March 10, 2008 at the Cobb Galleria Centre. For more information, visit www.atlantamagazine.com.

More than 300 Chefs and Cooks attended the 2008 ACF Southeast Regional Conference held at the Williamsburg Lodge, Williamsburg, Va. on March 1-3, 2008.

The following Georgia award recipients will compete for the national title at the 2008 ACF National Convention in Las Vegas on July 14-17.

ACF Student Culinarian of the Year, sponsored by Custom Culinary, Inc.
John Michael F. Lynch; Vinnings, Ga.; apprentice, Cherokee Town & Country Club, Atlanta; ACF Greater Atlanta Chapter Inc.

ACF Student Team Regional Championship, sponsored by R.L. Schreiber, Inc.
ACF Greater Atlanta Chapter, Inc., Atlanta; Andrew Miller, CEC, chef-instructor, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts–Atlanta, Tucker, Ga., coach

ACF Chapter of the Year
ACF Greater Atlanta Chapter, Inc., Atlanta

ACF President’s Medallions
Michael Deihl, CEC, CCA, AAC; executive chef, East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta; ACF Greater Atlanta Chapter Inc.

For more information, visit www.acfchefs.org.

March 6, 2008 at The Foundry at Puritan Mill. For more information, call 404-355-4400.

March 4 -5, 2008 at the Georgia International Convention Center. For more information, call 404-765-9900 ext. 2580.

March 3, 2008 at Dunwoody Country Club. For more information, visit www.acfatlantachefs.org.

By Tyler Colman

WINE enthusiasts love to discuss the aromas of wine, but are we ignoring a prevailing whiff of petroleum? With some wines emitting three times their weight in greenhouse gas, the answer is yes. Wine, like virtually every consumer product, has a “carbon footprint” – that is, a certain amount of carbon dioxide is emitted in its production and transportation. And although the difference between organically and conventionally grown vineyards is relatively small in terms of carbon intensity, the journey that wine takes from the winery to the shop is not. Indeed if intend to reduce your carbon footprint, don’t serve wine from California try wines from the tri-state region.

A Napa Valley wine can emit 2.6 pounds of carbon dioxide on its journey from growing the grapes, making the wine and transport to San Francisco. But the same bottle making the truck trip to Connecticut would emit 5.7 pounds of carbon dioxide in total. Ship it by air and its footprint would quadruple because it takes so much fuel to keep a plane aloft.
Why? Because of glass. A 40-pound case of wine probably has more than 20 pounds of glass in it. Alternative packaging products like Tetra Pak or bag-in-box have less carbon intensity because they are lighter and can be packed more efficiently in a shipping container. The lighter alternative packaging means that the carbon used for transporting wine is used for just that – wine, not glass. (Glass adds mass; the greater the mass, the less efficient the transport is.)

The amount of greenhouse gases associated with transport also, surprisingly, means that drinking wine from overseas may be more environmentally sound than buying from American vineyards. Holding the growing method, winery practices and bottle size constant, it is more carbon-efficient for people in Connecticut to drink a bottle of wine from Bordeaux than from Sonoma. The short truck route on both ends of the efficient miles of container shipping means the French wine has 50 percent less carbon dioxide emissions, about three pounds.

If that same wine were loaded onto a truck, it wouldn’t be until Ohio that the two bottles reached a break-even point. This makes a “green line” for wine. East of Ohio, a bottle from Bordeaux creates less carbon dioxide emission; to the west, California wine has the edge.

Better yet, now that wine is made in all 50 states, you can reduce your carbon footprint by trying wine from the vineyard down the road from you.

Tyler Colman blogs at DrVino.com and is the author of the forthcoming “Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink.”

March 3, 2008. For more information, visit www.garestaurants.org.

March 1-3, 2008 in Williamsburg, VA. For more information, visit www.acfchefs.org.