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Wine Pressure
Wed Jan 07, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
Have you ever sat down with a nice bottle of Bordeaux, popped the cork and then discovered
that it just didn't taste right? Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook.
Wine Educator and author Ed McCarthy tells us that the wine may be fine, but the problem may
be the air pressure.
EM: We were in the Italian Alps one day with some wine-maker friends of ours. And we were
having just a wonderful time with some salami and cheese and of course it was typical mountain
weather, the pressure was thin, it was dry and the wine was just magnificent. We went down
the mountains and they happen to have a place by the seashore, by the Italian Riviera, and I
think that it was the very next day or two days later, the very same wine, a different bottle,
and the wine was dull and lifeless.
Bryan: Now, do you think that it would work the other way if you had a bottle at sea-level
and then took it to elevation?
EM: Well, where it's produced, I don't know if that matters. I think where it's consumed is
the question. It seems to me that wines taste better in thinner pressure and low
humidity.
Certified wine educator, Ed McCarthy, lives in New York with his wife Barbara Ewing Mulligan.
Together they've written several books on wine in the Wine for Dummies series. The Weather
Notebook is produced by the Mount Washington Observatory, located in a fine place to try this
experiment. We are funded by the National Science Foundation and Subaru, Driven By What's
Inside.
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