer of the esophagus. Typically the surgery you would have had is a partial esophagectomy with a gastric pull-up. You no longer have an esophageal spincter and will be expected to have free reflux after the surgery putting your remaining esophagous at risk for Barrett's which you have indeed developed now placing that remnant at risk for an adenocarcima of the esophagus. All you can do is monitor and take your reflux meds religiously. Asking you to stop drinking is worse than death itself so I'm not going there but it does increase the cancer risk. Depending on the grade of dysplasia will dictate the risk of potential cancer. I'm not sure if you are aware of phototherapy for high grade dysplasia but that is a potential route to take to lower or eliminate the risk and may be helpful to discuss with the GI person who is following you and at least knowing about it as an option.

Here's a good review artile FYI: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/barre ... ic-therapy

PS Jim,

Sorry about turning this into a medical blog!!

Thanks for the advice and link, Danny. I think I had adenocarcinoma rather than squamous. The surgery was Ivor Lewis. 2/3 of my esophagus and 1/2 of my stomach were removed with the rest of the stomach pulled up to take the place of the removed part of the esophagus.

After my endoscopy in July my Gi did not mention phototherapy as a possibility and said that the risk of developing cancer was pretty low. I'll study the issue more and consult with him after we return home.

You should not apologize about turning the thread into a medical blog. Every BWEer should be aware of the increased risk of esophageal cancer from drinking. In my non expert opinion, anyone who drinks and has experienced any reflux should consult a GI about doing an endoscopy. Early detection of esophageal cancer is the key to survival. Mine was stage 1, which increased my probability of surviving 5 years to 75 or 80 per cent from the average 20%.

Stefan,

If indeed your initial pathology was adenocarcinoma involving the GE junction then it was likely a gastric cancer invading your distal esophagus rather than a primary esophageal cancer. invariably esopageal adeno CA involves the mid esophagus and the majority are related to Barrett`s in chronic refluxers. Prognosis is better with gastric Ca especially and very unusual to have a grade 1 esophageal andenoCa involving the stomach and yes you have always amazed me because you are the only esophageal cancer survivor that I`ve ever known. Probably because you really had a gastric Ca!!! Esophageal cancer patients usually die early and are usually picked up late. Regardless count your blessings and look after your Barrett`s. Important to have biopsy documentation of grade of dysplasia to guide how aggressive therapy should be and cancer risk. Low grade dysplasia low risk....

Danny, I looked up the report of the biopsy and see why my GI was not very concerned:

"Mucosa, esophagus, biopsy: Squamocolumnar mucosa with focal intestinal
metaplasia, no dysplasia identified"

BTW: The reason my cancer was identified early is that when I went in for something completely different (which turned out to be nothing) my GI asked me about reflux. I told him I had some and said that cancer runs in my family and my father had esophageal cancer. He said "let's do an endoscopy". After he did it, he told me that everything was fine, just a tiny polyp that he decided send for biopsy because of my family history. A week or so later I got the call. I was not surprised, but my GI was visibly shaken when i next met him, no doubt because he almost did not order a biopsy because of the trivial nature of the polyps.

Stefan, You are a lucky man....count your blessings regardless of esophagus or gastric origin. Your diagnosis was purely coincidental and fortuitous to say the least!! Someone was certainly watching out for you.

The absence of dyplasia in the biopsy results is very reassuring and from my knowledge phototherapy is only used if there is high grade dysplaia. Again a lucky man and enjoy the holiday drink.

Thanks, Danny. I would count my blessings every day if it were not for the fact that I would then have no time to do anything else. I'll enjoy many holiday drinks with my family in the next two weeks.

dstgolf,
The reason I don't blame alcohol for the Barratt's Oesophegitis (BE) is that it got it as a post-operative complication.
About 16 years ago, I had both an acute obstruction of the small intestine, leading to atrophy and shut-down, and my gall bladder and bile duct ruptured, meaning that I almost died from peritonitis.
The small intestine was choked by the connective tissue in the peritoneum, and some of it was cut out.
As a result, I got a hiatus hernia and some body organs simply don't stay in the right place, meaning I get adhesions that can (and occasionally do) tear which isn't very pleasant.
The oesophegus was scarred due to the hiatus hernia thus I got BE. Unfortunately, it is not repairable.
I get endoscopies and colonoscopies very few years and it hasn't changed to any extent.
What HAS changed is that I also have a spinal disease (Ankylosing Spondilitis) and a nerve compression in my lumbar spine, and the anti-inflammatories (COX2 inhibitors) and other drugs have led to chronic ulcerative gastritis.
It is okay most of the time and a pain in the butt at other times. Yet the main issue I face on a day to day basis is the nerve compression which never goes away.
Also most analgesics and anaethetics have absolutely no effect on me, meaning the gastro can't put me under or stop the pain. I don't even bother taking pain killers any more.

When I feel like shit I simply stop drinking and don't eat meat for a while. That's one of the reasons I have not been as active on BWE over recent years.

One conclusion I did reach during a prolonged hospitalisation some years ago is that quality of life is critical.
Policymakers rarely seem to grasp that.

I worked in the health industry at the start of my career, and saw quite a few people die, and some were young (e.g., OD's, car accidents, etc) and it has left a lasting effect on my perception of life.
My own experiences mean that I DO recognise the dangers of alcohol, and I have seen plenty of people die from drugs and alcohol (and often in combination).

C-2

You have indeed have had some rough issues and the Ankylosing Spondylitis is debilitating for sure. Not just a spinal disease but comes with a whole host of systemic issues being a multi system disease which unfortunately there is no cure and gradually progressive as you know. Combined with the drugs that you take and the alcohol intake it will wreak havoc on your stomach. HH with reflux and BE on top of it not fun but all you can do is try to find a balance with quality of life. Sounds like the worst issue is dealing with your spinal claudication and leg pain. Depending on how limited your mobility is and degree of lumbar stenosis surgery is a good option when it gets to the point of not being able to enjoy life. My mom suffered with spinal stenosis for years and she was scared to undergo surgery because she felt she was too old. It was tough to finally convince her not to worry and trust us but she was so debilitated and having so much pain on walking a few feet that she gave in thinking she'd never survive the surgery at 75. She had the surgery and never looked back rid of her pain and got her mobility back. Her only regret was not having it done earlier.

Wishing you all the best and good luck with your health. Day by day and clutch on to all of the good things in life that bring joy...wine included. Nothing is perfect and we all have our issues trying to make the best of what we have. One day when when I get to Singapore maybe we'll share a drink or two and park the issues into a dark corner of our minds for a brief period and enjoy a BWE moment or two!