Grapes & Capes Episode #1: DC Fandome & Bogaty Family Winery

It's the first episode of the Grapes & Capes Podcast! Mike and Joey taste three wines from Virginia's Bogaty Family Winery. We also discuss our "origin stories" for becoming comic book readers and wine drinkers. Then of course we need to talk about the huge DC Fandome online event!

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Wine #1: "The Founder" White Blend (non-vintage) , wine in Virginia, what is Bordeaux

Comics #1: Our Origin Stories

How we became comic readers and wine drinkers

Wine#2: "The Founder" Red Blend (non-vintage), the history of vitis vinifera and phylloxera

Comics #2: DC Fandome

Wonder Woman 1984, (Bloodshot, Game of Thrones), The Suicide Squad (The Harley Quinn Show, Swamp Thing, Justice League Apocalypse), Flashpoint, (Batman '89), Zack Snyder's Justice League, Black Adam, (wrestling), The Batman

Wine #3: Justin Bogaty Winemaker Series Cabernet Franc 2019, grapes making babies, old wine, Truro Vineyards

Comics #4: What we're reading & misc discussion

The Spectacular Spider-Man, Superman: Blackout, Immortal Hulk, Secret Six, Undiscovered Country, Once & Future, Comically Speaking, comic book shops during the COVID Crisis, Newbury Comics, the return of Milestone

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Heroes of Wine: Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

There have been so many great minds throughout history that changed the course of mankind with their discoveries and innovations, but none may be as important to the lives of the people in the modern world today than Louis Pasteur, one of the founding fathers of microbiology.

LOUIS PASTEUR
IMAGE CREDIT: clccharter.org

Because of Louis Pasteur, your ancestors were able to receive a rabies vaccination instead of dying horribly from rabies after 1885. His rabies vaccine would lead to other vaccines that save lives, like the 1955 polio vaccine by Jonas Stalk. And most importantly of all, because of Louis Pasteur, you are able to enjoy your favorite wines and beers today.

So let's learn about a legend. And to help me with this article on the life of Louis Pasteur, I've asked Lori Budd of Dracaena Wines to contribute. Lori is a winemaker with a history in biology, and there is nobody else that I would rather see do the honors.

(LORI) As a child, Louis Pasteur asked his father “What makes a wolf or a dog mad, and why do people die when mad dogs bite them?” Obviously, this question was asked because Louis Pasteur had unfortunately seen this occur in his childhood. Now, I am not going to say that these deaths totally traumatized him, but if we take a look at his life’s achievements, these deaths did make a lasting effect on him, whether he consciously recognized it or not. 

As a scientist, I admire the predecessors and applaud how well they achieved their goals in the time that they did. Louis Pasteur ranks as one of my all time favorites. In all honesty, if you are familiar with his life, he was a pompous son of a bitch, but sometimes that’s what you need to be in order to be successful. He started his scientific career looking at crystals under a microscope. He was a chemist not an immunologist- that didn’t come until later. At the age of 26, he discovered there were four distinct kinds of tartaric acid. This discovery gave him a taste of fame, and he not only liked it, he craved it! (/LORI)

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What the heck is Baco 22A???

Baco 22A is not the freeway exit that unloads you going east on Baco Ave. It's not a complicated diagram in a text book. And it's not a hip new DJ. Honestly, the first thing I thought of when I saw the name was Experiment 626, AKA Stitch from Disney's Lilo & Stitch. I have a four year old. Don't question my thought process. 

But Baco 22A is a grape. And it turns out that the Experiment 626 and Baco 22A comparison isn't really that far off. They were both carefully constructed and designed by a mad scientist to be an indestructable, organic buzzsaw abomination of chaos. Wait, no... that's not right. At the very least they were both carefully constructed and designed for resilience.

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Monday Phylloxera: The Reboot

Monday is a tiny aphid that attacks your rootstocks.

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Monday Phylloxera - The Original

Garfield needs this on his coffee mug.

CHECK OUT THE REBOOT OF THIS MEME!!!

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