Do old vines make better wines? And why family vineyards will continue to dominate the wine scene

• Do old vines make better wine? ... the experts don't even fully agree on what mechanism enhances old-vines fruit. One widely accepted hypothesis holds that the roots of ancient vines have reached so deep (sometimes 30 feet or more) that they are unusually effective at contributing trace elements of terroir - the minerality of the soil - to the wine. Others suggest that the declining vitality of older vines simply reduces the yield of grapes, concentrating the vine's efforts into relatively few grapes of commensurately great flavor and intensity.
• Why family vineyards have always dominated the wine scene – and always will - “Big drinks conglomerates that have been so successful in the beer and spirits categories sometimes prove themselves poor-equipped to succeed in the wine market,” says Mike Veseth, professor emeritus of International Political Economy at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., and the author of Wine Wars and Extreme Wine. “One reason may be that beer’s production cycle aligns pretty well with the short-term thinking that some big corporations tend to adopt, always worrying about next quarter’s earnings.” Wine simply demands a far horizon view, he says. “That’s one reason why family- and privately owned firms are more successful in wine than in most other industries. They are more able to think and invest for the long term.”
• Organic wines aren't pesticide free, and that's just the tip of the troubling iceberg - A lot of the buzz and imagery about organics appears to be just that – empty sound bites and gimmicks created by folks eager to cash in on the increasingly lucrative organic market. Where does that leave us? Not in an easy place. ... More than half of Americans (55%) go organic because they believe it’s healthier. Meanwhile, there is really no evidence to back that assumption up. And even organic farmers use pesticides ... They just happen to be “natural.”
• KFC’s new ad sees the peddler of peppered poultry sink to new lows - Few would have thought it possible for KFC to come up with something even more monstrously unspeakable than popcorn chicken, but it’s managed it. The chain is now using orphans to flog its food.
• Lunch With Monet, Dinner With Jackson Pollock - Two new books focusing on the culinary lives of artists —Monet's Palate Cookbook, by Aileen Bordman and Derek Fell, and Dinner with Jackson Pollock, by Robyn Lea —show this to be an oversight. The artists' approaches to food provide a new way of thinking about their very different approaches to art, and of understanding the artists themselves. ...
  As Francesca Pollock, the artist's niece, writes in Dinner's introduction, "He painted the same way he cooked: Endlessly using leftovers; keeping and re-using; trying one color or shape and then another. There was never ever any waste. Painting, like cooking, was a way of living." ... 
  "Almost every franc that he earned, after taking care of his family's welfare, he would spend on the freshest ingredients for meals and improving the interiorand exterior of his house" — originally, a farmhouse and cider press, Bordman and Fell write. Monet, we learn, employed a cook, and his diet included eggs from his own chickens. He was actively involved in directing which vegetables were planted (he liked experimenting with new varieties), and which ones ended up on the dinner table.
• SexySimple, Satirical: 300 Years Of Picnics In Art - People have been fantasizing about picnics as a return to a simpler life pretty much since the dawn of urban living, says Walter Levy, author of The Picnic: A History. "Picknicking coincides with modern history — the shift from pastoral to urban living, the decline of villages and the rise of modern cities," Levy writes. "When you're having a picnic," he tells The Salt, "your intention is to break away from the ordinary."