For the wine collector who has everything, now there’s a flash drive in the shape of a wine bottle.

It’s a 1-gigabyte USB drive that also has some pre-loaded software called Open Cellar which is designed to keep track of a wine collection. According to www.gadgets-weblog.com, the program also contains videos from Michel Rolland, plus a wine-related screen saver, wallpaper and ring tones. It sells for about $50.

(We recently wrote about how wine helps improve memory. Maybe this memory will help improve your wine collection.)

Mamie Van Doren wine

Here’s one for all the old-timers. Remember Mamie Van Doren, the blonde bombshell who was big in the 1950s? She now on a wine label — Armida Winery in Healdsburg has come out with Mamietage, a Bordeaux-style blend, and, according to the press release, it features provocative photos of Mamie on the three 1.5-liter bottles in the set. Certain parts are covered by peel-off labels which can be removed to reveal all. One shows Mamie as a 21-year-old, the other two as she is today. According to her biography, she’s 76.

(Let’s hope the wine is as full-bodied as she is and ages as well as she has.)

    

The other Hsu has dropped

Some good wine may be going on the auction block soon.

It seems a collection of about 180 bottles of top wine, valued at about $100,000, were seized when federal agents raided the New York apartment of Norman Hsu, the Democratic fundraiser who was recently arrested on a fugitive warrant stemming from a fraud case in 1991.

Included in the seized wine were 11 bottles of 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild along with some other top Bordeaux brands, some Penfold’s Grange, Cristal Champagne and Opus One.

(He’s in the San Mateo County jail, and it’s unlikely he’ll be getting anything like that to drink there.)

Vineyard thievery

Some thieves in Kern County stole about $20,000 worth of steel T-bar grapevine supports for sale as scrap, the California Farm Bureau Federations reports.

The supports, which weighed three tons, are worth $1.50 to $2 each but the thieves received only $417.60. A co-owner of the farm said, “They’re stealing a small dollar amount worth of scrap when they can go ask the farmer, who will give them a job and they’ll make $100 a day.”

The same farm lost 70 steel end posts to thieves earlier, worth about $1,100.

Many of the T-bars were found at a recycler yard, but the recycler did not follow the county’s law and did not record the license number nor even file a report, claiming he didn’t know about the law.

Apparently thieves like to steal from vineyards there — a Kern County law enforcement official said things such as grape harvesting bags, harvesting trays and scales have been stolen, along with the crop itself. He said officers found a van between rows of vines with 700 pounds of grapes in it.

(Farmers have a tough enough time with weather, water shortages and other problems — they don’t need to contend with thievery, too.)

Australian moth invasion

A small insect called the bogong moth swarms in eastern Australia at this time of year, and it feeds on a number of plants, although grapes are not among them.

The telegraph.co.uk reports that a noted chef has found that the moths can be a delicacy — he suggests pulling off the wings and “popping the moths in the oven for three minutes in a splash of canola oil.” Or, as an alternative, put them in a blender and sprinkle the resulting powder into an omelette, pancake or crepe. “They have a lovely popcorn flavor, like hazelnut,” he said.

The moths had been eaten by aborigines for many years, but now consumers are warned to be cautious. Arsenic which has been sprayed on farm crops has been found in them.

There’s another admonition, too. It’s said that 3 ounces of bogong moth abdomen contains three times as much fat as a Big Mac.

(Nothing was said about what wine pairs with bogong moths in any form.)

Nevada grape stomp

Pahrump Valley Winery in Nevada has developed a grape stomp contest in which contestants compete to stomp as much juice as they can in two minutes.

A new record was set this year when one participant stomped 830 milliliters in a preliminary heat. The vintner, Bill Lokan put it in perspective when he told them that a standard wine bottle was 750 milliliters. He said the resulting juice, described as a brown liquid, will be available on Thursdays and would be called “Toe Jam chardonnay.”

(Maybe that will go with the begong moth.)

Quote of the week

“The first obligation of a great wine is to be red.” – James Norwood Pratt

Jack Heeger writes about wine for The Weekly Calistogan and can be reached at jheeger@napanews.com.