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+--- Thread: Ladybugs and wine (/thread-15118.html)
- sauvignon blanc - 12-18-2003
Someone told me a few days ago that the millions of ladybugs we had over the past year have had an effect on the taste of the wine. Specifically, making the wine taste buttery or peanut buttery. Have any of you heard of it? How does this happen? I made a chokecherry wine that I just love because of the buttery bouquet and I am just curious.
- winoweenie - 12-18-2003
Check with Snoopes.Com. Such Garbage. WW
- Drew - 12-19-2003
Here's an article I found on line at:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fatlouis/html/days_of_wine_and_ladybugs.html
DAYS OF WINE AND LADYBUGS
“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children alone!â€
Technically, all ladybugs are beetles but as beetles aren’t generally considered very attractive – and in order to honour their years of dedication to the task of eradicating unwanted insects – North Americans have chosen to call them ladybugs while Europeans refer to them as ladybirds. Oh yes, and for some obscure (to me, anyway) reason they’re also known in various parts of Britain as “God’s Horses,†“Red Cows of God,†“Lambladies†and “Dowdy Cows.â€
It seems North America’s first ladybugs (presumably the mainly two-spotted orange-red Adalia bipunctata with which many of us are most familiar) were imported from Australia in the 1880s to control harmful insects in California. (Yup! The very same country that’s found itself overrun with “imported†bunnies and cane toads! Hmmmmm. Is there a pattern emerging here?) Whatever their origins, those first little red guys did a yeoman job of saving the orange groves and have spent the century or so since labouring diligently at ridding crops and gardens of plant pests. Their good work has made them popular worldwide and they’ve become associated with good weather, bountiful harvests and good luck. Harmonia axyridis, a newer Asian species would, however, appear to be anything but harmonious. It’s suspected these interlopers arrived by accident in southern U.S. ports a decade or so ago, making them the “Boat People†of the bug world. They’ve since crawled and flown on their own to all corners of North America, first arriving in Canada in small numbers in 1999. Many people living here in Ontario have begun to wish they would make more of an effort to “fly away home†– preferably with their overabundance of children in tow!
The problem? Well, 2001 saw a rare infestation of aphids in Southern Ontario. As they consider aphids gourmet fare, the Asian ladybug population exploded exponentially on a steady diet of good grubs (Sorry! This machine sometimes has a mind of its own!) and, when they eventually eradicated most of the aphids, they began to cast about for other things to ingest. Although ladybugs are primarily meat eaters (if you can call aphids, mealybugs, spider mites and the like “meatâ€!), they’ll switch to vegetarian fare when their regular diet items are in short supply. . . “eat to live†and all that.
So, last year fruit orchards and vineyards became unwitting hosts to legions of ladybugs. Unfortunately, these weren’t the benign and humble little red-orange “two-spotters.†No indeedy! These were the Asian bug(ger)s, and they took on all the unpleasant aspects of an invading army. There are hundreds of species of Asian ladybugs, and they’re very colourful, ranging from pale yellow and beige through pink (really!) to all kinds of reds and even black, with dozens to no spots at all. Unfortunately, they’re not quite as “friendly†as good old Adalia. In fact, they’re very, very aggressive and, as sightings of Adalia have become fewer in the last year or two, many suspect the newcomers may have “done for†them, which is rather sad.
The militancy of the Asian ladybugs is a good thing if your garden is awash in harmful insect pests but it’s not a good thing if aphids, etc. – or even fruit trees – are few and far between. When the fruits and veggies run out, the Asian varieties are not loathe to revert to flesh-eating, and humans have been added to their snack list! They may be tiny, but you sure know when you’ve been nipped. Furthermore, the sting of a ladybug bite is frequently amplified by the pyrazine (sounds almost as bad as it smells) they secrete when they’re frightened or crushed – as when one squishes them for chewing on one’s neck! It has a singularly unpleasant odour and can apparently be toxic to some predators, so it works well as a defence mechanism for the ladybug. Oddly enough, pyrazine is found throughout nature and is a natural flavour component of many foods, from green beans to currants. In fact, New Zealand’s sauvignon blancs are said to owe their distinctive grassiness to it.
This brings me (Finally!) to the other part of this column’s subject. Picture this . . . It’s the summer of 2001. Thousands of Asian ladybugs are happily gorging themselves on aphids which are in turn munching on the grapes in your vineyard located in the Niagara region, an extremely fertile area between Lakes Ontario and Erie in the “pointy†part of Ontario. It’s time to harvest the fruit and a five-ton mechanical grape-harvester roars into view. Thousands of terrified ladybugs squirt pyrazine onto the grapes that will eventually end up in the fermenting tank, along with many of their carcasses! E-e-e-e-ew!!!
Early in 2002 the vintners realized they were facing a bit of a crisis. Niagara produces quite spiffy and (believe it or not!) international award-winning “plonk†but their 2001 vintages are now under a cloud as it’s been discovered that many have an odd “vegetal†note reminiscent of peanuts. This is not a flavour much prized in wines such as rieslings, chardonnays and cabernet sauvignons.
The taint has now, of course, been identified as the work of dead and/or dying Asian ladybugs. Wine experts say it’s pretty subtle and not necessarily off-putting, and consensus seems to be that the 2001 vintage will prove the exception to the rule – unless there’s another aphid plague, of course. Still, if you find yourself looking at a bottle of wine from Niagara in the next little while, you may want to check the year on the label.
Oh, and speaking of labels, there’s one Niagara wine operation that probably will be monitoring their yield very closely indeed – at least for a while. That would be Malivoire, a really exceptional producer who, in lieu of insecticides or herbicides, releases thousands of ladybugs to control pests in their vineyards. Under the prevailing circumstances, one has to feel sorry for a winery that has Adalia bipunctata emblazoned on its labels and produces a delightful rosé called ... â€Ladybug!â€
- sedhead - 12-19-2003
Hmmmm. Aphids.
- Drew - 12-19-2003
This wine is light as ladybug wings showing beautiful citrus, honey, melon and a hint of pyrazine on the long aphidic finish. Paired nicely with peanut butter and jelly on an open face croissant...wonderful. 94 points.
Drew Parker
- quijote - 12-19-2003
Good one, Drew! You forgot to mention the iwne's "spotty" vintage, though!
- Drew - 12-19-2003
Great Googily, Moogily...we got evicted out of the Moderators realm. Them's can be a snotty bunch when us commoners start to talk about bugs. [img]http://38.118.142.245/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]
Drew
- Innkeeper - 12-19-2003
Heh, heh. Bucksnort figured out how to edit the Moderators thread which we didn't know to do before. Now nobody is safe.
- winoweenie - 12-19-2003
Way to go there Drew-sou. The last bit means no post, syllable, exlamation pernt, or comma can go unmoleated. !!! WW [img]http://38.118.142.245/ubb2/wink.gif[/img] Can't for the life of me figure out what the blazes ladybugs in vineyards has to do with "Home Winemaking".?????
[This message has been edited by winoweenie (edited 12-19-2003).]
- Thomas - 12-20-2003
unmoleated--that's among the best ww typos I have ever seen...really ought to get them fingahs trimmed.
Anyway, methinks the feller who started this thread is a home winemaker--makes sense to me.
I think this is one of the most simultaneously fun and informative conversations on the wine board. Drew sometimes amazes me--only sometimes, don't get your head enlarged!
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 12-19-2003).]
- sedhead - 12-20-2003
I was "disappeared" when I took the bait and responded to this post when it first appeared in the For The Novice forum.