Wine Review

Name: Sauvignon Republic Cellars' Stellenbosch
Date: 2005
Origin: South Africa
Alcohol content: 14.0%

NOTE: My Blood Alcohol Content remained between 0.01 and 0.03 while grading all lab reports (Webb et al., 2005). How this may have affected my heart rate is yet to be determined.


The Stellenbosch Sauvignon Blanc is the perfect way to say hello to Autumn. Its pale straw color is accompanied by a surprisingly forward leap of summer citrus, but nipping at its heels is a hint of fall spice. This wine would make a great hiking companion-- the smell of fall leaves crushed under your sturdiest shoes providing effortless enhancement.

But that's only if you're not a Teaching Assistant. For TAs, this wine is best enjoyed with Cornflakes.
In terms of the contribution of the Cornflakes, the 45% and 25% contents of Iron and Niacin, respectively, made the Teaching Assistant feel both healthy and ill simultaneously. It is known that Teaching Assistants are relatively fragile, and that their diets require a delicate balance of alcohol and vitamins (Wikipedia, 2007). Cornflakes and a mimosa is the ideal administration method for the maintenance of this equilibrium, but in this case the TA substituted the mimosa's champagne with Sauvignon Blanc and did not add orange juice.

The Vitamin C (2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol) content of orange juice is ~150% (www.tropicana.com) and could potentially decrease the risk of Scurvy development in the Teaching Assistant, and a future experiment could be to monitor the Teaching Assistant in the continued depletion of Vitamin C (2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol) as a function of modified mimosas.

This work was supported by The Science Company and the Howard Cunningham Fundation.