It’s That Bloody Wine!
Source: The Times, London, June 25, 1999.
Another food scare is plaguing the continent, as French health inspectors have reportedly seized more than 100,000 bottles of Rhone Valley wine from around the region of Avignon suspected of having been treated with dried ox blood. Most of the affected bottles carry the lower quality VDQS table-wine label. Until the ban on cattle products in 1997 because of concerns over mad cow disease, dried cow’s blood was commonly used to help clarify wine of resins and suspended particles after vinification. Newer technologies are replacing this century-old practice, but it is apparently still used in less expensive and homemade wines. Tests on the seized wine are ongoing.
Although this practice at first sounded disgusting, I began to remember how growing up in rural northern Minnesota, I witnessed various animal parts being used for all kinds of things (vats of hogs heads boiling over open flames for homemade head cheese). For example, has anyone ever eaten ox blood soup? Only now are we beginning to realize the potential for transmission of previously unrecognized infectious agents in these kinds of products. The question remains how risky are these unusual and sometimes culturally important food substances?
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